We recently talked with Monica Nolan to learn about her experiences leading Jewish Social Services.
Q: Before beginning your work at JSS, you started a sustainable agriculture LLC, Driftless Commons Farm. Could you tell us about that and how that led to where you are today?
A: After nearly two decades in nonprofit leadership and administration, most recently serving as Executive Director at the First Unitarian Society of Madison, I decided to shake things up. I purchased twenty acres of historic farmland at the feet of Black Earth Creek, on ancestral Ho-Chunk land. I had a vision of caring for land in a way that restored soil, built community, and modeled a different relationship to consumption and care.
Conservation and regenerative farming teach patience. They invite systems thinking. They remind us that nothing grows in isolation. Soil health depends on biodiversity and crops depend on pollinators. People depend on each other. I founded Driftless Commons with a 60-year vision of deepening my commitment to ecological, economic, and human sustainability. Food, land, shelter, and belonging aren’t luxuries, they are foundations on which we live and thrive.
When the opportunity to lead Jewish Social Services of Madison emerged, I recognized that same ecosystem logic at play. Refugee resettlement, senior care, and spiritual care are not standalone programs. They are parts of a community system that either thrives together or fractures together. The values I practice on the farm of care, stewardship, and shared responsibility are the same values that animate JSS.
Q: With the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program still halted, what are some of the services you are offering to the refugees already here?
A: With the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program currently halted, it can feel as though the story has paused. But for refugees already living in Madison and Dane County, life continues. Rent is still due. Children are still enrolling in school. Medical appointments still require interpretation. Immigration deadlines do not disappear.
At JSS, we continue to provide case management that includes employment support, benefits navigation, and housing assistance for individuals and families who arrived through refugee pathways, humanitarian parole, or Temporary Protected Status. We support clients as they adjust status, apply for permanent residency when eligible, respond to shifting federal policies, and understand their rights.
Our team walks alongside families as they work through these endeavors and build the kinds of community ties that transform “arrival” into “home.” We partner with schools, healthcare providers, landlords, and employers. We coordinate volunteers, troubleshoot crises, and sit at kitchen tables explaining complicated letters from federal agencies in plain language.
In this climate, these services are not just helpful, they are critical. Policies change quickly, and rumors travel even faster. A missed filing or simple misunderstanding can have life-altering consequences. JSS helps ensure that families are not navigating that complexity alone.
Q: Are there collaborations with Open Doors that you are looking forward to?
A: Our partnership with Open Doors for Refugees is both essential and deeply encouraging. When community organizations choose collaboration over competition, the people we serve benefit. There is tremendous power when each organization brings its strengths and moves forward together with intention.
In recent months, Jason and I have been closely watching what has unfolded in cities like Minneapolis and Chicago, where nonprofit organizations and community groups have come together in solidarity with immigrant communities in response to increased immigration enforcement. Here in Madison, we’ve taken that lesson to heart. For several weeks now, Open Doors and JSS have been meeting alongside partners including Voces de la Frontera, Catholic Multicultural Center, the Islamic Center, the African Center, and Literacy Network to coordinate a proactive model of support centered around community members impacted by changing immigration policies and practices.
While we sincerely hope Madison will not experience the level of ICE activity that neighboring cities have seen, we believe preparation is an act of care. Together, our organizations are building a coordinated response so that if families face disruption, they will not have to navigate it alone. Our planning focuses on practical, immediate support: food security, transportation, employment coordination, immigration legal assistance, communication with schools, healthcare access, and housing stabilization.
Even without large-scale enforcement activity, we are already seeing how fear and uncertainty ripple through a community. Anxiety and stress are rising. People who once felt rooted in our city are suddenly unsure whether it is safe to go to work, take their children to school, or seek medical care.
This is precisely why collaboration matters.
Open Doors brings an extraordinary volunteer network – neighbors who show up with generosity and practical help. JSS brings decades of experience in refugee case management and navigating complex systems alongside immigrant families. When those strengths are woven together, we create something larger than either organization could build alone.
My hope is that through our partnership, and the broader coalition forming across Dane County, we are helping to build a powerful counternarrative: that Madison is a community that welcomes, protects, and stands alongside its neighbors.
Q: These are troubling times. Would you like to share something that has given you hope since you started?
A: These are undeniably troubling times. National headlines are heavy. Families are worried. Nonprofits are navigating funding uncertainty and shifting regulations, and yet there are so many stories of resilience unfolding quietly in our city every day. Families are starting businesses. Children are thriving in school. Neighbors are forming friendships across languages and cultures.
In my first months at JSS, I have witnessed extraordinary courage. I think of a family who arrived with almost nothing and, within a year, both parents were employed, their children thriving in school, and the mother studying for her driver’s test so she could expand her job opportunities. I think of a small business owner who began in an entry-level job and is now a thriving entrepreneur. I think of volunteers who show up week after week to tutor English or help someone prepare for a job interview.
Hope, I have been reminded, is not abstract. It is logistical. It looks like a rideshare to a medical appointment. It looks like a donated couch. It looks like a pro bono attorney reviewing paperwork late at night. It looks like neighbors choosing not to look away.
The Jewish community has carried the memory of displacement for generations. Many of our elders remember stories of closed borders and narrow escapes. That historical memory creates both responsibility and resilience. We know what it means to rebuild and survive. And we know that even one welcoming hand can change the trajectory of a life.
Madison has the capacity to be a place of refuge, not just in theory, but in practice. Jewish Social Services of Madison is honored to play our part, and we are deeply grateful to partners like Open Doors for Refugees who understand that welcome is not a slogan, it is daily work.
Thank you Monica for your time and effort with Jewish Social Services! Open Doors is grateful for the work that JSS puts in as a partner.