So, here is the daily dilemma of being a synagogue executive director. In my meeting with our president last Friday, I was asked to count our members and present data.
On Saturday, our Sr Rabbi reminded me what the Torah tells us, that during the counting of the Omer, and last night was the 43rd day of the Omer, it is a sin to count people directly and doing so would bring plague on the people of Israel....so what's an executive director to do?
As part of the job, the Exec director has to find a creative way to move things ahead yet please everyone - here is some data for you in a way that I hope won't bring plagues upon us:
For the first time in 9 years, Kol Shofar has had a net growth in households - the number of new households 69, exceeded the number of resigning households by 15.
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We have 1,327 bellybuttons walking in and out of our programs, services and events, representing 473 households
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There are 266 households with children ages 0-25 representing 56% of the congregation.
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149 sets of ears attended beit binah, tichon and/or were part of the madrichim program this year - 8 sets of ears more than last year.
In a quick breakdown of individual adults, for the people who actually gave us their ages
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161 are 26- 34 years old
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199 are 35-50 years old
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242 are 50-60 years old
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255 are 61-75 years old
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63 are over the age of 75
In order to communicate better with all these individuals we began a more formalized communications strategy which, with direction from Michael Perman, VP
Communications, included a redesign of our website, greater use of social networks and other digital systems such as Facebook, online Eventbrite registrations and the beginning of a social community linked to our website.
We reinstated the Kol Shofar Klassifieds in response to your requests. We continue to tweak all of these entities as we get responses and suggestions from each of you.
This year we are starting a new iteration of the KS newsletter - it will be quarterly and replace the six month program guide It will have interesting articles written by different people as well as program calendars and will be online and in hard copy. If you would like to help with this please come see me.
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In the Bay Area, there is a stereotype of the Conservative Jew...someone who reads and speaks Hebrew fluently, davens for hours, is highly literate Jewishly, isn't necessarily open to interfaith families, doesn't welcome those who don't follow the traditional line of support for Israel etc. But in real life, that is yesterday's cliché.
Today, we know that Kol Shofar defines the Conservative Jew in Marin and that this individual is "every" person.
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People who are Jewish, people who want to be Jewish, people who support a
Jewish partner.
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Those who want to learn more, those who know more than anyone else, those who lead a spiritual life and those who would want be a part of a holiday celebration rather than a minyan,
 those who want the closest synagogue, those who want the synagogue like they knew growing up.
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Singles raising children alone, families with 3-4 kids, empty nesters with kids in college, retired adults, adults living with their kids, adults taking care of grandchildren...to name just a few.
Jewish identity is all over the map. I get to meet everyone who comes in the door to find out about Kol Shofar and the one thing that everyone wants, no matter what their demographic, is Jewish community.
Our new strategies to lower the barriers to participating in our community are working.
At our meeting last year, Mark Swoiskin spoke about the concepts of relational Judaism and the plan to enable and encourage more meaningful relationships between and among our members. In addition, I reported on the great success of Links, a new buddy system that was established through a grant from the Federation.
This year, we took an exponential leap in strategy to connect our members with conversation and meaning through the Ambassador program. Led by Karen Hirsch, Greg
Sigal, Lauren Levitan and Mark Swoiskin, board, staff and 30 specific and terrific volunteers were trained in techniques that allowed more purposeful connection with members. Our Ambassadors have made phone calls, had Shabbat dinners or met for coffee with new and established members to get to know them and to create and support a warmer link to our community.
We will be extending this concept of conversation throughout the coming year. With the help of Bob Daniel, we have created a unique digital mapping program that will allow us to cluster members by target groups throughout Marin. We are inviting different groups to for conversations about your experiences at Kol Shofar. This program under the leadership of Cynthia Ulman VP Strategic Planning will begin in June and continue throughout the year.
Another strategy for lowering the barriers was a pilot program to offer a self - assessed support contribution for new members and for members who have requested dues adjustments in the past. We wanted to lose the feelings of guilt from people when they asked for dues reductions, we want to open the conversation and the doors.
In the 2013-14 fiscal year, 59 new households became a part of our community, plus 10 previous affiliated member households rejoined under this program, a total of 69 new members. While there are some fiscal ramifications of this self assessed contribution
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program, we also know that that this innovative way of looking at individual support, has had positive results:
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Fees for Beit Binah were higher with requests for fewer scholarships, indicative of families willing to pay more for education when they can set a comfortable value on supporting the general institution that provides that education.
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More people are engaged in volunteer work than in the previous year - we have different people on our committees - many new members are getting involved and offering their skills and time. For the first time in a long time, it is not just the usual core of people who are doing the volunteer work.
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Fundraising is more successful - we are moving towards a real culture of commitment.
Research by James Andreoni, in 1989 identified the “warm glow” theory of giving.
Warm glow refers to the personal pleasure people feel in knowing they have contributed to a good cause. All I can say is that we have a lot of hot stuff in this community.
Donations to the annual campaign/Torah project and to the annual gala exceeded our wildest expectations this year. Gina De Angelis, our fearless Gala chair, and Deb
Stadtner, VP Financial Resources and their amazing committee brought 262 beachcombers and $150,000 of revenue this year surpassing the budget net bottom line.
