Jumpstart is a Los Angeles-based non-profit that helps support, develop and enhance the effectiveness of projects and organizations initiating from within the Jewish Community.
The organization was formed by Shawn Landres and Joshua Avedon (son of Barbara Avedon) in 2008 with a mission "to develop, strengthen, and learn from emerging nonprofit organizations that build community at the nexus of spirituality, learning, social activism, and culture, in order to transform the broader Jewish community and the world.
"[1][2] Jumpstart has drawn academic,[3][4] communal,[5][6][7][8] philanthropic,[9][10][11][12] and media attention[13][14][15][16][17][18] to the organizations and people in the loosely organized sector of Jewish nonprofit startups founded independently of communal institutions, sometimes known as the Jewish innovation ecosystem,[3] a term given to that sector in Jumpstart's first report[19] by that name.
[23][24] The Jerusalem Post said that Jumpstart "has changed the global conversation about Jewish innovation primarily through research and advocacy.
[33][34][35] Jumpstart subsequently co-organized a Southern California Faith-Based Innovation Forum modeled on the White House conference.