WHEN Gerrald (Jerry) Silverman made the leap from corporate executive to Jewish camping executive, he went from selling kids shoes to building Jewish kids lives.
Today he is the brand new president and CEO of UJC/Jewish Federations of North America, a position he started just six weeks ago.
He was in Denver last week to address the major gifts event of the Allied Jewish Federation of Colorado 2010 campaign.
Silverman assumed his new post after a career journey that started in the corporate world but took a communal turn because of his involvement as a Jewish parent.
Jerry Silverman was born in Tulsa, where he lived until age 12. His father was a cantor who became a pulpit rabbi, moving his family to various communities, ultimately settling in upstate New York.
Silverman attended the Brockport campus of the State University of New York.
He went to work for Levi Strauss & Co., where he worked for 15 years in executive capacities on such brands as Levis and Dockers. The company relocated Silverman and his family seven times.
He was recruited to Stride Rite and became the president of Keds.
Silvermans career veered into a different direction when Stride Rite moved him and his family of five children to the Boston area.
His wife Erica enrolled their nine-year-old daughter in Camp Ramah New England.
Silverman felt sorry for his daughter. She knows no one, he lamented to himself as he dropped her off at the camp.
My heart was in my kishkes; I was so nervous for her. When I picked her up four weeks later . . . she was glued to four other girls, and now I was Abba, rather than Dad.
All the way home, Silvermans daughter talked about how she davened outdoors, and how much she loved camp. The glow was etched in my memory forever.
So much so that Silverman got involved in Jewish camping as a volunteer, big time. I was up to my elbows in volunteer camp work.
Someone suggested to Silverman that he consider the Jewish non-profit world as his next career move. At the same time, the Foundation for Jewish Camp was looking for someone from the business world with marketing expertise.
I loved this concept how to grow Jewish camping.
WHEN Jerry Silverman took over the reins of the Foundation for Jewish Camp in 2004, it had an annual budget of $800,000. Today, it serves more than 150 non-profit resident Jewish camps in the US with a budget of $22 million.
For a business executive like Silverman, the non-profit and corporation worlds are not so different. In both realms, accountability and transparency are imperative, he says.
During his five years at FJC, Silverman became exposed to and intimately familiar with the broad spectrum of Jewish communities in the US.
He attended the annual General Assemblies of the UJC, and worked closely with several dozen local federations, forging strong collegial relationships.
This led to Silverman being tapped to lead the umbrella organization, which services 157 Jewish federations and 400 independent network Jewish communities across North America, and which channels money to overseas beneficiaries.
Silverman joined UJC a year into the current economic recession, a time when fundraising organizations are tightening their operations and struggling to maintain their donor bases.
Silverman says he was brought on board to help focus our agenda how to best give value to local federations, how to attain tangible results and create relationships based on trust and respect.
This is an uncommon time weve been in. Business as usual, based on past practices, has to change, he comments.
As a result we are seeing significant changes. Communities are trying new things, and sharing ideas with one another.
The preeminent idea-sharing forum in the Jewish community is the General Assembly, scheduled for Nov. 8-10 in Washington, DC.
Silverman is looking forward to participating this year in his new capacity with his ears wide open so he can gauge the pulse of the American Jewish community and the federation system specifically.
Consistent with the economy, the registration for this years GA is a bit behind Nashville, Silverman said, referring to the GAs venue two years ago. Last years GA was in Israel.
Also as a result of the recession, Federation campaigns are down all over the country, although Silverman has no final numbers.
I look at this not as a problem but as opportunities and solutions, he states.
HOW can a decrease in fundraising dollars be seen as an opportunity?
Its all about clarity clarifying our relationships, our mission and improving communications. This gives us the opportunity to work out our challenges.
We need clarity on Israel and our overseas agenda. We need to ask ourselves: What is our mission?
Silverman says the partnership between UJC and its federated communities and overseas agencies such as the Jewish Agency for Israel and the Joint Distribution Committee needs to be redefined.
When Golda Meir visited Denver in 1950 to raise money for Israel, the money raised in the US comprised about half of the fledgling states budget.
Nowadays, money from American Jewry is a very small percentage of Israels budget, but despite the increase in Israels economic self-sufficiency, Silverman says we still need to send money to Israel, citing the Jewish states pressures of defense, which commands a higher percentage of Israels budget than it did in 1950, he says.
Despite higher pressure on federations to allocate more dollars locally than in previous years, Silverman says that support of Israel remains high in large and small communities in North America: All communities have a sense of responsibility to and ownership of Israel and global Jewry. Are we geography based Jews, or do we care about all Jews?
In an effort to reach Jews around the world, the planners of next months GA invited global Jews to submit their ideas for discussion at the convention.
Out of thousands of suggestions from Jews outside the US and Canada, the GA was able to narrow them down to a couple dozen ideas for workshops and panels.
This will be a powerful opportunity for the Jewish community to come together to challenge, to question and explore.
Having moved his family around enough when he worked for Levi Strauss and Stride Rite, Jerry Silverman these days keeps his family in the Boston area and commutes to New York to work for UJC.
If he were ever tempted to look back and wonder if he did the right thing when he left the corporate jungle for the Jewish community, he only need look at the nine-year-old daughter whom he so hesitatingly dropped off at camp 15 years ago.
Today, she is 24, lives in New York City and is a graduate of Jewish Theological Seminarys List College.
He would be the first to tell you that serving the Jewish community has its definite rewards.
