From Many Organizations, One Field
/At the Mayberg Foundation’s first Maalot Collab InGathering, Jewish outreach practitioners from across the field named what shapes their work and helped set the course for the year ahead
By Stephen Markowitz, Project Manager, Maalot Collab
Outreach professionals live with forces they rarely name: the labor and the burden, the joy that goes missing, the question of who has their back. On October 19-20, 2026, the Mayberg Foundation convened 22 practitioners from Aish, Olami, NCSY and M54, along with several of their local and regional affiliates and other independent Jewish outreach organizations, to unpack these and other issues facing dedicated outreach professionals who strive to stay nourished, inspiring and inspired, while contending with burnout and overwhelm. For a day and a half, the Maalot Collab's first InGathering asked people who know outreach from inside one organization to look at it as a field.
"I knew there was something that wasn't as strong as it could be, and I couldn't articulate it by myself," said Amanda Mizrahi, Managing Director of the Mayberg Foundation, at the retreat's opening, adding that she never expected to find a solution on her own, nor did she want to. The answers, she believes, need to come from the people doing this work. The goal, she said, is to make this work stronger, "not just for all the neshamot (souls) that you reach each and every day, but for the people sitting around the room and your peers in this space as well."
What we set out to ask
Four questions shaped the program. What does the Collab's mapping study of outreach careers tell us, and where must it go deeper? What forces shape outreach work from the inside? What would change how practitioners are trained, supported and sustained? And what should the Collab carry into the coming year?
What we did
We began with the mapping report, as small groups named what it should deepen, what it missed and where to look next. Then each participant offered a metaphor for outreach today, and a visual scribe from See in Colors drew dozens of them live: a diamond mine, a lamplighter, air traffic control with no stoplights in the sky. The themes behind them ran from the beauty of each Jew to the constant juggling the work demands, from the place of joy to "who's got you." Everyone in the room lives with these feelings, but few had ever named and shared them in a forum like this one. Small groups then asked what these themes demand of us.
A panel of five participants challenged the group on the issues they considered most pressing: staying energized, developing a field, edginess and sustainability, life coaching, and the life arc of an outreach professional. The final session gathered personal and organizational takeaways and set the Collab's focus for the coming year. Between sessions came meals, a spontaneous farbrengen and long hours of informal conversation and bonding.
What we learned
The learning centered on relationships, leadership and the need to keep learning. In participants' words, "Valued relationships require maintenance," "Heroism initiates, shared intention sustains," and "No one has a winning formula."
The gathering itself mattered as much as its content. As one participant wrote afterward, "I often leave these conferences feeling that they missed the boat. But this time was very different... I felt like I was sitting with 'my people.'" Meeting in person, people from different organizations and backgrounds found common ground and moved from caution to trust, from disconnection to engagement. They valued an intense, carefully choreographed program and the intimacy of small group work, and many left with renewed energy to keep working together in new formats.
Where the Collab is heading
The InGathering gave shape to what comes next. In the coming weeks, we will concretize these directions:
Continue mapping the field: who outreach professionals are, including those who have left, what works, and what keeps them energized and growing.
Map what each organization offers against what practitioners need, so skills, knowledge and best practices move across the field.
Define the skills, knowledge and character that make outreach an expertise, laying groundwork for stackable certification in areas such as leadership, organizational skills, pastoral care, pedagogies of change and fundraising.
Articulate concepts such as the psychology of change, giving practitioners a richer language for their interventions.
Form working groups and hold further InGatherings.
We will share a work plan for the year soon. Its aim is to make sure the people who help Jews connect more deeply to their heritage, their community and their own inner lives have what they need to build careers that keep nourishing them, both professionally and personally.