In 2022-23, the Brotherhood Board of Trustees commissioned a Strategic Plan designed to help the community maintain what makes Brotherhood a wonderful synagogue and strengthen it for the future. The Strategic Planning Committee undertook a process to assess Brotherhood's strengths and weaknesses, articulate a mission statement for the synagogue, identify current and expected challenges, and lay out strategies for addressing those challenges going forward. The Strategic Planning process included member focus groups and a survey to better understand the community's views, as well as interviews of clergy, professional staff, and lay leaders. Through that process, the Strategic Planning Committee identified a number of areas for further focus by community task forces: membership and engagement, religious engagement, financial responsibility, families, affinity groups, and communication and marketing. These task forces developed their 3-5 year visions for Brotherhood in their focus area, and suggested tactics for achieving those visions. The Board adopted the resulting Strategic Planning report in January 2024.
What is the result to date?
Since the adoption of the strategic plan, there have been a number of steps toward achieving their vision.
* in the area of religious engagement, we’ve created Musical Shabbats, instituted regular learner's services, and created an updated transliteration for the Friday night service
* in the area of communications and marketing, we’ve created a new website and unified our marketing materials, created new communications protocols, and increased our use of social media
* in the area of families of children ages 0-4, we strengthened the clergy relationship to families through both individual and group connections, increased the connection to the synagogue community by providing after school programming, and integrated our Early Childhood Programs and Nursery School under the one Director
* in the area of families of children ages 5-18, we shared the Hebrew School calendar electronically out to parents, created additional in Hebrew school special programs, and improved communication around community-wide events
* in the area of membership and engagement, we strengthened our efforts at High Holiday services to obtain the names of non-member attendees and followed up with engagement ideas, and we reached out more to local Hillels
* in the area of affinity groups, we promoted the growth of new clubs initiated by members
* in the area of financial responsibility, we developed new financial models that can help guide us through the next 5 years
Efforts continue to implement the Strategic Plan. We look forward to bringing you future updates!
If you have any questions or comments, please contact us at strategicplanning@brotherhoodsynagogue.org