Conversation with Tom Rosenberg, CEO of the American Camp Association

This is the latest installment of Insights Interviews, where we dig deeper into the social trends affecting Jewish summer camps.

This discussion features Tom Rosenberg, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of the American Camp Association (ACA). Tom enjoyed a long career in Jewish camping, including as executive director at Camp Judaea, and has a unique perspective on the overall camping field. Our discussion with Tom explored topics such as the role of the ACA, general trends affecting the broad camping field, differences among nonprofit and for-profit camps and Jewish and secular camps, the growth of day camps, the ever more demanding role of camp directors, and much more.

The interview was conducted by Michael Miloff, consultant, JCamp 180 via zoom in late April 2024. The results have been consolidated, condensed, and edited for clarity.

The first two Insights Interviews featured Jewish camp movement heads and field leaders exploring the evolving roles of camp directors; increase in mental health supports; rising costs and the growing reliance on fundraising; staff recruitment and retention trends; the financial and social legacy of COVID; the challenges that the Israel-Hamas war poses; and more.
 







Tom Rosenberg
President and CEO
American Camp Association (ACA)

Michael Miloff: Tell us about the American Camp Association.

Tom Rosenberg: The American Camp Association (ACA) was founded in 1910. We are a national 501c(3) nonprofit organization that works to empower camps to create quality experiences that build a world of belonging and growth for all their participants. We serve more than 20,000 year-round and summer camps in the US that annually serve 26 million campers. ACA is committed to collaborating with those who believe in quality camp and outdoor experiences for children, youth, and adults. 

ACA provides advocacy, evidence-based education, and professional development, and is the only independent, national accrediting body for the organized camp experience. ACA Accreditation provides public evidence of a camp’s voluntary commitment to the health, safety, risk management, and overall well-being of campers and staff. 

The ACA is also a leading convener, synthesizer, and communicator of research, one example being our recently completed national study on the impact of camp.
The ACA's National Impact Study explored how camp prepares youth participants for college, a career, and life outside of camp. The study found that high-quality camp experiences generally included: high levels of engaging and interest-driven activities, feelings of belonging, supportive youth-staff relationships, and opportunities for experiential learning. Continuing, high-quality camp experiences can have a lasting impact on youths’ social-emotional development and support their learning in other settings (i.e., school).
As the national intermediary for all types of organized camps, ACA collaborates with national youth serving organizations with camp programs to support their respective camp-related goals and needs. These organizations include, for example, YMCA-USA, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, Boys & Girls Club of America, 4-H, Camp Fire, Kiwanis, Lions, Rotary, a wide variety of faith-based organizations (e.g., Jewish Community Center Association of North America, Lutheran Outdoor Ministries, etc.) and organizations supporting youth with disabilities and/or chronic illness (e.g., American Diabetes Association, MDA and Children’s Oncology Camping Association (COCA)).  We also support Universities and Colleges that operate a wide variety of youth camp programs on their campuses throughout the year.

Michael Miloff: Tom, we’d love to hear your personal journey as to how you went from Jewish camping to becoming head of the largest camping organization in North America.

Tom Rosenberg: I was lucky to go to a Jewish camp, Blue Star, for three summers as a camper and then as a first-year Counselor in Training when I was 16. We lived in California, and I got involved in scouting and backpacking and further fell in love with the outdoors. I then ended up spending a few years working in commercial banking, and, subsequently, went to graduate school with an interest in consulting.

While in the middle of my graduate education, my former camp director, Rodger Popkin, encouraged me to consider being a camp professional, and invited me to become a director of Blue Star. I said, “I’ll try this for five years and see how it goes.” I blinked, and it was 22 years later.

At that point, for family reasons, we moved to Atlanta and I took on the role of executive director at Camp Judaea, which I also greatly enjoyed for 5 years. In 2016 I was asked to consider applying to be the President/CEO of the ACA. I ended up being offered and taking the job and have been there since.

Michael Miloff: We know that Jewish camping has many similarities to general camping but given your experience in both Jewish camping and the broader field, we’d love to hear your views as to if and how Jewish camping differs from non-Jewish camping.

Tom Rosenberg: There’s a long history of Jewish families seeing the value of camp experiences for their kids, so there is a lot of generational exposure to camp — whether they attended a secular or a Jewish camp.

