• How to Avoid Being Alone at Your Annual Meeting, Redux 
• Tikkun Leil Shavuot Study with Your Board at Temple  
• Explore Grants to Fund New or Expanded Programming
  
  

HOW TO AVOID BEING ALONE
AT YOUR ANNUAL MEETING, REDUX

Last year we offered some suggestions on how to attract a crowd to your congregation’s annual meeting (see Inside Leadership, February–March 2000). Nevertheless, a quorum quest can still persist! Below are four success stories from temples around the country. Consider adapting some of these techniques to bolster attendance at your annual meeting this year.

Temple Israel in Tulsa, Oklahoma (500 member units), has a forty-year history of drawing an excellent crowd (90 to 150 people) to an annual meeting that celebrates the temple’s year. Described by past president Paula Milsten as a “tradition,” the Sunday evening event begins with a 6:00 p.m. inexpensive and simple dinner. New members are invited as guests of the temple and are introduced. Congregational awards are bestowed, and each honoree makes a brief speech. A graduation ceremony is held for the Leadership Development Class. There may be musical entertainment, including a performance by the junior choir, or a guest speaker. A large photo display showcasing the past year’s temple events and an exhibit of work by students in the religious school are displayed. The new officers are installed in the presence of the Torah. Both the rabbi and president present a State of the Temple address. The synagogue business component is usually kept to a minimum, but if important issues are on the agenda, congregants are usually notified in advance, resulting in larger crowds. Careful planning of a lively meeting, which integrates many segments of the congregation’s population, insures that Temple Israel has an annual success.

The formula for success at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa (125 member units), was free food and child care on a Sunday evening. Serving a kid-friendly spaghetti dinner in the new social hall/gym and providing people to run games for the children attracted a crowd and enabled the adults to attend the meeting after dinner. As Diane Handler, the temple’s past president, observed, “We had more people than usual, we got some work done, and it was fun!”

Temple B’nai B’rith in Kingston, Pennsylvania, has a long (156-year) tradition of an annual congregational meeting that in recent memory has been preceded by a catered brunch hosted by the current president (and spouse). President Rhoda Tillman attributes the successful turnout (about 70 people in a 250-member unit congregation) to a convenient time (during Sunday school hours), well-planned reports delivered warmly and with humor, and a long-standing custom of a beautifully catered meal, presented with flair and at no cost to the congregants.

This year Temple Emanu-El in Dallas, Texas (2,800 member units), planned a lovely evening beginning with the annual meeting at 5:45 p.m. Three hundred people are expected at the festive Shabbat dinner immediately following the meeting. The beautiful invitation noted that decorations were created by temple kindergarteners, “our future trustees.” The evening concludes with the installation of the officers and trustees at Shabbat services. Chaired by two involved couples (although, as trustee Richard Wasserman admitted, “Steve and I were supportive and helped, but the women did the heavy lifting”), this Shabbat dinner is one of several that the synagogue holds throughout the year. There is a nominal charge, since the rest of the cost is covered by the temple budget.

At Temple Shalom in Newton, Massachusetts (1,000 family units), a potluck dinner was part of the pre-Shabbat annual meeting and engendered a good turnout. As Fred Cohen, president, quipped, “When in doubt, feed them and they will come,” reporting that one member said that the turnout was good on a recent Friday night meeting not because the meeting was followed by a service but because the service was followed by an Oneg Shabbat!

What these meetings have in common are committed members who are using the annual meeting as an opportunity to create, build, and strengthen congregational community. Through their efforts and vision, they are conveying to their fellow members the sense that the temple is hosting an event that should not be missed. And food always helps!

NOTE: No temple business, including annual meetings, should ever be conducted on Shabbat.

TIKKUN LEIL SHAVUOT
STUDY WITH YOUR BOARD AT TEMPLE

Shavuot is traditionally considered to be the anniversary of the Giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. Tikkun Leil Shavuot is the custom of staying up the entire night of that holiday studying with the community. The Tikkun was developed by sixteenth-century Kabbalists in Safed who believed that by studying Jewish texts the evening before Shavuot, they were symbolically preparing Israel to reenter into a sacred relationship with God. This year the secular calendar offers the perfect opportunity for a late or all-night study session since Shavuot falls on Sunday night, May 27, and Monday, May 28, Memorial Day.

As a Board, consider using this tradition to spearhead a study experience in lieu of or in addition to your regular meeting. Your members may frequently begin such meetings with a short study session, but the business of running the temple does not ordinarily allow for lengthy, more satisfying study opportunities.

