JEWISHcolorado’s new senior director of design philanthropy, Jen Kraft, will land on our shores on July 19, bringing with her a proven track record of fundraising and community-building with Jewish organizations.

Since 2017, Kraft has served as the Colorado director of Moving Traditions, a national organization that emboldens Jewish youth to challenge gender stereotyping and other forms of discrimination. Currently, she is also working for local synagogues providing religious school direction and instruction.

In 1994, Kraft began a 20-year tenure with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) as the Ralph I. Goodman Fellow in Jewish Communal Service, living and working in Ukraine, Mumbai, and Israel. She then made aliya to Israel and became JDC’s

assistant to the country director of Ukraine and missions director, designing and accompanying multiple groups of constituents throughout the former Soviet Union and other places where JDC supports Jewish life.

Beginning in 1999, Kraft spent three years at JDC Headquarters in New York as the Israel desk director, working as the U.S.-based representative of JDC in Israel on behalf of JDC Israel, the Myers Brookdale Institute, and the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies.

In her most recent role with JDC, Kraft served for 11 years as director of community relations, traveling to more than 40 communities, advocating for JDC’s life-saving work, and raising funds.

Jen holds degrees from Columbia University, The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and Tufts University. She also has completed postgraduate professional development in fundraising and social justice, including courses at Indiana University Center for Philanthropic Studies, Weiner Educational Center at the UJA Federation of New York, and Joyous Justice’s Whiteness Hevruta, a year-long course in understating racial equity for Jewish professionals. Jen is proficient in Hebrew and an active Jewish communal volunteer, spearheading the West Side Jewish community, serving on the Development Committee at Denver Jewish Day School, and as secretary of the Board of Jewish Family Service.

Kraft lives with her partner Donnie Emeson and her daughter in Arvada.