Social Entrepreneurship Fellowships from PresenTense

PresenTense, a volunteer-run group of Jewish social entrepreneurs and innovators has announced the launch of 13 social entrepreneurship fellowships in 10 major cities. The cities include Washington DC, Chicago, Cleveland, New York, Boston, Kansas City, Philadelphia, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Moscow. Dozens of new social entrepreneurial ventures are expected to be launched in these cities with the help of the PresenTense fellowships.

The fellowships follow a PresenTense-developed process, and are owned and by managed by local partners in every city. Young Jewish professionals who are keen to get involve with social innovation and social enterprise projects can associate with the PresenTense programs in several ways. The fellowships provide support and training to social innovators with promising ideas to improve the Jewish community in a socially enterprising way.

Many such people who may not be looking to start a new social enterprise, but are still keen to get involved with fostering social change also receive support from PresenTense programs. A steering committee encourages meaningful participation of such people to promote the programs and leverages their individual networks to bring in more help. Experience Jewish professionals and business persons are engaged to act as mentors and coaches for the fellows.

Each local program culminates in a unique event known as Launch Night. During this program the entire community comes together to witness the unveiling of what the group of PresenTense social entrepreneurs has created. The translation of ideas into real social ventures with the potential to bring lasting change in local communities is presented at this event. PresenTense has launched 148 such ventures over the last five years, and 109 of them are still operational today.

Some of the most successful programs have included "Challah for Hunger", which is a social enterprise dedicated to making challah on college campuses and selling them to raise funds for charities. The program now runs in more than 40 college campuses and has raised over a quarter of a million dollars already. Another program called "On Both Feet" which began in Boston is creating experiential education and interactive training programs for the Jewish youth.

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