What is the process?

Since January 2025, we have completed over 50 interviews, hearing your perspectives on what you think are the most crucial questions for the British Jewish community and what social action initiatives we need to help.  Having heard your thoughts on what big questions the Social Action Incubator needed to explore, we identified five key social action themes that the day-long Hackathon on Sunday 6 July 2025 focused on.

The themes were:

  • BRIDGE BUILDERS – at a time of heightened tensions between the Jewish community and other communities, what practical steps do we need to take to build bridges with each other?

  • FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUMENT – how do we help Jews of different views understand each other better?

  • A POORER MODERN LIFE – how do we better combat food insecurity, housing precarity, social disconnection, and other social care gaps?

  • A JEWISH LENS ON CLIMATE CHANGE – how do we positively harness Jewish learning to take on the challenge of climate change?

  • BEING AND DOING JEWISH IN THE AGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA AND AI – how can we draw on our Jewish experience to navigate an age of disruptive technology in a post-truth world?  

What is the Social Action Hackathon?

A day-long event where around 60-70 participants from across the Jewish communal, and Jewishly adjacent, social action ecologies explored, shaped and designed the community’s next big social action initiatives. Led by JW3, the event took place from 10am-6pm on Sunday 6 July 2025, using a Design Thinking process to guide it.

We identified the 5 big questions which emerged during the 1:1 conversations and each participant picked their top 2 to explore on the day. We provided attendees with some research material and data to swot up and put everyone in teams of five or six other people whose skills complemented their own and who shared a passion for the same big question. Attendees were guided throughout the day using Design Thinking to help hone the big question, brainstorm solutions, develop ideas further. By the end of the day, teams presented a rough proof-of-concept.

Who were the other attendees?

The Hackathon brought together a group of social action heroes like you. They included community volunteers, young people and students, Jewish community and charity sector professionals, artists and educators, rabbis, entrepreneurs, scientists, futurists and disruptors, changemakers, people with lived experience and anyone from the community who might have a stake in creating the next big Social Action project.

Deeper Dives - What happens after the Hackathon?

By the end of the day, there were lots of brilliant ideas which may all be viable as social action projects.

Over the following weeks, the JW3 team will follow up with groups and individuals who are interested in taking a deeper dive into an idea that emerges through the Hackathon or has come about subsequently. We will offer some micro-investment and mentoring to help you develop the idea further for a couple of days for you to present a further developed proof of concept later in the year.

By the end of the year, the Steering Group will then select up to 3 of these projects for further development and long-term mentoring through 2026.