Empowering Change-Makers

Hello everyone and welcome to the Oh, you podcast. Hello everyone and welcome to the OU podcast. Today we have the privilege of having with us Tamar Friedman. Hello. Hello. Who is the director of the impact accelerator. Yes, we're gonna learn a little bit about that in a little bit. But what we're going to start with is our most difficult question. which is why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? Oh, okay. Thank you for that question. Um, it's a hard one because what makes you and I've been thinking about that a lot about is it is it where I came from, some of the experiences that I've had, some of my personal experience, some of my work experiences, some of what I'm doing now. So, that's a pretty loaded question. It's a loaded question. You're the first person to call me out on it, so I appreciate that. That's so I'll say that I was born in Boston. And and which part of Boston? In Brooklyn. Okay. And I'm from a family of six children. I am the third of six. I have two brothers and three sisters. We were all born in Boston, all six of us. And then when I was nine years old, we moved to Baltimore. Okay. Different community. Baltimore. Very different. Yeah. quite a shift from being in a small community to a much larger community and being the big fish in a small pond and then being um I guess small fish in a very big pond and trying to be big fish in a in a big pond. One of my earliest memories I was 5 years old, four, five, six years old um in my house staying up late. My parents thought I was sleeping sitting on our staircase. Yeah. listening to the parlor meetings that were going on in my house. My parents always had different meetings and community leaders at our house um to to deal with different issues that were going on. One of the one thing that I'm very proud of is that my parents started a school in Boston, the Torah Academy School. They were one of the seven founding families. My father was even the first president of the board. And I and I just recently actually reflected on maybe that actually has a big influence on what I'm doing currently. They they wanted a different kind of school. There's it's a very vibrant community in Boston, but they wanted a smaller school with a different learning styles. So instead of sitting around complaining figuring out how they can can deal with the system, they brought together people and they built a a new school to educate to educate the the children in Boston. So they had a startup. They had a startup. Exactly. That's right. And still impacting and accelerating in Boston. Amazing. Um they have hundreds of kids now there. And when I was there um I think I had 10 10 people at my class. So, so I believe those early experiences, you know, have have changed me in to now, right? Yeah. And then you spent a lot of time schooling in Maryland, right? I mean, so high Bakov and then uh Yes. I went from fourth grade to 12th grade to Basako, Baltimore. And you stayed there for university. I stayed there for university. I went to Talson University and then I went on to University of Maryland School of Social Work um where I did a dual concentration of clinical and macro which macro is looking at systems and nonprofits. Sure. And and dealing with issues in the community in that way. So you still use the clinical? I think you can use it every day. Oh yeah. I think that a big thing in social work is being where the client is. Yeah. And starting there. And a client can be a person, a client can be a family, a client can be a founder of a startup. Um, and I think I use those skills every day. At least I I hope to. And in management, right, that's a that's a piece of whoever you're working with, right, that have those skills as well. Yeah, definitely. Is useful. That's very useful. Trying to understand where they're coming from so you can bring out the best in them. 100%. And then you also worked in camps, right? uh as was that in social work while you were in social work. So I started in high school working at a camp and I probably stayed too long but I was such a camp person right I stayed through my masters actually actually my first few years after my masters I worked at a school so I could continue to go back to camp um I worked at a beautiful camp called camp show um out of Frederick Maryland it's a kira camp um and I believe that I got most of my early leadership lessons um from there of being able to to take on challenges allges work with a lot of different people, work with the campers in different ways and it was a wonderful experience and actually what's a funny story is after my first summer there you never know what kind of impression you're making on on people. I was 15 16 years old and I had a nice bunk of sixth graders and I got a letter from a camper Jessica of a month after after thanking me for the summer and a picture of a goat with a with a ribbon and Frederick is a it's more of a rural kind of Maryland. They have farms with a ribbon from the state fair, the Frederick the Frederick County Fair. And they wrote me that this is a boat she bought right after right after camp. They named it Tamar and it actually won an award in um in the county fair, the Frederick County Fair. So I don't know if that was a goat named after you. Yes, I have a goat named after You're literally the greatest of all time, right? Yes. There you go. You're literally the goat. Okay. I wish that I hope I hope that that was a that meant a good thing. You know, it could go either way, but it could go either way, I guess. But I I chose to be very honored by having a goat named after me after my first summer. And it really showed me how much an impression you can make on people. You don't even know. She wasn't my star camper. Um I enjoyed her. She was a lot. Um, but she she named her goat after me and it it became a big camp joke for years afterwards, but I was very honored. Okay. So, you've you've done some travel also, right? Like you have you you stayed in Maryland a long time, but you you like to see the world a little bit. I do. I love to see the world. I've been fortunate to be able to travel um to a lot of places. Some of the top ones I would say would be Iceland. Um Iceland, India. I went two summers ago. Actually, when I was applying for this job, I was in India. My first back and forth with Yonyi was like, "I'm sorry, I'm not sure I can make that Zoom call because I'm in India." And