Call for Jain Champions!
Jain Leadership Forum 2026 invites Jain Champions with ideas that have the potential to redefine community engagement, belonging, and leadership within Jain Centers and Jain life in North America. This year, the focus is depth, scalability, and measurable impact — not volume.
Project Requirement
- Align with at least one of the 4E’s
- Be affiliated with a North American institution, such as a Jain Center
- Introduce a new idea (not an ongoing activity) or expand a proven one
- Each project must have a dedicated champion and team
- 6-12 months timeline with milestones
5 Easy Steps to Submit Your Project
Downloads
JLF PROJECTS have the potential to become national-level projects, and they will be presented at the JLF events. Be there to witness their journey and get inspired!
For more information, reach out to Projects Team Leads:
Viral Shah, Mayur Shah, Manoj Jain
Email: lrp@jainleadership.org – call at 901-240-2602
LET’S MAKE A POSITIVE IMPACT TOGETHER!
Project Guidelines
The Jain Leadership Forum, www.jainleadership.org, is dedicated to guiding the Jain Community in North America from success to significance. It focuses on the 4E’s: Energize the Jain organizations, Educate Jains and Non-Jains, Expand Jain practices, and Evolve the Jain Way of Life.
A set of matrices on Jainism in North America has been developed to achieve these goals based on the 2021 LRP-Jainism survey available at www.jwol.org. To make progress on these metrics in a systematic manner, a set of collaborative projects needs to be developed. The following are guidelines for these projects:
Request for Novel Ideas:
Individual champions from the Jain Community and affiliated with Jain Centers in North America (JCNA) and Jain organizations in North America (JONA) are requested to propose novel ideas. These ideas can be either for conducting a PILOT PROJECT or SCALING UP an existing project, utilizing the Plan-Do-Study-Act Methodology as the ePDSA tool. The ePDSA tool is a simple form where applicants present the problem, a SMART aims statement, a set of measures, and the team involved.
Presentation at the Forum:
Champions will present the proposal at the Jain Leadership Forum in Chicago. The project must have a JCNA or JONA affiliation. Funding will be provided to/through the JCNA or JONA. Projects and the amount of funding will be selected by a project team based on donors and feedback from the Jain Leadership Forum.
Administrative Support and Funding:
LRP/JLF will provide administrative assistance for the project and funding for 1 year in the range of $500 to $5,000. Over 6-12 months, activity metrics will be recorded and shared in real-time with the JLF Team. The project outcome will be evaluated at the Jain Leadership Forum-2025 and based on the run-charts on the PDSA format.
Examples of Projects:
The guidelines should include specific criteria to evaluate the proposed projects to ensure they align with the 4E’s and contribute to the overall objectives of the Jain community vision.
Definitions:
Jain Centers in North America (JCNA) – These are some 70 Jain Centers and respective temples that form the federation of JAINA, including YJA, and YJP.
Jain Organizations in North America (JONA) – There are academic institutions like Arihant Academy or Temples not affiliated to JAINA such as Jain Center of New England, or Academica centers with Jain Chair like Emory University Religion organizations and Jain Foundations, JITO and other.
SMART – stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-Bound.
PDSA – Plan Do Study Act
ePDSA – Electronic PDSA form