The New Organizing Models: Implications for the Jewish Communal Order

Traditional forms of civic engagement — unions, religious communities, neighborhood associations, political parties, advocacy organizations, and volunteer groups — have seen declining membership since the mid-20th century.

This pattern of downsizing has profound implications for smaller, religious, and ethnic groups, including the Jewish community. These institutional systems provide an access point for organizing, educating, and engaging constituencies. The declining affiliation trends facing legacy institutions prompts the question, are there alternative forms of communal organizing that may offer insights for the future?

With the 2025 General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America now underway, the introduction of organizing models would seem particularly appropriate. Over the next twenty-five years, the Jewish communal system will reorganize itself, adopting one or more of these operational structures!

Analyzing the Problem:

Robert Putnam views such communal systems as critical to building “social capital” — the networks and norms that enable collective action. There are a number of factors contributing to this decline in social connectivity:

• Increased mobility and individualism
• Economic factors
• Time pressures
• Digital substitution for in-person relationships
• Distrust in institutions
• Economic overload
• The decline of loyalty
• Generational and cultural shifts toward flexible, issue-based engagement, as younger folks decline legacy-based affiliation.

Organizations that fail to adapt their technology and engagement strategies to meet the evolving needs of a modern, multi-generational…(community) are most likely to experience a decline in membership.  

                                                     Unpacking the New Models 

Introduced below is a more detailed description of these five organizing models:

These Networked Communities, including such organizations as Extinction Rebellion and Black Lives Matter feature decentralized structures, employing digitally connected frameworks and mission-driven operations rather than maintaining membership-based systems. The benefits of such a model is that it includes fast mobilization, global reach and is seen as adaptable, while the deficits involve accountability issues, sustainability challenges, and coordination fatigue.

A second type of innovative organizing involves “Platform Cooperatives”  These are member-owned digital platforms that challenge corporate tech monopolies. Such structures as Freelance Collectives. Fairbnb and Stocksy United provide interesting applications of this platform structure in a work-related context.

Another alternative form of organizing involves “mutual aid networks” including such groups as Mutual Aid LA, Gainesville Mutual Aid, and Chicago Mutual Aid Organizers.  These agencies have been established to assist specific neighborhoods and households with core services. Certain of these aid-based operations were designed to meet specific needs, such as the Cultural Keeper Mutual Aid Network, serving cultural workers with core financial and human service needs, and the Fund for Community Reparations for Autistic People of Color, designed to assist a particular constituency in helping to manage their requirements.

Designed to be hyperlocal and peer-to-peer support systems, the strengths of such initiatives are centered on building trust and delivering concrete services. These structures tend however to be highly resource-intense with limited institutional bandwidth.

Another set of institutional models involve Start-up and Bottom-up structures. Startups often mirror community-building challenges with rapid scaling and loose hierarchies while experiencing mission drift. Bottom-up organizing succeeds when there’s clear purpose, open participation, and distributed leadership (e.g., open-source movements). Sustaining engagement beyond encountering initial enthusiasm remains a challenge, as these models tend to lack a formal structure and there are limited incentives to sustain involvement.

Impact of Social Media on Organizing:

Social media can be a catalyst but also serve as a constraint. Social media excels at “flash organizing” for such activities as protests or campaigns but not for infrastructure building, involving membership, governance, and continuity-building:

Examples:

Hybrid NGO’s blending online mobilization with real-world action, including Amnesty and 350.org represent such structures.

Major Threats and Challenges:

A number of factors must be seen as challenges to some of these newer types of operational models. Polarization and fragmentation are among the issues impacting communal organizational behavior.  Specific concerns involve digital fatigue with endless online engagement; economic precarity where people lack energy or time to participate; and the use of data control and surveillance undermines autonomy. Dependence on corporate platforms can undermine autonomy and, in an environment, where many are distrustful of formal structures and legacy organizations, can add coordination challenges.

Emerging Opportunities:

Hybrid organizing combining digital networks with face-to-face local communities. Among the different types of organizing models include micro-affiliations. These are smaller, purpose-driven communities, such as climate gardens, and “maker spaces”, public spaces located in community locations where people can meet up, share creative interests, tinker with new technologies, and learn as they go. The specialized resources in many makerspaces are perfectly suited for artists and other creative people.

A second type model involves “values-based entrepreneurship structures”, consisting of businesses that operate and behave as civic actors. These newly emerging forms contain AI-enabled civic resources made up of deliberative democracy platforms with participatory design for data transparency.

Implications:

Over the coming decades, Jewish communal structures will be organized in a fundamentally different manner.  The emergence of these alternative organizing instruments will radically reshape the operational characteristics that will redefine Jewish life moving forward. The organizing systems of the 21st Century will be dependent on the capacity of our leaders to identify the appropriate models that will best enable the American Jewish enterprise to effectively manage its business, promote its brand, and build community!