Planning for the Future

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Planning for the Future

Beth El Temple Center

May 2008

Strategic Planning Team

“If you will it, it is no dream”Theodore Herzl

BETC Strategic Plan 2

Agenda

The Journey

Strategic Planning Process Overview

Strategic Plan

Questions

BETC Strategic Plan

How did we get here?

The big picture:

• The BETC Board committed to Leadership Development

• The Leadership Development Team participated in a year-long program

• The Board committed to a Strategic Planning Process

• The Strategic Planning Leadership Action Team committed to seek out and listen to as many voices as possible and come back to the community with a vision and a plan.


Strategic Planning - Why?

What do we want as a congregation?

Where are we going?

How do we want to do our organizational business?

How do we want to be with each other?

How do we move forward and make changes asa spiritual Jewish institution?

A Strategic Planning process can provide a healthy framework for these questions and for the implementation of the answers.

BETC Strategic Plan

Strategic Planning

Our Mission is the purpose for which our organization exists.

Our Vision is a detailed picture of our idealized self in the future.

Our Strategic Plan includes a concrete plan of actions to bring us from our mission toward our vision.

Our Strategic Plan will provide a spiritual and organizational road map:

• It will help guide future board and congregational decision-making

• It will help us determine and prioritize our shared institutional and spiritual principles

• It will further build our community and enhance our spiritual connection to each other


Strategic Planning Goal

To secure Beth El Temple Center as a thriving,

vibrant, and holy congregation for now and the future.

“You are not obligated to complete the task,but neither are you free to refrain from it” – Pirkei Avot


What did we do this year?• Jan ’08 Congregational Interviews & Snapshot

CJP Consultants, David Trietsch and Amy Gorin spent one month interviewing a selection of congregants from a range of categories (age, life style, relationship to the Temple, experience with the various aspects of Temple life).

From those interviews, David and Amy created a congregational “Snapshot” of BETC,its strengths and challenges as perceived by the congregational community.

Jan ‘08 Workshop: Snapshot of BETC Now Community conversation facilitated by our LDI consultant Where we are, what we love and what the challenges are

• Feb ‘08 Workshop: Visioning the Future Congregational workshop to create a vision for BETC's future Identify widely shared aspirations and values in the community

• Apr ‘08 Workshop: Create an Action Plan for getting from now to the future Distil themes of major importance to the congregation Working groups develop a prioritized, integrated action plan that will move us towards our

Vision.

• May ‘08 Strategic Plan Presentation


Our “snapshot” - Jan ‘08

What we appreciate about Beth El Temple Center:

• BETC is great community that people joined for a number of different reasons, but people stay because it is a warm, diverse, and caring Jewish religious place where they have created deep and lasting relationships.

• We are proud of our commitment to diversity and to being inclusive in all ways.

• When we come to services, we are enthusiastic and engaged.

• When we perform Tikkun Olam, we are dedicated.

• We are committed to respecting each other, in spite of and because of our differences.

BETC Strategic Plan

Where we are today... Where we might be in the future...

FROM TO

Doing a lot of things Doing things purposefully and by design

Members feeling unconnected/ Members feeling invested/broadlysmall core of active members engaged and connected congregation

Focus on day-to-day management/ Incorporating Vision into management plan/competing priorities & agendas shared priorities & agendas

Change to meet immediate needs/ Change within the context of our Vision/ad-hoc use of resources strategic use of resources

Inefficient communication Effective, streamlined communication

Fee-for-service relationship with BETC Covenental relationship with BETC and each other


Our Core Values

• The Strategic Planning Team used your positive voices to create a set of CORE VALUES. These core values, derived from the snapshot workshop, the Board retreat, and many additionally conversations, represent the “HOW” -- the way in which we will strive to act to reach our vision.

• BETH EL TEMPLE CENTER'S CORE VALUES: We choose to do things within a Jewish context and to see things through a

Jewish lens. We choose to enhance and build a deep sense of Community in all we do. We choose to be inclusive, creating a connection between diverse parts of our

Jewish Community. We choose to show Kavod—respect for all—and treat each other as if we are all

created in the image of G-d.

BETC Strategic Plan

Visioning Workshop - Feb ‘08

• Envision the future of BETC in 2018, when our temple is known as “a

vibrant, successful congregation”

• Paint a picture of where we see ourselves in the future.

• We generated many wonderful ideas including:

creating a director of adult activities

developing a social action youth program

establishing regular Havdallah services for our community

BETC Strategic Plan

BETC Vision Our Strategic Planning Team distilled the workshop ideas, along with detailed

feedback from our Board retreats, meetings with committee chairs, and our Mission Statement process to draft a VISION STATEMENT-- a description of our idealized self, set in the future.

