Bnai Keshet Long Range Plan 2024

Bnai Keshet Long Range Plan
Elevating the BK Member Experience

Goal #1:
All Bnai Keshet members and their families feel seen, included and engaged in ways that are personally meaningful to them.

Subgoals:

1.  Develop shared understanding of what promotes connection v. disconnection by:
   • Listening (annual survey, continued focus groups, relational meetings and expanded committee membership/leadership model); and
   • Sharing (Hinenu report, synthesis of learnings at community-level, identify and co-create learning opportunities)
2. Identify ways to get better at including our diverse range of members by
   • Including a wider range of members in brainstorming solutions and potential shifts;
   • Innovating solutions across committees and not just within them; and 
   • Co-creating solutions with cross-community ownership (avoid silos).
     • Strengthen Member Connections to BK and to one another by: Identifying specific sub-groups and individuals in need of connection and helping them connect (e.g. 20-somethings, bereavement); Ensuring new members can engage easily without having to take initiative; and Building on the affinity group concept.
     • Broaden the Shabbat Experience by Engaging those who do not attend services, especially Bet Midrash Parents, including through alternative Shabbat engagement opportunities; Making it easier for those who are new to services to engage; and Connecting members around experiences to make Shabbat more inclusive and to deepen and enrich experience for regular attendees.
     • Engage more members in volunteer work/service to the community and leadership experiences  (more on Goal #3)

Goal #2:
At Bnai Keshet, we care for one another across the "life cycle" of membership.

Subgoals:

1. Establish regular ways to listen to the needs of individual members and groups of members, including at and following lifecycle moments;
    
2. Articulate the member experience, map existing programming and ensure appropriate offerings across stages
    
3. Identify programming opportunities to include pre- and post- lifecycle events and target membership stages (not necessarily by adding more programming);
    
4. Explicitly identify ways to foster connection between members within and across membership stages (see Goal #1); and
    
5. Refine committee structure, leadership development approaches and member engagement strategies.

Goal #3: 
Bnai Keshet is a mature, high-functioning organization that maintains and values its culture of volunteerism. 

Subgoals:

1. To articulate, institutionalize and socialize an understanding of the relationship between staff and volunteer roles - what is done by whom, including updated and centralized job descriptions; and to conduct an informal audit of staffing/lay leadership model:
   • Gather, centralize and make available the job descriptions for all volunteer and staff roles, identify missing JDs and create them, assess and refine them annually;
   • Assess gaps, needs and challenges created by current staffing/volunteer mode; and
   • Make recommendations for short- and long-term evolution of roles.
2. To broaden and deepen volunteer engagement by creating and/or strengthening mechanisms for recruiting, recognizing and retaining volunteers. Assess leadership and volunteer engagement models and adapt them as needed to create and sustain a pipeline of volunteers and volunteer leaders.

Framework: 
Based on inputs from a  congregational survey, focus groups, interviews and leadership input, the Strategic Planning Process put forward the following framework as a backdrop to the goals and subgoals:

• How can we think holistically about the community and strengthen ways in which our key focus areas and pillars intersect and support one another? 
• How can we strengthen the organizational realities that underpin everything we do, namely operations and finances? 
• How do we think about the life cycle of membership and pay attention to key junctures, to in-between stages and to intergenerational experience?