Don Goldman, executive director and CEO of Jewish Family Services (JFS) has announced his plans to retire this year.
Goldman has been with JFS since 2007.
Goldman told JFS staff and the board of his plans early last week, and an email was sent to the public last Friday.
“It’s the right time for needing a break,” Goldman told The Chronicle. “Sixteen years is a good long time to have this position.”
He said that professionally this is the right time for retirement because JFS is in great shape to hand over to his successor. Personally, he and his wife have young grandchildren that live out of state who they’d like to spend more time with.
Goldman doesn't have an official retirement date yet but has committed to staying on through the summer or early fall if needed to help with the transition process. JFS will begin its search for a new CEO next month.
In the almost 16 years since Goldman began at JFS, the agency has significantly widened the scope of its programs and the sophistication of its services. When Goldman started, there were fewer than 20 employees on staff – there are now more than 60. There was no food pantry and limited older adult services. JFS provided mental health services, but not to the extent that it does now.
Older adult services were the biggest priority when Goldman took over. He spent more than six months working with a team researching older adult programs around the country and in Israel, and seeing what opportunities there were for Kansas City. This process led to the creation of JFS’s Help@Home and JET Express programs, which launched in 2008 within a month of each other.
“We launched them both as pilot projects in a fairly small way, but I think we knew we needed to make a difference quickly,” Goldman said. “We had to prove we could do new and different things and do them well.”
Both programs are now mainstays of JFS’s older adult services. In 2022, JET Express provided 9,000 rides (an increase of 58% from 2021) for older adults who can no longer drive themselves. The volunteer driver program was the first web-based driving service in Kansas City. Staff-driven van rides began in 2013, providing rides when volunteers were not available. The program is now adding subsidized rideshare rides for older adults who can’t manage rideshare services themselves.
Help@Home provides home maintenance and safety modification services by staff and volunteers to around 200 households each year.
The JFS food pantry was also greatly expanded. Goldman said there was a small food box program at JFS when he started, and some people questioned whether there was even a need for another food pantry in Kansas City. Now, the food pantry has two locations, serves more than 800 individuals a month, and has seen increasing need since the pandemic started. During the height of the pandemic in 2020, 550,000 pounds of food were distributed to more than 4,000 individuals.
In 2018, JFS launched KesherKC, its most comprehensive program yet. This holistic program is designed to help clients reach self-sufficiency, beginning with the food pantry. When a client reaches out for help, JFS provides immediate access to food and then offers additional support, combining JFS’s own programs (care management and mental health services) with those of community partners.
Kesher Mobile, a new JFS initiative piloted in 2022 and launching fully in 2023, will take the program out into the community and into underserved areas. Three events have been planned for the first quarter of 2023 with partners including the KC Public Library and Evergy.
The pandemic brought many challenges to JFS but allowed the agency to figure out different ways to serve its clients and led to the creation of new programs.
“It was obviously difficult, but also energizing because we had zero time to make changes — but we knew we had to make the changes,” Goldman said. “Lucky for me, we had a… strong staff that would take charge of what they needed to get done.”
Goldman said JFS had almost no video capability in March of 2020 when the pandemic shut things down, but staff members were doing Zoom counseling within a week. There were a lot of isolated older adults at home that were used to in-person visits, so JFS created Calling Connections, a program in which people were calling them once or twice a week to check on them, reaching out to more than 300 people. They created a technology program and connected 71 older adults to the internet through Tech Connect.
In 2021, as vaccines slowly became available, JFS focused on helping people get vaccinated, helping people navigate online systems to make appointments and, in some instances, even driving them in the snow to get their shots.
Looking forward, Goldman said he’s excited for the future of JFS and to see what the agency can achieve under new leadership.
“My hope and dream is that (JFS) is not exactly the same in five or ten years because I hope we bring someone in who will do things that I didn’t even think of,” he said. “I hope we will build on what we’ve done and continue to change and take on challenges that we didn’t think we could.”