Connecting good ideas with people who can support them

What is the iHuddle?

The iHuddle is a moderated conference call between heads of PresenTense-ignited ventures and four or five potential investors.  The purpose of the call is to increase opportunities for dealflow and interaction between the Jewish Community's funding resources and innovative startup ventures. We hope that this model, structured similar to the "road show" which is a common practice of the venture capital community, will help grow the social entrepreneurial sector of the Jewish organizational community.

What are the rules? 

The rules of the iHuddle are simple: entrepreneurs should have no expectations, the investors should have an open mind. Entrepreneurs are told that the participating investors have absolutely no commitment to fund.  Rather, the investors commit to listening with an open ear, and to spend time seriously considering and evaluating each entrepreneur’s pitch. The least that will be gained is learning -- the potential upside is that a relationship will be formed.

It is once again time for us undergo our quarterly review process, where we challenge ourselves to manage the operations with an eye on outputs and outcomes. We have once again reviewed what was done over the past quarter, learned lessons of what did not go as planned and why, and seen the successes of much of the PresenTense communities hard work. These quarterly reviews provide us the necessary data and the opportunity to make adjustments to the Year in Preview and what our plans our for the upcoming quarter.

Here is the second quarterly reports. As opposed to last quarter, this time we answered some specific questions such as:

• What were the goals of the department
• What assumptions were made
• What content/programs were expected vs. what actually happened
• What are we planning for the next quarter
• What "unexpected's" took place
• And more...

Of course what would PresenTense be without creativity? The presentations are still quite unique from each other, as a reflection of this crucial element of who we are!

Our New Year's resolution -- a bit late in coming, we recognize -- is to continue to pioneer the field of Jewish social enterprise, and our commitment is to stay as open now with 10 staff and over 300 volunteers in 7 steering committees as we were when we met at the common room of Columbia University's Bayit all those years ago. This document is a step along that path.  

Not everything is here -- it being the first year we put all of these together in a standard format, we had to make some tough decisions as to what goes in and what does not. For example, our feasibility study into whether to open a PresenTense Hub in the Upper West Side is not reflected, nor is our growth of the rather popular PTSchool, nor is our Hub & Fellowship partnership with Telalivit included. Those and close to half a dozen smaller initiatives are being developed by our over 300 volunteer community members, and will be better defined over the course of the next year. If this process goes well, we hope to include them next year. 

Also, not everything here will be done to the dot. As anyone who operates in this world knows, these are testing times, times more defined by change then by stability. As such, these plans can be seen as the roadmaps with which we set out on our journey. We may veer off course, but hope not to. To correct for this, each plan is built with the strategic goals of the plan at the top, and the tactical moves towards the bottom -- with an understanding that we'll stick to the strategies and rearrange tactics as needed. Our three and five year plans will be based on Assumption Based Planning -- these are just based on ABP's principles. 

A few weeks ago we released the first Year in Preview of the PresenTense Group, with the aim of opening up a view of our operations to our community, letting members of the community into our heads -- and brining our community into the driver's seat as they suggest changes, additions, and more, to our operations.

But as anyone knows, plans are no good unless they serve as dynamic blueprints for action -- sketches that are dymanic enough to shift as needs shift. And so we have instituted a quarterly review process here at the PresenTense Group, challenging our senior community volunteers and staff to manage their operations with an eye on outputs and outcomes. This process begins by reviewing what was done over the past quarter, and then sharing lessons learned, risks anticipated, and adjustments necessary in the original year in preview.

Now, it wouldn't make sense to share the plans and not the results -- so here is the first in a quarterly reporting process we intend on carrying out. No templates were given to staff, in the hope of learning from how each member best thinks to package information. So forgive the variety -- or celebrate it, as we do.

PTL Management Report Q3

As part of PresenTense's commitment to transparency we would like to present to you our team's quarterly reports on what we did in January to March 2010, and plans for April through June 2010. In many ways it was a very successful quarter and we look forward to being able to continue this success. 

General Group Strategy Presentation