Following a push for day schools and birthright israel trips, Jewish “continuity” experts and philanthropists are raising the flag for another institution: the Jewish camp.

“The Jewish people today, we are in trouble — our demographics are in horrible condition,” said Harold Grinspoon, principal of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation and the Grinspoon Institute for Jewish Philanthropy.

“Jewish camps are one of the fundamental places we have to put our emphasis,” he said “If we’re going to keep ourselves from dissipating in this marvelous democracy, it’s going to be because we put our kids around the campfire.”

Grinspoon spoke during a panel of philanthropists at the first-ever National Leaders Assembly of the Foundation for Jewish Camping. More than 400 people gathered last Sunday and Monday in Jersey City for a conference that brought together leaders of camps from across the Jewish spectrum — from unaffiliated and Zionist movement camps to those run by the religious movements and Jewish community centers.

The Foundation for Jewish Camping, Inc., an organization established by Montclair residents and philanthropists Rob Bildner and Elisa Spungen Bildner, aims to be the central address for Jewish camping nationwide.

“Our goal was to bring together for the first time in history the professionals and lay leadership of Jewish camping to celebrate Jewish camping, to learn together, to share insights, and to make a statement that camping is on the Jewish agenda,” said Rob Bildner. “The highlight for most of us was the electricity in the air, and the spirit, and people meeting each other with so much in common. It’s the first time ever that Jewish camps have come together. A movement has begun.”

The meeting drew participants from across the country to hear from funders and from experts who addressed best practices. By bringing together leaders of diverse camps, organizers also were hoping to spur the launch of a unified Jewish camping movement that will work toward what individual camps can’t achieve on their own.

“It is extraordinarily important to create and support a national movement for Jewish camping,” said Elisa Spungen Bildner, who said she was thrilled to see Jewish camping embraced by leaders of all denominations at the morning plenary session on March 6. “Unless it becomes part of the national agenda, we will not succeed in our goal of bettering Jewish camping.”

The foundation announced at the conference that it was launching the Executive Leadership Initiative to offer experienced camp professionals support in developing business, management, and leadership skills at a cost of $27,000 to $30,000 per participant.

One foundation leader likened the program — which will include development seminars, one-on-one coaching and mentoring, and other programming — to an MBA program for Jewish camp leaders.

“We have to be able to really invest in our people, to open their eyes to the wider marketplace,” said foundation’s president Jerry Silverman. This “has never been the culture in Jewish camping.”

In addition, Silverman said, the movement must boost its advocacy capabilities, including through research, marketing and public relations; increase its capacity, both by upping the number of available beds and creating new camps in underserved areas; and working toward excellence by seeking out money for innovative programming.

All of this, foundation leaders say, will cost somewhere in the vicinity of a half-billion dollars. Raising that money will mean convincing philanthropists that camping is an essential component for building Jewish identity and ensuring Jewish continuity.

The foundation hopes to conduct a study on the effect the Jewish camping experience has on youngsters and their Jewishness. There are more than 130 nonprofit, overnight Jewish summer camps in North America serving some 60,000 campers. About 12,000 college students and 7,000 other Jewish adults staff these camps.

A study of the Conservative movement’s Ramah camps found that college students raised in Conservative synagogues who had attended Camp Ramah were more observant of Jewish ritual than those who hadn’t gone to the camp, more positive about Jewish and Zionist identity, more inclined to date and marry Jews, and more active in Jewish life on campus.

Silverman expects the data to confirm what he has long known anecdotally.

“I personally think that Jewish camp is the best insurance policy we have within the Jewish menu of experiences that we can give Jewish children today in terms of Jewish identity and continuity over the long haul,” he said.

The AVI CHAI Foundation, whose first and biggest foray into Jewish education was in the realm of day schools, sees things similarly. In 2002, the organization, then considering an expansion of its philanthropic agenda, published a study of community-sponsored and private camping.

Today, AVI CHAI funds a fellowship to retain and train returning third-year counselors at Jewish camps and backs a Jewish Agency for Israel program that encourages Israeli emissaries to return to American camps for more than one summer. It has also begun an interest-free loan program for construction and renovation at Jewish summer camps and has partnered with the JCCs of North America on a training program for JCC camp directors.

“Day schools reach a relatively small percentage of non-Orthodox families,” said Yossi Prager, AVI CHAI’s executive director. “We were looking for a way to reach out to a larger group. The combination of the fun aspect of camp coupled with the 24/7 environment really has the potential for shaping Jewish identities.

There was no shortage of big ideas bandied about at the conference, but one that was embraced at a variety of forums was the idea of using camps as year-round retreats for congregational schools, synagogues, families, and other Jewish groups.

Max Kleinman, executive vice president of United Jewish Communities of MetroWest New Jersey, called himself “a great advocate of Jewish residential camps,” who met his own wife at camp. He embraced the idea of year-round camping, particularly for religious schools. “There’s an obvious synergy between residential camps and congregational schools. If they dovetail, at the end of the day, the congregational school will be more successful.” He also suggested that because residential camps are such a critical piece of one’s “Jewish journey,” there ought to be a more “seamless” relationship between day camps and sleep-away camps, and between denominational synagogues and their camps.

Leonard Robinson, executive director at the New Jersey Y camps, a presenter as well as a participant, hailed the conference. “The leadership provided by the Bildners is long overdue,” he said. “We’re one of the largest Jewish camps, but we have a lot to learn. There’s an incredibly high level group of professionals and lay leaders here today. I’m walking away with new ideas.”

For Robinson, one of the biggest challenges is recruiting. “Families have to see the Jewish experience as important as well as having a quality camp experience. If we don’t provide a quality camping experience, very few Jews will choose to have Jewish experiences.”

FJC is now considering whether to repeat the conference annually or biannually.

“We have a desperate need to have more buy-in from major philanthropists to pull all of this off,” said Elisa Spungen Bildner.