Thanks to the folks at New York’s Mann About Town for featuring me in their January 2009 issue. It’s really a very nice article and you should subscribe to their magazine. Subscribe twice because some articles are worth re-reading.

Here’s the text of the article. Photos and more here.

Helping from the Heart

It’s fifteen minutes past midnight and a steady flow of fans exits Manhattan’s A-list Broadway Comedy Club. “Thanks for coming,” says a dapper 26 year-old with a dimpled smile and a bright glint in his eye. “Oh, man, you were great, do you ever travel?” says a fan, the fiftieth-or-so to repeat this in a row, this one with a British accent. “Thanks, if you’d like, join my fan list and I’ll let you know when I’m coming to your town.” And so Ari Teman’s fan list is filled with the names of fans who have gotten to know him through his refreshingly clever, personable and insightful act.

However, they only know a fraction about Ari Teman. In a typical day Teman acts as CEO of a hot startup company, the head of an international volunteer organization, a writer, blogger, inventor, and artist. He has seven email addresses, three phone numbers, and every social networking tool out there. Pick a career that would overwhelm anyone, and Teman does five of them. And he’s just getting started.

Two years ago, Teman founded JCorps, considered the world’s first “social volunteering” network. JCorps (http://JCorps.org) is a non-denominational network that groups Jewish adults ages 18-28 to volunteer. Starting with $300, Teman built it into an organization with thousands of members, operating in New York, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Montreal, and Toronto. In a typical year it feeds 21,000 meals to the hungry, comforts hundreds of seniors, and visits many children in hospitals. If you’re enjoying the park, there’s a good chance a JCorps volunteer helped clean it up. The amazing thing is, Teman runs JCorps as a volunteer.

While charities around the world are complaining about decreasing donations, JCorps is entirely volunteer-run and continues to grow rapidly. Using the latest technology and empowering Team Leaders to make decisions within set guidelines, JCorps grows as fast as volunteers want it to grow — which it turns out is very fast. JCorps is about to open in two more US cities.

JCorps has also been studied by Hebrew University and the Cohen Center at Brandeis University. It has received grants from Google, and counts companies like Verizon and McGraw Hill as donors.

For all this, Teman was named to The Jewish Week’s “36 Under 36″, recognizing the top innovators in the New York community. Teman is also deeply involved with other New York charities and events, and is often asked onto committees. Last year Teman was lauded in area papers for his use of psychology and high-technology to help the Sensi charity dinner raise almost half a million dollars online.

Teman is also the CEO of 12gurus, an award-winning innovation startup with a series of recognized services. One, GatherGrid (http://gathergrid.com ), was just called “the most useful interface I’ve seen to-date” by CenterNetworks, one of the worlds top technology magazines. It helps find you the ideal meeting or call time for a group of people, and it’s 100% free with no registration required. In keeping with his charity theme, GatherGrid even donates 10% of revenues to a charity you choose. Teman’s second startup, Contempe (http://contempe.com ), is poised to revolutionize the way you email, it will save firms millions of dollars a year in wasted time, and can increase email marketing response rates by double. But other than that, it’s a stealth company, so you’ll have to wait a few months to see its magic — or get in as an investor.

If you want to make things happen, you go to Teman. Last year Teman, who jokes with audiences, “I’m a Republican — It’s not a political thing. I just don’t like helping people.” invented a web-based system to connect and track political lobbying calls over the Internet. It was used to help rally on behalf of Jerusalem. The campaign, and the system it used, PhoneLobby (http://phonelobby.com ), also a 12gurus product, was covered by the Washington Post and Salon Magazine. For three days, the White House, State Department, and Israel Embassy call centers were overwhelmed and unable to handle the volume of callers Teman’s system drove their way. Both governments abandoned talks about dividing Jerusalem.

When Teman isn’t on stage or at some charity function, you can catch him speeding around Manhattan on his bike, hitting the latest restaurants with friends, or touring museums. Not one just to observe, Teman is an artist who sold a print last year at an auction by the renowned Simon dePury. Teman holds honors degrees in Studio Arts and Psychology from Brandeis University and will be honored at a Brandeis student dinner this year for his contributions as a student and alumni.

If there’s something magical about Ari it’s that you’d never suspect he had ten million plates spinning at once. Laid back and jovial, Ari will connect with you at an intense level and you’ll rapidly find yourself smiling and laughing. The fact that he’s got Edison’s brain cranking our solutions to your problems doesn’t hurt, but what’s reassuring is that no matter how difficult the problem is, Ari’s got a joke to help you smile about it.

And jokes he’s got! Ari is a regular at some of the country’s top comedy clubs. In New York, he’s a favorite at the Broadway Comedy Club (53rd and 8th Ave) and Stand~Up NY (78th and Broadway) and you can see him on the line-ups among comics from the Tonight Show, Letterman, Conan, SNL, and Comedy Central. He’s also a favorite at private events. After a recent performance at NYU, the vice president of the student organization that booked him called Teman, “comic genius”, and promised to have him back. Teman is a Jewlarious Magazine featured comic – putting him among Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David, Richard Lewis, Modi, Avi Liberman, and Robert Klein.

Teman’s style is endearing and mischievous at the same time. He can talk about racial and political topics and dance on the edge of the line and you’ll love him like a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar. He’s clean and innocent, and yet he’s got this inherent naughtiness to him that you notice as he walks the audience into realizing and laughing at their own biases. He’s Richard Lewis-meets-Lewis Black-meets-Larry David and he’s something entirely new. He has you laughing at the setups to his jokes and dying at the punch line. He’s strikingly intellectual and always five steps ahead of the audience. If you think you see it coming – you’ll always be pleasantly surprised. Amazingly, you leave the club after watching Ari, full of hope and wonder. Like the comic himself, you begin to see the world differently, and you smile.

Teman brings all of his passions together hosting charity comedy shows for organizations like BigBrothersBigSisters, the One Family Fund, and even JCorps, raising thousands for charities through laughter.

See when Ari is performing near you and connect with him at http://ariteman.com/schedule.

To learn more about JCorps, visit: http://jcorps.org