More Than Colby’s Hidden Gem
The Center for Small Town Jewish Life receives $1M in grants, acknowledging its rising stature and impact
Colby’s Center for Small Town Jewish Life has recently received $1 million in grants from major national funders, signaling significant recognition and support for the center’s innovative and far-reaching work.
Allocated late last fall, the grants will enable the Center for Small Town Jewish Life to strengthen its national programming, expand its lay leadership training initiative, and initiate a large-scale storytelling project about small-town Jewish life, while building organizational capacity.
“To receive a million dollars in gifts in three months shows that we’re hitting this inflection point. That the Center for Small Town Jewish Life has graduated from being a special hidden gem at Colby, a beautiful Maine story, into an organization that has now gained the trust and the attention of the national Jewish community,” said Rabbi Rachel Isaacs, executive director of the Center for Small Town Jewish Life and the Dorothy “Bibby” Levine Alfond Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies.
Building on its groundbreaking work begun in Waterville in 2015, the center has received $600,000 over two years from the Samueli Foundation; $200,000 over two years from The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, through the Jewish Federations of North America; and $150,000 from the Righteous Persons Foundation. The center has previously received grants from all of these foundations, though never as large as these.
The center is also participating in Project Accelerate, a cohort-based capacity-building initiative that supports innovative and high-achieving Jewish organizations in expanding their impact and reach.
Through years of programming in Waterville, Maine, and nationwide, the Center for Small Town Jewish Life has gained insight into small-town Jewish life and what works to make it sustainable and thriving. When the center celebrates its 10th anniversary in April, Isaacs and her team will also set the center’s vision for the next decade. The programs and connections spawned by the new grants provide a foundation for their ensuing work.
“It’s a turning point,” said Isaacs, a nationally recognized leader. “Now is the moment when we are thinking about scale.”
National leadership initiative
Currently, the Center for Small Town Jewish Life collaborates with more than 65 communities in 17 states, including Maine. To further support and expand this network, the center’s national leadership initiative will strengthen Jewish communities in rural and under-resourced areas by training both professional and lay leaders across the United States.
With new grants from its funders, the initiative will support the center’s Makom project, a two-year training and mentorship program for rabbis and senior leaders early in their service to rural synagogues and other Jewish communal organizations. To further support these professionals, communities of practice networks will be established to broaden their professional development.
Isaacs noted that Makom, Hebrew for “place,” has “a special value in going deep” with a small number of professionals. However, since fewer people are attending rabbinical school and becoming rabbis, and those who are mostly do not serve rural America, there’s a need to support rural synagogue presidents and boards that are working with part-time clergy or no clergy at all, she said.
That’s why determining how to better serve small-town Jewish communities and building programs for their lay leaders is key to the center’s current strategy.
In addition to extending the center’s Shlichei Tzibur prayer-leader training program, a new board leadership program will offer coaching and peer support to current and rising synagogue presidents. A robust research component currently underway is identifying the needs of Jewish communities to ensure evidence-based programming. Pilot groups will test new programming in 2026 to inform expanded implementation in 2027.
A planned national leadership working group will bring representatives from multiple Jewish organizations into conversation with each other. In turn, organizations will better provide local communities with the skills and coaching they need to strengthen themselves, said Isaacs. The outcome, she emphasized, is strengthening the ecosystem of rural Jewish life.
Storytelling: teaching Americans about a different kind of American Jewish life
Another component will involve creating a comprehensive storytelling and social media campaign. Short videos will capture the experiences of small-town Jewish life to foster an appreciation for rural Jewish communities and their people.
“We’re living in a moment where many people don’t know a lot about Jews—but they think they do,” said Isaacs. “And what they think isn’t always positive or accurate.”
As an example, Isaacs said that many people are unaware that Jews live in rural America. “We need the broader world to understand who we are,” she said. The videos will also serve as a platform for small-town and rural Jews to tell their stories “in a way that gives them a sense of pride and ownership of what they are contributing to the American Jewish landscape,” she said.
The Center for Small Town Jewish Life has contracted with Secret Weapon Productions, a Los Angeles-based independent digital media network, to create 16 videos over the course of eight months. Filming will start this March, with four videos about Maine communities. Production will then move to other rural locations across the United States. The locations are unexpected places for Jewish populations, said Zoe Travis, partner and Emmy Award-nominated executive producer at Secret Weapon.
“I’m drawn to stories that are driven by impact,” said Travis, who will shepherd each video from idea and casting to on-the-ground production to post-production. Travis, who is Jewish, was intrigued by Isaacs’ vision for the project, especially after attending the Fall Shabbaton at Colby, hosted by the Center for Small Town Jewish Life.
“The whole event was so inspiring and added a whole layer of motivation,” said Travis. “These people really should be seen, and we should tell these incredible stories.”
Toward a stronger organization
Project Accelerate is designed to strengthen the Center for Small Town Jewish Life’s operational infrastructure across three core areas, supporting long-term sustainability and impact expansion. With this grant, the center can better fulfill its potential as an effective organization, said Isaacs, who is thrilled with this opportunity.
“We were invited to apply for this program. They gave us a test to see how strong we are, and we passed,” she said. “There’s still a lot of room for growth and improvement, but we had to go through a very rigorous application process.”
As part of the initiative, Isaacs and her team members are participating in a type of boot camp—comprising seminars, webinars, consultations, and mentoring—to learn how to improve the center’s fundraising efforts, communications, and governance through board development. The grant will also allow the hiring of additional staff.
Investments in these areas will enable the center to more effectively meet the growing demand for its programs and ensure no Jewish community is left behind.
The initiative also comes with the opportunity to apply for a challenge grant that includes a match for funds raised to support a capacity-building initiative identified by the center.
The center’s heart and soul
As the Center for Small Town Jewish Life grows in stature, impact, and capacity, its work in Waterville remains the foundation for its mission and programming.
“It is also the heart and soul. It’s the model that shows the rest of the country what’s possible. It’s where we develop strategies that can be translated across the country to transform the face of rural Jewish life nationwide,” said Isaacs.
“It will always be the beating heart of everything that we do.”
