Strategic thinking

Strategy 

• Commitment to the Vision and Mission of the US binds our Communities. You should familiarise yourself with these and you should seek to incorporate them into your Community’s own strategy.

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• However, the strength of the US is the diversity of our Communities. The strategy of your Community is your responsibility, working with the Senior Rabbinic staff.

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• Strategy in this context is long-term planning which goes beyond the scheduling, management and budgeting of services and events; you should consider the potential of your Community and to that end, develop a unifying vision of the Community’s future which is realistic but ambitious. More detail is offered in the next section, Vision.

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• Before or during your tenure, you might consider producing a public document outlining your strategy. To give you greater flexibility to ‘pitch’ to the Community, this document may be produced in collaboration with Rabbinic Staff, or members of the Executive and Synagogue Council, even before they’ve been elected or employed. The document may include the results of recent consultations with the Community.

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Vision

• The first step in deciding a Community vision is to discover why people are members of your Community and what Jewish growth they might achieve individually, as households and as a collective. This is not the same as discovering what programming they want.

  • Events and programmes are a means to an end: they will be useful to help you achieve your vision. But no amount or quality of programming itself constitutes a vision.

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• You might consult your members through running focus groups, listening exercises or through written or doorstep surveys, ‘town hall meetings’, votes, or other methods.

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• Following consultation, you should feel mandated to adopt or amend your Community vision.

  • Your vision should provide direction to your strategy and more detailed goals. For instance, a vision based on inclusivity might inspire a review of Shabbat morning services:

    • ‘Holding services over Shabbat’ describes programming but does not progress the vision.

    • ‘Making Shabbat a spiritual opportunity which is accessible to everyone regardless of Hebrew literacy, so that the community can all enjoy the holiest day of the week together’ is a realistic but ambitious goal. This might lead to development of Shabbat programming such as women’s Kabbalat Shabbat services, education programmes or the purchase of new siddurim, which will progress systematically and measurably towards the vision.