Hidden Sparks has been named one of the nation’s 50 most innovative Jewish nonprofits in Slingshot ’09-’10, a resource guide for Jewish innovation. Slingshot, now in its fifth year, features organizations, leaders, and programs that have taken an innovative approach to addressing age-old concerns of identity and community in Jewish life today. The organizations listed in Slingshot are selected from among hundreds of nominees across the country.

Hidden Sparks is a nonprofit fund whose purpose is to help children with learning differences reach their full potential in school and life. Hidden Sparks develops and supports professional development programs for Jewish day schools to help increase understanding and support for teaching to diverse learners.

“It is important to understand that this is not a special education program – it is targeted to struggling learners in mainstream schools and classes. Essentially, we are helping the classroom teacher, who is the first line of defense, gain a deeper understanding for why a student is struggling, and the skills and strategies for teaching them most effectively. It’s a win-win situation for all,” explains Debbie Niderberg, Co-founder and Executive Director of Hidden Sparks. Continuing, she said, “If the classroom teacher is trained to recognize a memory or attention issue and can give that student strategies to overcome their difficulty, the student’s performance and self esteem are enhanced, the teacher has succeeded and has averted the consequences of a frustrated student, and the school benefits from having greater capacity to address a range of students most effectively.”

While Hidden Sparks is currently serving Jewish day schools, the school centered coaching model can be replicated in any school, and will serve as a basis for a new collaboration with the Churchill School, serving New York public schools. Being selected by Slingshot is a wonderful opportunity as it exposes us to a vibrant funding community, a valuable vehicle as we work to grow our capacity and take our programming to the next level,” Niderberg added.

“For the fifth edition of Slingshot we received an incredible group of nominees. The evaluators had their work cut out for them,” expressed Will Schneider, the Director of Slingshot. He went on to say, “In a difficult economic cycle, we believe that many organizations cannot survive without placing an emphasis on innovation, and the 50 organizations featured in Slingshot ‘09/’10 prove that innovation can be the organizational engine for sustainability.”

Inspired by the guidebook, a group of next-generation donors launched The Slingshot Fund, a collective giving mechanism to support the future of innovative Jewish life in North America. Now in its third year, Slingshot has already contributed over $1 million to innovative Jewish nonprofits. 2009 Slingshot Fund investor Dave Moss shares, “Through Slingshot, young philanthropists are able to pool resources and knowledge and in so doing send a message to the Jewish Community about what the next generation of funders considers important.”

Slingshot was created by a team of young funders as a guidebook to help funders of all ages diversify their giving portfolios with the most innovative and effective organizations and programs in North America. Now in its fifth edition, Slingshot has proven to be a catalyst for next generation funding and offers a telling snapshot of shifting trends in North America’s Jewish community.