It's the beginning of June, and this is one of my favorite stretches of the Federation calendar. We just capped the year with our 130th Annual Meeting on May 20. Our 2025-2026 annual campaign officially closed on Sunday. We just welcomed our new 2026-2027 board.
Now we take a moment to pause, reflect, and plan.
The summer is when my colleagues and I work together with our executive committee members to advance our Cincinnati 2030 priorities and design what the next cycle looks like: the IsraelLENS programming, the events that bring our teens and midlifers through the door, the leadership cohorts, the donor gatherings, and more.
We launch our new cycle in the fall. In June, it resets.
Before we look forward, let me look back. For 130 years, this community has built what the moment asked for. This year asked a lot of us: Did we show up? Yes. We leaned into engagement, peoplehood, and a clearer vision for what comes next. Here’s what that looked like:
We leaned into engagement. And you, our community, have been showing up. You filled the room for our Impact Breakfast in January with Rabbi Shira Stutman, co-host of the Chutzpod podcast and a leading public voice in American Jewish life. You sold out Music Hall for our Lion of Judah luncheon last month with Sarah Hurwitz, author of As a Jew, the recent book on reclaiming Jewish identity in this moment. You packed two Ben-Gurion Society young adult events, our giving community for Jewish adults under 45. Rabbi Stutman said it: "It is a great time to be Jewish in America." A lot of us raised our hands.
We leaned into peoplehood. We launched IsraelLENS, bringing conversations about Israel into people’s living rooms. We hosted Z3@Cincinnati in partnership with the Mayerson JCC, our local edition of the national Z3 conversation about Jewish peoplehood. Zack Bodner, who created Z3, put it simply: “Israel and the diaspora are two strong communities learning how to be in relationship with each other.”
And then Omer Shem Tov stood on our stage. He had been held hostage by Hamas for 505 days. A T-shirt with his name on it had hung outside that same room in honor of all of the hostages, until we finally got to take it down. It is now on all of us to carry his story forward.
We leaned into vision. Five years ago, we set an aspiration: a flourishing community of belonging. The aspiration holds. Cincinnati 2030 is now refocused around three priorities. First, making sure people can get the help they need: food, housing, healthcare, and knowing where to find it. Second, showing up at the moments that shape people's lives: when a young family is raising Jewish kids, when a teenager is deciding who they are, when someone at midlife is looking for purpose. Third, making room for all of us: how we see ourselves as Jews, how we relate to Israel, how we stay in community across differences. Unity, not uniformity. That's what belonging looks like.
This summer, agency leaders and senior rabbis will come back together to work out how each priority gets done.
As Bobby Fisher, our 2025-2026 VP of Development, reminded us at our Annual Meeting, the real cost of taking care of this community keeps going up: security so we can show up safely, social services for the people who need them, and the programs that bring our young families and young adults in the door. Donors have shown up this year. If you've already given, thank you. If you haven't given this year, please consider doing so: jewishcincinnati.org/give
Sherri Symson finishes her first year as Board Chair this month. She set three goals when she started: collaborate more deeply, engage more intensely, and build this organization for the long arc. This community spent the year doing exactly that. We're fortunate to have one more year of her leadership ahead.
In 1896, 130 years ago, two presidents and a secretary started something they would never see finished. They built it anyway. Every generation since has made the same choice.
What we choose to build together is still the choice in front of us. I’m grateful to be in it with you.
Warmly,
Danielle V. Minson Signature
Danielle V. Minson
CEO, Jewish Federation of Cincinnati
jewishcincinnati.org/give
PS: If you missed our Annual Meeting, the 130-year video opener is in the first five minutes. Worth your time, and I think it is worth sharing. Watch here.
PPS: We announced that Bobby Fisher will be our next Board Chair starting with cycle 2027-2028. The cycle resets. Please welcome our full 2026-2027 board.