Chesed—acts of care and lovingkindness—is a foundational purpose of Jewish community. We have many traditional times and forms of care, whether they be bringing food to a mourner or new parents, visiting the sick, sharing resources, or socializing with those who are isolated. At the same time, many synagogues have trouble creating and maintaining functioning systems to deliver care to their congregants. After interviewing Jewish professionals and lay leaders who run chesed efforts in their synagogue communities, we have identified key difficulties and best practices for delivering timely, thoughtful, and equitable care. The below report summarizes our findings and identifies impactful possible next steps to help communities elevate their chesed efforts. We hope this will serve as a kickoff for a closer, more intentional look at synagogue and Jewish community chesed efforts, with the goal of better supporting those providing care and those designing care systems.

Notable Findings:

Create a system for identifying who needs support and how much: The most effective systems combine multiple methods—personal relationships, clergy referrals, open-access forms, and proactive outreach. Needs likely fall into three basic categories: short-term (a “one-off” need), long-term (requiring ongoing support and follow-through), and complex (beyond the capability of synagogues).

Clear structures and training are essential for organizing volunteers: Three communication models emerged for delegating chesed needs: the broadcast model (sending requests out to a list), the direct-ask model (directly asking a volunteer who is a good match for the need), and the staff-led model (staff members professionally leading the efforts). A combination yielded the best results. Training, onboarding, and resourcing volunteers with explicit step-by-step processes were crucial.

Supporting volunteers prevents burnout: Public gratitude, emotional and spiritual guidance after tough experiences, and a sense of volunteer community rejuvenates volunteers. Offering varying time commitment levels (including a “just one thing” option for those with time constraints), very specific asks, and clearly defined roles helps with recruitment and thereby prevents burnout.

Determine when to involve outside professionals for complex cases: Creating a rubric and a trusted referrals list eases the load and ensures congregants get the proper level of care and volunteers aren’t taking on more than they are qualified for.

We must teach people how to give and receive help: Giving to and receiving care from those outside our families during times of crisis is countercultural—to the point that we need to teach our communities how to do it. Sharing stories of receiving and giving can help normalize this, as can explicitly teaching about the Jewish values underlying it.