Our Strategic Plan

For over 160 years JCFS Chicago has positively affected the lives of countless children, adults and families throughout our Jewish and Chicago communities, demonstrating compassion, excellence and strength across our family of services.

The previous strategic plan sharpened our impact, created a new brand identity and organizational design, and strengthened infrastructure in key areas such as technology and resource development. These accomplishments position us well to tackle new challenges and take our work to the next level.

Lasting Impact 2.0, the JCFS FY21-22 Strategic Plan, extends our existing framework with a continued focus on three primary goals:

IMPACT Our programs and services are mission driven, targeted and recognized as making a meaningful difference for the people and communities we serve.

SUSTAINABILITY Our funding model and infrastructure sustain client services and programs, respond to emerging needs and value donors as partners in our mission.

LEADERSHIP Our leadership and expertise strengthen our organizational capacity to meet the Jewish community’s and the Chicago area’s human service needs, today and into the future.

A high priority in the coming two years begins with creating a vision and setting programmatic strategic direction in the core areas of disability services and emotional well-being. With a new JCFS brand identity, the plan challenges us to raise brand awareness to engage and build a stronger connection with stakeholders across Chicagoland. Efforts will be made to maximize net revenue, along with the creation of a data dashboard to support scenario planning and resource allocation decisions. Board and staff will gain new skills to develop a culture of philanthropy and increase advocacy efforts. Finally, additional work needs to be done to strengthen succession planning across the agency at staff and board levels.

To ensure the updated plan informs our ongoing work, considerable attention was given to developing a detailed implementation plan and defining the responsibilities of board and staff.