Israel Vacation Drawing: We have a winner!

Congratulations to Hillarie Katz of San Francisco on winning our Israel Vacation Drawing! Hillarie and nearly 1,000 others entered the drawing either on our website or by text-message at Israel in the Gardens for a chance to win a round trip EL AL ticket to Israel and a seven night stay in Herzlia Pituach, Israel courtesy of Israel Vacation Homes.

Hillarie Katz, winner of the Israel Vacation Drawing, with husband Eyal

Thank you to the San Francisco based Jewish Community Federation and also the Jewish community in the Bay Area. This will be a trip of a lifetime!”
- Hillarie Katz

Stay tuned for more cool drawings, promotions, and give-aways.
Sign up for text-message updates on your mobile phone and never miss another chance to win one of our prizes. Text the word PRIZE to 51818. 

PRIZE ALERT: UPCOMING DRAWING
Visit JCF’s LGBT Alliance Booth during pride weekend and enter for a chance to win a $250 Amazon.com gift card! Learn more.

Win a FedFest gift basket

We are hosting a HUGE event this Sunday called FedFest One Hundred to celebrate our centennial and to thank our donors for their support.  As part of the event, we’ve invited dignitaries such as Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor, filmmakers such as Liz Nord, and many authors to come speak. This birthday party wouldn’t be complete without a present or two, so we are giving away a gift basket to one of the lucky fans of the Federation’s Facebook page. The gift basket will include: New York Times columnist David Brooks’ new book, The Social Animal KQED Forum host Michael Krazny’s book Spiritual Envy: An Agnostic’s Quest Manhood for Amateurs, by Pulitzer-prize winning author, Michael Chabon Kosher Nation, written by JTA national correspondent Sue Fishkoff A Contemporary Jewish Museum household membership To enter, all you need to do is click the Like button on the Federation’s Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/jewishfed The winner will be selected and announced April 10, 2011 at FedFest One Hundred.  The winner must reside in the United States. Good luck!

Put down your pencils! The pop-quiz has its final winner

Ellen Bob of Palo Alto had the right combination of smarts and luck to win the final round of the  JewishFed 101 Pop Quiz. A new iPod Nano is now on its way to Ellen! The Pop Quiz taught contestants some fun Federation facts and was an easy way to become acquainted with our new website www.jewishfed.org. Sound easy?

Click here to read the answers.

So what did Ellen like about the site?
“I like the ease of accessing the community calendar. It helps the organizations I work with not schedule things on top of other groups and allows me to find interesting things to do that I might not come across otherwise.”

Ready for graduation? There are lots of ways to take your Federation knowledge to the next level! Learn how.

Meet previous winners
Adam Brody, October winner
David Kaplan, November winner

This will only hurt a bit

Our website will be off-line Wednesday night, January 5, starting approximately at 8:45 pm. If you are making any web updates or adding events to the online calendar tomorrow night please save your work and log off before 8:45 pm.

This scheduled down-time is the beginning of a process to make our website perform significantly faster. Though the optimization process will be taking place over the next several weeks, the website is scheduled to be back up and running normally by 9:00 am, Thursday morning, January 6.

This blog, which is currently hosted on a separate server, will be available during the down-time.

Thank you for your patience as we work to make our website even more user friendly.

November’s Pop-Quiz iPod goes to…

Congratulations to David Kaplan of San Francisco on winning this month’s JewishFed 101 Pop Quiz prize. A new iPod Nano is now on its way to David! The Pop Quiz is a fun ten-question multiple choice quiz that acquaints you with the Federation’s new website www.jewishfed.org while teaching you a thinig or two about us. Sound easy?

Enter now for a chance to win next month

If you’ve already taken the quiz you are already entered to win!

So what did David learn?
“The quiz taught me how to effectively search for information on the new site that is of interest to me – both professionally and personally…I found how easy it can be for unaffiliated members to be involved in strengthening our community.”

Think you know your Federation? There is one more drawing coming up in December so don’t miss your chance to walk away with a new iPod!
Take the quiz now.

Meet Adam Brody, the first JewishFed 101 winner!

New calendar feature: Connect all your related events

Promoting your events to the whole community just got even easier on our community calendar. Now, as someone reads about one of your events, they can see a list of your other events that you think will be of interest to them.

Here’s how it works
Adding related events is achieved through the same event form as before. You choose which events to link, select the date to display on the calendar, and have complete control of the text. Add just one, or up to ten! This is what the form looks like:   

This is a great feature because it allows you to grab and keep the online attention of readers and cross promote your related events. Sponsoring  several gatherings around a similar theme? Presenting a speaker with appearances on multiple dates or locations? Link all the separate event posts together and make your audience aware of all their options!

See the end result
See it in action as the Federation promotes two separate events in celebration of our centennial year - we linked both events together so they’re easy to find and attract the widest audience possible. Try it yourself today and leave a comment here to let us know if you like it or have questions!

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Win an iPod on our website
You can win an iPod Nano by registrering on our site and taking a fun 10-question quiz. Think you know your Federation? We’ve already given away one Nano, but there are more drawings coming up in November and December. Enter now for a chance to win!

New ways to connect on the community calendar

As a community convener, the Federation and its Endowment strive to keep Bay Area residents informed about current events and issues. Our new online community calendar aims to update and connect our web visitors with the most recent cultural, educational, holiday and volunteer opportunities – and many of you have played a leading role in reaching this goal.

Thousands of agencies, organizations and individuals have visited our new site and have taken advantage of our easy-to-use calendar, posting their own events with dynamic content. We’ve received some great feedback along the way and are excited to announce the latest new features: 

Click to see a live version of the new features!

Super size it: Increase the font size on every page
No need to strain your eyes – we’ve increased the font size across the site and even added buttons to the top-right corner of every page so you can make the font bigger whenever you like.

Get social: Share events easily
See an interesting event on the calendar? Now you can share it with your friends with just a click. Post it to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, or send a quick email – all directly from the event page.

Pencil it in: Save events to your calendar
Never miss another meeting or must-see event again. With one click you can save events to your Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo, or iCal calendars.

Coming soon: Link to related events
Soon you’ll be able to enter 10 related events on each of your calendar postings, with links to each one - a great way to promote all the happenings you or your organization are sponsoring. More details coming soon!

We hope these improvements empower our website visitors to have a fruitful online experience at JewishFed.org, and look forward to providing even more ways for Bay Area residents and visitors to access and enjoy Jewish life.

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Win an iPod on our website
You can win an iPod Nano by registrering on our site and taking a fun 10-question quiz. Think you know your Federation? We’ve already given away one Nano, but there are more drawings coming up in November and December. Enter now for a chance to win!

Head of the class! JewishFed 101 Pop Quiz has its first winner

Congratulations to Adam Brody of Mountain View on winning this month’s JewishFed 101 Pop Quiz prize.  Adam proved his Federation knowledge by answering all ten questions on the quiz correctly, which qualified him for the drawing. A new iPod Nano is now on its way to Adam.

Sound easy?

Enter now for a chance to win next month

If you’ve already taken the quiz you are already entered to win! 

So what did Adam think of the site?
“I like how the site is so comprehensive. It really contains quite a bit of information! I learned about some of the community’s big donors and about different ways to help the community.”

Think you know your Federation? There are more drawings coming up in November and December so don’t miss your chance to walk away with a new iPod! Take the quiz now.