J. Shawn Landres is a social entrepreneur and independent scholar, and local civic leader, known primarily for applied research related to faith-based social innovation and community development. As the co-founder of Jumpstart, a nonprofit philanthropic research organization, he has worked with the White House on Jewish affairs and issues related to faith-based social enterprise. The Jewish Daily Forward named Landres to its annual list of the 50 most influential American Jews in 2009. In 2013-14, Landres chaired the research team and co-authored five of Jumpstart’s six Connected to Give reports, which “map the landscape of charitable giving by Americans of different faith traditions.” Connected to Give was credited by Indiana University as a “breakthrough finding” distinguishing giving to religious congregations and giving to “religiously identified organizations.” In 2016 Landres co-authored for the California Community Foundation and the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, described as a model for research on locally focused giving A co-founder of Synagogue 3000's Synagogue Studies Institute, Landres is credited with creating the term "Jewish Emergent," which describes new spiritual Jewish communities that have an institutional dynamic in which "relationship, not contract or program, is the driving metaphor;” the term “Jewish Emergent” reflects similarities in organizing philosophy with a parallel movement in the Christian church. A 2007 report Landres co-authored with sociologist Steven M. Cohen and others linked Jewish Emergent communities to social networking rather than institutional structures. They argued that "Jewish Emergent" encompasses both the independent minyan movement and so-called "rabbi-led emergent" communities such as IKAR and Kavana Cooperative. In 2006, Landres co-convened the first gathering of Emergent church and "Jewish Emergent" leaders in a meeting co-led by theologian Tony Jones, who recounted the episode in one of his books. In 2016, a network of rabbi-led emergent communities established the Jewish Emergent Network, crediting Landres for coining the concept behind its name. In July 2012, the White House invited Landres, representing Jumpstart, to speak as a "spotlight innovator" at its Faith-Based Social Innovators Conference. In 2013 Landres was awarded the Liberty Hill Foundation’s NextGen Leadership Award.] The Southern California Leadership Network named him as one of its 30th anniversary “30-in-30” alumni honorees in 2017. Landres chairs the Los Angeles County Quality and Productivity Commission] and is vice chair of its Productivity Investment Board. In 2018, Landres was appointed to the City of Santa Monica Planning Commission. Prior to his planning commission appointment, Landres had chaired the City of Santa Monica’s Social Services Commission,] where he focused on homelessness and on accounting for social services in land-use planning. He is a member of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Financial Oversight Committee. Previously he chaired the Santa Monica Public Library’s Innovation Technology Task Force. UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs appointed him as a Civil Society Fellow in 2015 and as a Senior Fellow in 2016. He serves on the board of directors of the Santa Monica Bay Area Human Relations Council and is a founding organizing committee member of Jews United for Democracy and Justice, formed in response to "rising threats to religious tolerance, equal rights, a free and fair press, human dignity, and long-held norms of decency and civil society." Landres graduated from Columbia University and received a master's degrees from Oxford in Social Anthropology and the University of California, Santa Barbara, in Religious Studies, as well as a Doctorate in Religious Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Landres' work on ethnographic methodology has been cited in handbooks for the study of the sociology of religion. In 2004, Landres took a public role in shaping the interreligious response to the film The Passion of the Christ. Bill Clinton has identified him as the "young man" who suggested "Don't Stop" as the future president's 1992 campaign theme song.