The “WHAT” we desire/dream to be as an organization/community and theset of criteria by which our decisions are measured:

• BETC’s Vision is of a vibrant Jewish religious community: Where the culture, structure and activities support a sense of Community

and multiple levels of Connections throughout the Community That is self-sustaining, and both fiscally and resource responsible Where all are treated with Respect (Kavod) That is Imbued with a thread of holiness Where we consider our work through a Jewish lens

BETC Strategic Plan

Action Plan Workshop - April 08

• After brainstorming specific actions that would take us from where we are today to our vision, we sought out additional feedback from several committees and congregants.

• How did we go from the long list of ideas to where we are today? How did we decide which actions would best take from where we are today, to where we want to be?

• We needed to figure out a system to prioritize all of the great ideas—we needed a set of criteria and means by which to measure it: First, we used our CORE VALUES to determine whether the action fell within our

community's core set of beliefs. If it did, we kept it in. Then, if the actions were specific enough, we measured them against our

VISION.

BETC Strategic Plan

Action Plan Impact & CriteriaGuidelines used to determine items to include in our action plan:

• If successful, would the action have a high, medium, or low impact on reaching our

vision? We prioritized actions that fell in the high category, assuming they would have

the biggest impact.

Would the action strengthen our community connections a little or a lot?

Would the success of the action be weighted with a sense of spirituality—of

religiousness, of holiness?

• We measured the potential action against key criteria:

How much did it cost?

How many people would it take to get it moving—to run it?

How much time would it take to accomplish?

How much “energy” was already brewing in support of this action area and was

there a current committee structure which might take it on? .

• We painstakingly determined which ACTION IDEAS were HIGH IMPACT and started

from there.

BETC Strategic Plan

Action Plan

Use the values and criteria we identified to align our decisions toward reaching our vision.

Identify key actions we can take over the next year as we work together to reach our goal of BETC as a vibrant, self-sustaining, religious Jewish community.

BETC Strategic Plan

Action Plan Moving Towards Our Vision: Our Integrated Plan of Action(s)

0-3 months3-6 months 6-9 months

12+ months

Variety of services

Lifecycle celebrations

Social Action survey

Havdallah

Communications Audit Improve Communications

Preschool

Student Buddies

IntergenerationalLearning Experiences

Lay teaching

Family track

Covenant ofMembership

Leadership Development

Revive Chavurot

Promote temple-wideactivities

Adult ActivityCoordinator

Target members w/oschool kids for Mitzvah day involvement Tikun Olam in

Covenant of Memb.

Target teens forSocial Action

Sept ‘08

BETC Strategic Plan

Our Integrated Plan of Action(s) 0-3 Months

• Variety of services Variety of services, including: Learner's service, lay-led pieces of service, etc. + pot luck/post

service dinner

• Lifecycle celebrations Invite members to share/celebrate life cycle events or special occasions as part of the

service

• Social Action survey Survey members to determine Social Action interest areas

• Student Buddies Initiate a Student Buddy Program between older & younger kids

BETC Strategic Plan


• Havdallah Establish regular Havdallah services with a related Jewish activity

• Communications Audit Conduct an institutional Communications Audit (focus on how members acquire their

information, via flyer, bulletin, email, etc., then target them in those areas also assess layout/design/content)

• Intergenerational Learning Experiences Inter-generational learning experiences (i.e., adopt a Bethelder for a learning experience

such as the life of an immigrant, the Holocaust, etc.)

• Target teens for Social Action Social Action programs/activities that are particularly appropriate for/engaging for teens

BETC Strategic Plan


• Leadership Development Establish a leadership development program to cultivate and support a continuous base of

lay leaders for BETC

• Improve Communications After audit, improve Web site, emails, bulletin, mailings as appropriate

• Revive Chavurot Connect members to further establish community

• Promote temple-wide activities Coordinate activities/programs across communities within BETC for greatest reach

• Target members without school kids for Mitzvah day involvement

BETC Strategic Plan

Our Integrated Plan of Action(s) 12+ Months

• Preschool Conduct feasibility study, re-establish thriving Jewish preschool

• Lay teaching Encourage congregants to teach courses or join religious school staff

• Family track Develop a parallel track for families to learn along with their children in the religious school

• Covenant of Membership Explore, develop a covenant of membership that articulates expectations for congregant

involvement

• Adult Activity Coordinator Establish professional position to coordinate all activities (education and social) for adults

• Include Tikun Olam in Covenant of Membership Make it clear that our convenant included participation in Social Action/Tikun Olam

BETC Strategic Plan

CLOSING QUESTIONS:

1) Did you hear your voice during the course of this process?

Have we addressed key areas of “concern” in the life of the

congregation? Or have we missed something?

2) What one thing that you heard tonight excited you most?

3) Which of these actions would you like to help make a reality?

Documents

Planning for the Future