10/19/2017
Jubilee’s Justice Housing Celebration
On Thursday, November 16, Jubilee will host a celebration of justice housing to raise funds to help Jubilee preserve more homes that are affordable to families with few financial means and expand opportunities that give residents the support we all need to succeed.
Everywhere we look these days, it’s clear that rapidly escalating housing costs are displacing thousands of longtime D.C. residents. These residents hold vital jobs in our communities. They work, for example, as home health aides, child care workers, sales clerks, school cafeteria staff, and housekeepers. Yet they face a widening gap between their resources and what’s increasingly required to live in the District. Without Jubilee, they are further isolated from opportunities in the city or forced to leave it.
Your participation in Jubilee’s Justice Housing Celebration can help change that trajectory for many individuals and families.
Join us for a fun-filled night featuring signature drinks and food, live music, and a special preview of District Winery—a boutique urban winery with breathtaking river views in the heart of The Yards.
Learn more about event sponsorships and tickets.
Jubilee Support Alliance Steps Closer to Better Advance Jubilee Housing
After almost 35 years as an independent nonprofit raising awareness and resources for Jubilee Housing, the Jubilee Support Alliance (JSA) has voted to end independent operations, enabling its members to participate in new leadership opportunities that will open up as Jubilee Housing retools its governance structure.
Earlier this year the Jubilee Housing board established a Governance Working Group to refine the board’s operations and structure—including creating a handful of committees on which board members and non-board members, alike, can serve. Among the committees being considered are: executive, finance, development, real estate, and volunteer engagement.
Simultaneously, JSA members were looking at more fully integrating their work with Jubilee Housing to foster increased communication, engagement, and effectiveness in service to Jubilee’s mission. A vote of the JSA board on September 22 formalized the plan to integrate. Already, JSA members have formed a combined Volunteer Engagement Working Group.
While JSA takes all the appropriate steps to close, JSA and Jubilee Housing have begun operating in the fully integrated way they aspire to achieve.
Champions from JSA’s 1984 founding to its present will be honored at Jubilee’s Justice Housing Celebration fundraiser on November 16 at District Winery.
The Business of Meeting
A better informed staff is a better engaged staff—and a staff that’s better able to achieve Jubilee’s mission. With that axiom in mind, six months ago Jubilee revamped its semimonthly all-staff meetings to increase their focus on the business of Jubilee—department by department. Already the change is producing results.
“The goal is improved communication throughout the organization,” said Jonathan Small, Jubilee vice president of Administration and Finance. “We also want to force ourselves to break out of our silos. These meetings are doing that. Another goal is to engage in two-way communication and create an open forum for dialogue.”
Management can solicit broad input prior to making decisions. Employees have a regular avenue to ask questions, receive updates, share ideas, and hear about issues—from across the organization, not just within their departments. Consequently, Jubilee residents and other members of the Jubilee community have more sources from which to learn the latest Jubilee news and more channels through which to share their comments and concerns.
Each all-staff meeting includes a presentation, updates, a shout-out session for peer-to-peer or management-to-staff recognition, and a Q&A component. Updates highlight not only work underway in a department, but also the impact of that work across the organization and on the Jubilee community. Often, meetings feature subject matter experts on issues potentially affecting residents or staff. Recent speakers explained changing immigration laws and the new technology Jubilee is adopting.
Sharing and listening, in fellowship, twice a month is helping to build diverse, compassionate communities that create opportunities for everyone to thrive—among Jubilee’s internal team and its surrounding neighborhoods.