Others looking at the field are amazed at the extent and coordination of philanthropic support for Jewish camps. This affords opportunities for growth and strategic planning that not everyone has available to them.

Michael Miloff: We are also interested in what you see as the differences between for-profit and nonprofit camps.

Tom Rosenberg: Some for-profit entities have a board and a mission perspective. Some don’t. Some of them have a board for legal reasons, but, for many, the owner/director leads the camp. We are also seeing more groups of independent camps leveraging economies of scale to get their costs down by group purchasing of insurance, food, and other supplies.

For-profit camps depend on equity, loans, and profits to support their capital and operating requirements, while nonprofits are able to secure donations for these and other purposes by issuing tax receipts. And, of course, tax strategies are different.

A number of for-profit camps also have been effective at articulating their value proposition and developing sophisticated marketing strategies and materials; many of these camps also command higher prices than the nonprofit sector.

Michael Miloff: Are private camps paying their top people more?

Tom Rosenberg: In some cases, yes, and in many cases, no. A number of nonprofit camps are being very thoughtful about how much they’re paying. Some YMCA camps, for example, are fundraising specifically to provide the best summer staff possible to the camp.

Michael Miloff: What trends do you see affecting the overall national camping field, and how might camps respond?

Tom Rosenberg:

> Rising Costs
Right now, the most calls I get from the media are about people not being able to afford camp. In the next five years, we’ve got to get our costs under control. Camps are not able to raise their prices enough to compensate for increased costs. Post-pandemic, the field of camp is doing much better but is still recovering in many ways. We might have tremendous demand and waiting lists, but we’re having trouble providing camp at a sustainable cost. Camp insurance costs have been quite challenging for some time. Transportation, food, and other costs have been rising. Given the high and rising costs of construction, we also need to look at when and how we replace our buildings and think hard about what we really need and what we can do without.

> Value of Human Skills
We are entering into this new world where all kinds of automation are happening with the consequence that soft, human skills such as communication, collaboration, self-expression, and conflict management – as well as reflection, emotional self-regulation, and resilience – will be even more highly prized in the future.

What campers, staff, and their families want are transferable skills, networks, and opportunities for advancement. We know that the immersive nature of camp contributes greatly to the development of these soft workforce skills. This applies to kids who have a lot, as well as for those who have the least, and for whom camp experiences can help support their readiness for academics. There’s a lot of benefit from working at camp for a couple of years and then taking on internships in the field of one’s choice. And, during this period, staff can continue their faith-development journey.

We believe there is great opportunity for camps to partner with schools to expand the concept of education. For example, in Australia 95 percent of all school-age children go to camp through their school.

We have to get the colleges, universities, and post-secondary advisors on board — which we’re working on — because they control what counts for credit.

> Supporting Diversity
Another trend is an increasing emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion. We’ve got some catching up to do in terms of how we serve in an inclusive way. We need to recruit more diversity in the ranks of camp professionals and in the programs that they create. And we absolutely need to make sure that we don’t leave children with disabilities behind.

> Need for Better Swim Instruction
Centers for Disease Control recently published research indicating a significant rise in drowning deaths after years of decline. This includes drownings among young people, many of whom simply cannot swim. Our camps have an important role to play in ensuring that all campers are comfortable near the water and know how to swim. Learning to swim – which is a challenge – can be a great confidence booster which camps can provide.

Michael Miloff: What trends do you see regarding day camps?

Tom Rosenberg: One of the most important trends is the growth that has already occurred and will likely continue to take place in day camps.

We estimate there are 26 million campers each year which implies there are 29 million school-age kids that are not attending. Many of these families are culturally unacquainted with camp and not generationally exposed to the idea of sending their children away to camp. We’re seeing a tremendous amount of diversity come into the space to start day camps, which are a lot lower cost to start up than overnight camps. A number of youth-serving organizations are very interested in developing their day camps.

There has been a very short tenure for day camp directors, probably under three years on average. We need to create a profession around day camp that better compensates its leaders and doesn’t ask them to wear so many hats.
"We need to create a profession around day camp that better compensates its leaders and doesn’t ask them to wear so many hats."
As day camps grow, we hope to work with day camps to better understand their desired outcomes and what turns the dials, especially around program quality, to strengthen those outcomes.