he was very very nice about it. He's like, "Okay, I can't wait to hear about it." Um, and I think it it's to me it's so important to see the world and to experience that and to understand other cultures and then can bring that back with me. Um, one of my favorite memories of just my trip two years ago to India was when I was in Dharma Mashala. So, Dar Mashala has there's a couple things. There's more Hebrew there really than anything because it's part of like I guess the the humus trail that a lot of Israelis What's the trail? So, I what I believe the humus trail is and we should fact check this is that after people podcast, right? So, I don't know if we just have to make sure it's kosher. Right. Right. There you go. Kosher. Um when people finish their army service, they need to to relax and get away. And so many people go to um India, Nepal, um South America to try to find themselves and relax. Um so there is more Hebrew there. you would see you would go into their they would start talking to me in Hebrew because the people that work at the different stores because they thought that's what I would speak and they have like laundry is all in Hebrew. Um and it's actually kind of beautiful that how the kabads there really cater to to that community because if people are searching they want to be there to to help them land and and search. One of my favorite memories from there though is that it was monsoon season when I went. It was August and so you never know what you're going to get. And we had a hike that we're going to do one Friday and it's was raining a little bit but we're like we still want to do it. And halfway up it was pouring pouring pouring. It actually was a little bit scary, but it was pouring and pouring and there was some people on the hike that were complaining and rightfully so I understood, but they were complaining and they went back and me and a few friends stayed. And this was the only time. I'm not usually like this, but we were like laughing and we're like dancing in the rain and trying to like really embrace the change of our schedule and the change in what we wanted to do. And it's one of my favorite memories from my trip to India of just like embracing the con the the struggle, embracing what's going to happen that day and trying to dance in the rain as that expression is. And and it was a really special beautiful story. It's a beautiful story. You know, talks a little bit about your ability to tolerate risk. Um and you know, you've changed jobs, right, over time. You spent some time at in the federation world, right? Um and then you come here and there's a lot about risk and taking chances with more of a startup kind of uh role and so tell us a little bit about risk but I felt I felt really supported when I started here is actually I've been I've had the privilege of being the director of the impacted salary for almost years but I remember from my beginning conversations with you and with Rabbi Glasser and with Yoni Conn and everybody that I met here I felt really supported so I didn't feel as much of a risk. It was a jump but it felt like a risk um worth taking. But but yeah, I think to be to be in a startup and to to try to think innovatively, you have to be okay to to risk and to push and to make sure that you have your safety measures there so that you're not putting yourself over the deep end, but that you that you feel comfortable with that. So, what is the impact accelerator? I'm so glad you asked. The impact accelerator is there, yes, our good work is there to help um nonprofits in the community be innovative and deal with the challenges of the Orthodox community. We believe in innovation. We believe in excellence and we believe in empowerment. So, we try to help support nonprofits through helping them find resources and networks. We believe in excellence. How we do that is teach them the best way to run what they're running and to take their idea um far by running it like a business. And empowerment is another value of ours is help them figure out the best way they can do what they want to do. I always tell them I'm not here to coach you and tell you exactly where to go. I'm here to listen to what your dream is and try to help you get on the right path to get there to get there and fulfill um that dream that you had and to make the most impact because you know what you're doing better than anybody else. You have the the excitement about it and the energy for it. So, I'm here to help you figure out how to get there and um get to to the steps to make that impact. You've innovated something at the accelerator, too. Right. Now, there's three different legs of the accelerator. Yes. Right. And so, what what's all this activity? What what are we trying to accomplish? Sure. So, the OU does so many wonderful things and we have so many ways that we're helping the community, but I think very rightly so, the OU was very smart to be like, we can't be everywhere all the time and we still want to help support um the needs of the community. So they started in about five six years ago helping startup nonprofits um with that are dealing with a host of issues um and with that with that were making impact in the community. When I started here two years ago we knew that there was more that we could do that we could expand the program that we were thinking about startups but we have so many applications that come in. I didn't tell you yet, but cohort six applications just finished last week. We got over 90 applications. So, right. So, a really record-breaking year that shows even more how why we wanted to expand the program. So, we're staying to our core of the impact accelerator cohort. And maybe I'll take a step back. I want to tell I know that you know that I kind of stole from you your three C's. So the impact accelerator since I started we developed our own three C's which is impact accelerator cohort impact accelerator community and impact accelerator commitment the cohort I like my three yeah your three C's are better but I'm going to get in but I'm going to go run and trademark them now you better yeah so the three C's that we're dealing with so the cohort is our accelerator cohort that we're so proud of to help number six. Yeah. And so we have 25 that we've already 25 ventures that we've helped over 40 um founders. We've given over $350,000 out of grants, but we're really making a difference in that startup community. We