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Building Stronger Bridges, Opening More Conversations, & Driving Greater Change Using Your Lay Leaders

Community mapping is a strategic exercise to identify who you know in your community and how those relationships can advance the Federation’s work. Community mapping helps you build a stronger network of allies, open doors to influence local decisions and identify new opportunities for collaboration and advocacy. Relationship building is at the heart of community relations, and your relationships are a community asset. Each community has unique needs, priorities, and potential barriers, and effective mapping requires thoughtful planning, collaboration, and ongoing engagement to ensure success. Engage your lay leaders throughout this process to partner the best of the Federation community with the best of the broader community.

Jeff Mendelsohn is a public servant, nonprofit leader, and political strategist with a passion for building coalitions to advance common goals. Jeff is the founder and CEO of Coalition Strategy Group LLC, a consulting firm that helps nonprofit organizations with strategic planning, program development and initiation, alliance building, and grassroots advocacy. Jeff is an avid public speaker and writer, has a deep knowledge of U.S.-Israel relations and U.S. politics, and believes in building consensus to advance a mission.

After working on Capitol Hill, Jeff joined AIPAC where he launched and managed its Outreach Program to engage non-Jewish communities in pro-Israel advocacy. He built relationships with leaders in the Hispanic, African American, and evangelical Christian communities, working on a bipartisan basis to educate them about the US-Israel relationship. Jeff also designed and led educational trips to Israel that had a lasting impact on the participants' understanding of the issues. He successfully built the program and lead a team of 16 across the United States.