Importantly, of 162 households that are on an adjusted contribution for membership, 20% gave to the annual gala and 57% gave to the Annual campaign /Torah project. Of the new members this year 15% gave to the Gala and 28 % gave to the annual campaign/Torah project.
Our annual campaign centered on Torah - both writing a new one and retiring our
Holocaust Torah. This campaign exceeded our budget and allowed us to create the first
Marin Holocaust Memorial. I'd like to take a minute to thank Sandy Stadtler and Mark
Friedman for their tireless fundraising efforts this year.
Membership is growing as Kol Shofar continues to meet the needs of our contemporary
Jewish community and balance it with the needs of a business.
Beginning this year, you are considered an active participant in the Kol Shofar community until you tell us that you are not. Your membership will no longer begin and end with the fiscal year. The innovation and the budget committee have developed communications and billing strategies that will enable your membership to automatically roll over each fiscal year. No more gobs of paper to complete to assure your membership.
We want to make it simple for you to have a Jewish community that you can depend on.
Your relationships with and within the synagogue are most important.
Speaking of giving back...Our Shabbat Greeters program is doing very well this year.
Katherine Harband handed the baton over to Barbara MacEntyre during the year. Under both their leadership we have a system for recruiting volunteers, announcing volunteers and having warm and welcoming people at our door on Shabbat.
And, the Chai Lights group, which one hub of our membership committee has been one of the most exciting areas of program and connection growth. Under the leadership of
Elaine Levy and Frances Wisch, 13 volunteers create and lead programs for adults that
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include museum trips, hikes, and other interesting activities. The last program, organized by Arlene Greenberg, had 40 pairs of legs taking a hike through the Nike Missile base.
Our monthly Baking Chavurah volunteers facilitated by cooking maven Barbara
Schwartz made thousands of cookies, hamantschen, challah, honey cakes (yes we can count those) that filled our tummies for holidays and Shabbats.
In addition to the ongoing partnerships with Dominican College, the Osher Marin JCC and Jewish Learning Works, we have been able to offer wonderful theatre nights at the
Marin Theatre Company organized by Molly Dick and Susan Holdstein.
The Board also established a new program called Volunteer Concierge - we want to educate everyone in the Kol Shofar community, no matter what age, about opportunities for volunteering and we will match your needs with the needs of the shul committees, task forces and programs. Laura Giacomini and Vanessa Friedman are heading up this sorely needed strategy and you will be hearing more about this from them during the summer. Whether you have a few minutes, a few hours or many months of time to give, we will find something for you that will make you feel wonderful as a volunteer.
This past year, in addition to highly successful learning experiences taught by our rabbis, volunteers, and in our school, we offered music programs, author interviews, Bridges to
Israel speakers, scholars in residence study opportunities - an amazing member talent show produced by Ron Berman, gallery openings and many other classes and programs in partnership with Dominican College and the JCC.
And yes, we did count the tucheses in the seats - and we consider the 250 + in this room or the beit knesset each time, a resounding success with members and guests laughing, thinking, schmoozing and being a part of our community .
Speaking of our facility, we hope to extend weekend hours and ability to use our beautiful spaces this year. There is a strong task force that is working with the city of
Tiburon to modify our conditional use permit. Josh Steinhauer, Bruce Raful, Ron Brown and Michael Rubenstein are leading the charge.
I want to take a few minutes to thank our amazing staff that supports not only the clergy and me but goes out of their way to support each and every member of this community; they work as team with grace and efficiency every day. Please stand if you are here:
Sharon Brusman, Daliah Neuberger, Kirk Kim and our Maintenance staff: Anthony
Ketchum, Jack Klassen, John Mason, Rachel Denrich, Jordan Hopstone, Jonathan
Emanuel. Pam Louie, Susanne Strimling, Marcy Levy Klassen
Some staffing changes will take place in June and July. As you know, Sharon has taken another position and we have found an amazing new staff person for the position of
Executive Assistant to the Executive Director, Ireen Litvak. Also, in June, we will all meet our new full time financial manager, Jenni Sutton who will join the team. Marcy
Levy Klassen - if you saw your email this morning, will be retiring in early July and we will have a special opportunity for the congregation to thank Marcy for her 18 years of service to this community.
I want to end with a story:
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Several weeks ago there was a wedding notice in the NY Times. I read through the usual descriptions of the bride and groom - both were doctors, both sets of parents were doctors
- the perfect Jewish couple.
And then I read the one line that really said it all - it read" the couple met as 2 year olds at
Temple Isaiah Preschool in Palm Springs." Talk about relationship building! I hope that some day, I will be reading the same line with the name JCC Preschool Tiburon at Kol
Shofar in it.
Many changes will be taking place between now and then, changes which will enable us to grow and prosper. To paraphrase Nora Ephron from her speech to Wellesley grads in
1996: change is messy but we must embrace the mess. Change is complicated but we rejoice in its complications.
Beginning the changes at Kol Shofar has been easy, continuing it is hard. Society has a remarkable ability to resist change or to take whatever change has taken place and attempt to make it go away. We, at Kol Shofar understand that all our new experimentative programs and strategies lead to transformation. Change is one of the most important things we can do to meet our obligations to Judaism and to Marin Jews in today’s world.
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