wanted to expand. So we are working more with our alumni and we are also working with we're starting a new program called the U entrepreneurs and bringing the change makers from within our own organization and helping them make change in the work in their department. So we're starting that soon. We have a wonderful cohort. Um, we're going to be teaching them different things that we teach the the accelerator cohort and the startup nonprofits because being a changemaker from within is different than being a change maker um outside. So that's one leg of that's the impact accelerated cohort. Our impact accelerated community is really exciting also about expanding our reach is we're going into communities and helping the nonprofits there. We just ran a wonderful program in Baltimore, a pilot where we had 16 um different people from I believe 13 organizations coming together learning about adaptive leadership. One of the things that I heard from them is that they never really got to chance to learn together even though it's a small community and they know of each other to learn with each other and to get to know each other and the work that they're doing. So it was wonderful to be able to support community a community in their in their work and a we're also doing impact accelerator commitment which is about working with our leaders in the best way to ensure that impact accelerator can grow and thrive and that they can help the organizations that we're helping. Amazing. Lots of activity. Thanks for giving us a little bit of an insight into Thank you. I know that that was really quick. That's a lot, but it's a lot of good stuff going on and and keeps us busy and and it's wonderful to see. Great. We're going to mix it up a little bit with a little rapid fire question. Milk or fleshix? Milk all the way. I know it's What do you mean? I like I'm not a vegetarian. Okay. But I like dairy and tofu and some plant-based stuff. Wow. Better than Okay. Okay. And the heavy heavy. You heard it here for her first, folks. Okay, that's great. Um, okay. Rapid fire question number two. Excellent. Ready? I'm going to need some assistance on this one. The biggest glacier in Iceland is Oh, Vatna Jooko. Okay. Dranga Jooko. Lang Jooko. Or Miridal Jooko. Well, you sounded excellent by the way. I think that your your Icelandic is incredible. Um that's you're the only person in my life that ever said that to me. Um let's say number two. Close. Oh, the first one. The first one. I'll say it again. That's not Jok. So when you go back to Iceland and when I go it means water glacier and has an area of about 7,900 square kilometers. Wow. Beautiful. Incredible. Yeah. You got to get there. I hope you get there one day. It is beautiful. Hope so. Hope so. We are introducing something new in the last couple of uh couple of episodes. Okay. Called 30,000 foot questions. Okay. Okay. So, it comes from David Brooks asking big questions in his book, recent book. So, here here's one for you. What would you do if you weren't afraid? Maybe I would start my own podcast and um try to share my thoughts and views more often and out there. That sounds like a great idea. I'm coming for I'm not only taking your seats. Yeah, that's So, you know what? We're going to we're going to give you a chance right now because we're going to turn the tables. Okay. You get to ask me a question. Okay, great. This is going to be the launch. This is the beginning. Okay. Accelerator podcast. I love it. I'm sure you'll come up with a better name. I hope so. I know. We'll find something good. So being here at the OU, which is an incredible organization and a legacy organization that's that's been around for a while, how do you bring the innovative and startup and founder energy into the work that you do here? Because I know that that's something that that you care about and think about a lot. I know you've you've lent me books on the subject. So I was wondering how you do that in this kind of organization. I so great question. I I think number one is about people and you have to have people who want to be creative and want to add in their two cents a little you know like oh you've been doing things this way forever but have a thought or an idea right and that's about people and their ability to to move things forward. Then the second piece is you have to incentivize it. You have to give people the space to fail and fail forward and learn from it and to be able to grow from it. And I think that's part of the culture, you know, we're trying to do. I'm out here on this podcast making a fool of myself all the time, right? And like learning from it. So I think you got to model it and you have to you have to encourage it and incentivize it. It's a great question. Very important value for us is to encourage that innovation and that Yeah. power of kesh. That's great. Right. Of of newness. Yeah. And I see that here. That's that's that it's interesting to hear you say that because I feel that I feel that a lot when I I've been in many different organizations um and I started in in public schools in Baltimore City and here I am now. But I I you get that sense when you walk in the building and you at different meetings and you you see that. So I know that that makes sense and that starts from you and from Rabbi Hower. So it's it's nice to be part of that. Good to know. Yes. Good to know it's working. Okay. So to wrap up what we ask our guests is to give us a braha. Give us at the U your blessing. Okay. So I want to give you um and everybody at the U braha to continue the good work by surrounding themselves with good people. the good energy that people can feel emanate from from the different offices um and the different all the different spaces that you help create here. Continue to do um the good work in the community and make sure that we're here to elevate the Orthodox community and create spaces for the or everybody in the Orthodox community to find their place and to thrive and to grow. And I know if anybody could do it, the OU can do that because they've been doing it for generations. And I'm excited to be part of it now. And I bless everybody here to to keep it going and and to keep it growing. Well, thank you. Thank you. And right back at you and not only to keep it going, to keep moving us forward with your innovations. Thank you. And the innovations that you inspire all of us. Wonderful. Thank you so much. Thanks for coming.