News from Kol Ami

on Thursday, 01 October 2015.

Shana tova. On behalf of the Board of Directors, it is my pleasure to welcome our congregants, their families and all of our guests to Kol Ami.

We have come together as a community to celebrate the New Year and look to the synagogue to help us in our spiritual journey through the High Holy Days. All of us reflecting on the past year and contemplating the year ahead. So I thought perhaps it would be appropriate to talk about where Kol Ami has been in the past year and review the outlook for next year.
5775 was a year that saw the leadership and staff at Kol Ami incorporate the ideas of Relational Judaism in our work. While we are just at the beginning of the process and certainly there have been bumps in the road, we are well on our way and continue to work to incorporate these ideas into everything we do. Unfortunately, we have continued to struggle with our membership numbers. However, I am so encouraged by the positive feedback I receive when talking to people who have been exposed to Kol Ami for the first time. Much of this positive feedback is a result of the welcome our members have extended as they have gone out of their way to embrace newcomers and make them feel at home.

The volunteer leadership of Kol Ami, supported by our professional staff have been hard at work for a few months working on our plans and goals for the next year. As President, I feel truly fortunate to have such an incredible group of people gathered around our Board table and in the few meetings we have had so far I can tell you that there is a real passion, drive and sense of purpose present.
Our focus as a Board is in four areas:

1) First, continuing the work we began last year in building relationships between members and expanding this effort to those outside of these walls.
2) Second, reviewing and reimagining our current dues model.
3) Third, improving our fundraising efforts.
4) And fourth, expanding our volunteer engagement.

In the area of building relationships, we know from the successful work done by people like Dr. Ron Wolfson, author of the book Relational Judaism, that people define their connection to a synagogue by the quality of the relationships they have with other members and with clergy and staff. We see evidence of this here at Kol Ami, for example, in our Adult B’nai Mitzvah class where 10 hardworking members have come together for a 2 year program to become B’nai Mitzvah... and in the process have built very close relationships with each other that have greatly strengthened their connection to our shul. It is not by chance that our programming is implemented only after first asking the question “How can we make this relational?” We are also seeing this in our monthly Torah and Sushi program and soon we will see it in our Chai Mitzvah program... and I know the Rabbi is working hard to find ways of making relationship building a component of all of our programming at Kol Ami.

But it is simply not enough to develop relationships between our members; we must reach out and begin the process of developing those relationships with non-members and with those who don’t even know about our synagogue. During the early part of summer, Rabbi Streiffer and I met with Paul Golin from Big Tent Judaism, a group that is dedicated to helping synagogues learn best practices of outreach and what they term “public space Judaism”. Rabbi Streiffer has enrolled in the Professional Affiliates program and I am part of the Ambassadors Program for volunteer leaders. It is our hope that over the next year we will be able to roll out programs that allow us to share what we love about Kol Ami to the wider community.

On the issue Dues Models, our history in North America has seen a variety of ways that Synagogues collect money in order to fund themselves. From selling seats in the early 1900’s to Annual Dues as a percentage of income, to flat rate dues, there have been many models that have been used. Today as the financial challenges are greater than ever, ideas are needed to help fund our organization and to do so in a way that appeals to members who have so many options when considering how they can fulfil their religious needs. We also need to appeal to those that have not been satisfied with any of the current models and have chosen to not participate at all. In addition, we know that our current process for working with those members who require financial support is not ideal.

Over the next 18 months, Barry Stein and I will be leading the work on this subject by participating in the URJ’s Community of Practice as it relates to dues. This is an intensive 18 month program that with your help will redefine how we approach our funding model in the years ahead. There will be much more on this topic and how our members can participate in the coming months as the program will kick off at the URJ Biennial which takes place this November.

Looking back at history of Kol Ami, a significant portion of our revenue came from fundraising, be that bingo , galas, or general donations. In recent years our fundraising efforts have fallen dramatically and we are now exploring ways to restore this important funding source. The Board, with approval of our Finance committee, has hired a fundraising consulting firm to help us understand the current fundraising landscape and to build an appropriate strategy to ensure we achieve our short and long term goals. Part of the outcome of this work will be to help us clearly define the story that makes all of us want to be members here so that we can share it with potential donors and potential new members as they consider Kol Ami for themselves and their families. Our work will begin as soon as the High Holidays are over and will give all of our members the opportunity to participate by sharing their thoughts on Kol Ami. We are very much looking forward to your feedback and ideas.

Several weeks ago, I had the pleasure of joining Rabbi Streiffer and a number of Kol Ami members as we attended Shabbat morning services at the cottage of one of our major financial supporters, Leslie and Anna Dan. That morning the Rabbi gave his D’Var Torah on Parsha D’Varim, D’Varim he explained means “Words” but it also means “Deads” or “Actions”. In fact, the basic unit of Jewish life is defined by actions....the Mitzvot. He concluded by saying that “The actions we take in prayer, study, mourning and celebration and in building relationships help build our community”. I would add one more action that helps build our community and that is the action of volunteering. We at Kol Ami have a dedicated group of volunteers who tirelessly work for the betterment of our synagogue community. Unfortunately this group is relatively small given the amount of programming we put on for a synagogue of our size and one of my goals to help expand our volunteer base.

Now I know what you are thinking. If I volunteer to bake cookies for the bake sale, the next thing you know I will be asked to be on a committee and then on the Board and by Pesach I will be President of Kol Ami!!! So maybe I better not start. While there is probably a grain to truth in that thought, I would like to suggest the following. First, think about what you might like to do in terms of activity and time commitment. And second, don’t be afraid to say no if asked to do more than you are truly comfortable. And if you do have to say no, don’t feel bad, and don’t feel guilty. The bottom line is that we as a synagogue will be much better off with 300 people doing a little bit than we will be with 30 people working around the clock and burning themselves out in the process. If you are interested, please reach out to any of our Board or Staff members.

And finally, I would like to thank all of the people who have worked so hard to make this year’s High Holy Day services run so smoothly. As I am sure everyone here knows, there is a tremendous amount of work that goes into the planning and organizing of these services. Everything from the honours, to choir music, ushers, security, babysitting and parking all has to be meticulously organized. In particular I would like to thank Naomi Cohen & Errol Seef who are the Chairs of our High Holy Days Committee and committee members Eve Lypsic, Janice Prut and Annette Seef for making the flower arrangements that adorn our bimah. I would also like to thank Sean Goldman & our Kol Ami Choir for the beautiful music you have brought to our services. I have been in the building quite a bit this summer and it seem that every time I drop in you are practicing. Your dedication and effort is truly appreciated. And last but not least thank you to our professional staff, Rabbi Streiffer, our cantorial soloist Rachel Shubert, office manager Ella Mendelovitz, Judy Silver and Lois Zoltak for managing our children’s program and all of the other volunteer members that have participated in making these services so meaningful.

On behalf of the Board and myself, I wish you all a happy, healthy and sweet New Year. Shana Tova.

Mark Wolpert