Michael Miloff: Among Jewish overnight camps, there is significant concern about the growing stresses on the traditional camp director model. Thoughts?
 
Tom Rosenberg: There are parents before and after the pandemic. Parents are holding their kids so tight. We are raising them to be a generation of perfectionists instead of the kinds of kids we turn out from camp who learn to be more focused on the “we” versus the “me.” Many parents today seem to have less emotional regulation in the way they interact with camp professionals. This is undoubtedly contributing to the shorter tenures of overnight camp professionals. Camp directors are not staying for 20 years as much.
In this supplemental 2023 Camp Insights report, camps share innovations and ideas for managing the changing role of parents at camp.
There’s no question that we need to look at the camp director model. If people only stay for five to seven years in the profession, we need to keep developing them on a continuous basis. What you learn running a camp is incredible and priceless; people who come out of camp run major corporations and do really cool things with their lives, so we should be investing more in professional development.

Compensation is important. For example, this includes incentivizing success such as through bonuses or time off, including during the non-camp time of year - and working with your camp director to design motivating solutions which they value. A lot of businesses do that, but it’s less common in the camp space.

We need to widen and deepen our professional benches. We really need to hold these new young professionals close, make them feel like they belong in our profession and want them to stay and thrive.

Nonprofit boards need to look at how they can provide these supports.

We also should create staffing experiences in Jewish camping that are like fellowships, that identify the best and the brightest, and give them the opportunity to work in excellent camp programs at reasonable pay and receive training and development throughout the year.
"We also should create staffing experiences in Jewish camping that are like fellowships, that identify the best and the brightest, and give them the opportunity to work in excellent camp programs at reasonable pay and receive training and development throughout the year."
We also need to invest in mental health from the top to the bottom. Sometimes people ask, “What degree should I have if I’m going to be a camp professional?” There’s certainly a good argument for social work and psychology now, in addition to business and education. As part of mental health support for staff, including senior staff, everyone in camp should have time off.

Michael Miloff: Time off during camp?

Tom Rosenberg: Yes, during camp. Because how can anyone work all the time, especially in that setting? And that applies to associate directors, assistant directors, and others.

Michael Miloff: Do you see any opportunities for collaboration across camps in human resources?

Tom Rosenberg: There’s a lot of opportunity for collaboration around talent development. Why are we waiting to develop our youth leaders until they’re 19 and 20 and then try to attract them back? The movements could work together on development and training on leadership, secular programming or Jewish topics, mental health, and aquatics.

Michael Miloff: How can camps innovate in order to respond to these and other challenges and opportunities?

Tom Rosenberg: When we talk about innovations, we need to first understand what we’re doing now. Some camps are doing great work on assessing customer and staff satisfaction. We also have to think about the developmental outcomes that are being envisaged and achieved. Innovation can happen when you’ve got young adults working at camp with coaches and observers who provide continuous structured feedback and empower them to give feedback to each other — all to really push themselves to do better. Think about how golden those skills are in the workplace today.

Camps also have to keep pushing to do strategic planning, to answer questions of “What are we? Who do we want to be five years or 10 years from now?” We have to make sure youth leaders are part of the process to envisage the future. Their voices and those from culturally diverse perspectives must be included.
"Camps also have to keep pushing to do strategic planning, to answer questions of 'What are we? Who do we want to be five years or 10 years from now?'"
Michael Miloff: Looking to the long run, what are your thoughts about endowments?

Tom Rosenberg: I am inspired to give to endowments and plan for legacy gifts in addition to annual giving and capital giving. Through endowment gifts you enable many future generations to invest in innovations we can’t begin to imagine today, All of us should leave legacy gifts while we are investing in annual giving, endowments, and capital campaigns.

Stay Tuned! More Insights Interviews with leaders from the Jewish day camps and the Foundation for Jewish Camp coming up later this year!

We look forward to hearing back from you — let’s keep the conversation going. Do you have questions or feedback? Write to us at JCamp180@hgf.org.

About Insights Interviews
Starting in 2024, we are exploring more deeply the challenges and opportunities posed by the top societal trends from the Camp Insights report, and the solutions that camps are developing in response. This exploration includes Insights Interviews, conversations with leaders and innovators from the camping field. You can find all Insights Interviews here.