Your temple will soon receive the Reform Movement’s fourth annual Tikkun Leil Shavuot study program, which is designed to be used on the evening of May 27 and contains eight workshops focusing on the Ten Commandments. Working with your rabbi or Ritual Committee, review the proffered workshops and select the material that you think will work best for your Board and congregational participants, or create a program based on your own needs.

The study guide, which includes an art poster and audiocassette, offers a myriad of approaches to the fascinating study of the Ten Commandments. For example, you can choose from the following:

• Examine the art poster’s ten different portrayals of Moses receiving the tablets and discuss how the artists’ visions influence your response to this event.
• Talk about whether Cecil B. DeMille’s depiction of Moses receiving the tablets in the movie The Ten Commandments affects your view of Revelation.
• Use Go and Study, the text-based learning program published by the UAHC Department of Adult Jewish Growth, to conduct lay-led study about the meaning of the First Commandment.
• Ask your members to read Broken Tablets: Restoring the Ten Commandments and Ourselves edited by Rachel S. Mikva, which is one of Rabbi Yoffie’s Significant Jewish Books, and then use the study guide to explore how we, as twenty-first century Jews, can incorporate the meaning of the commandments into our lives.
• Use the audiocassette tape with the guidance of your cantor to explore the dual cantillation system for the Ten Commandments.

Your Board will benefit from this opportunity to learn and grow together and with other members of your congregation while fulfilling the mitzvah of study. Chag same-ach!

If you would like help organizing your Tikkun Leil Shavuot study evening or if you have questions about the program, please contact Rabbi Pamela Wax, assistant director of the UAHC Department of Adult Jewish Growth, by telephone at 212.650.4088 or by e-mail at pwax@uahc.org.

EXPLORE GRANTS TO FUND
NEW OR EXPANDED PROGRAMMING
PART 2: THE FOUNDATION CENTER

Last month’s Inside Leadership highlighted two congregations that obtained grants by responding to Requests for Proposals (RFPs). If you have not been fortunate enough to receive an RFP, there is still a plethora of grant money available to you if you conduct your research properly. Consider beginning your inquiry by contacting The Foundation Center.

The Foundation Center is an organization whose mission is to foster public understanding of the foundation field by collecting, organizing, analyzing, and disseminating information on foundations, corporate giving, and related subjects. Among its publications is the National Guide to Funding in Religion, which is updated periodically and is presently in its fifth edition (1999). It contains descriptions of more than 8,000 recently awarded grants and information about over 6,700 grantmakers that have demonstrated or stated an interest in funding religious institutions and support a variety of programs benefiting religion, including religious welfare institutions; religious and theological schools; churches, synagogues, and other religious assemblies; and missionary societies.

The guide also contains a lengthy introduction that can educate you about how to proceed. For example, it urges “grantseekers…to read each foundation and corporate-giving program description carefully to determine the nature of the grantmaker’s interests and to note any restrictions on giving that would prevent the grantmaker from considering their proposal.” It offers step-by-step guidance regarding whether or not it is appropriate for a grantseeker to approach a particular foundation with a specific type of grant request, and it recommends taking into account the following questions when considering making a proposal to a particular grantmaker:

1. What types of organizations does the foundation tend to support?
2. Does the foundation’s interest in religion encompass the kind of service or program that you are proposing?
3. Does it seem likely that the foundation will make a grant within your geographic area?
4. Does the foundation have any policy prohibiting grants for the type of support you are requesting?
5. Does the amount of money you are requesting fall within the foundation’s grant range?
6. Does the foundation prefer to make grants that cover the full cost of a project, or does it favor projects whose cost is shared by other foundations or funding sources?
7. Does the foundation have specific application deadlines and procedures, or does it review proposals constantly?

The guide recommends that you obtain each foundation’s annual report, application guidelines, and other printed materials that describe its program. Each foundation’s annual information return includes a list of all the grants it awards in addition to basic data about its finances and can be examined at most of The Foundation Center’s cooperating libraries.

Grants can be obtained from corporations as well as foundations, although it is more difficult to uncover the needed information about such companies. Research which companies might be interested in your organization’s mission and program; learn as much as possible about those companies, determining the best method of approaching them; and articulate program objectives so that your proposal is in line with each company’s giving rationale.

The Foundation Center has created other directories that are designed to facilitate grantseeking within specific fields of nonprofit activity. For example, there is a guide to funding for libraries and information services, arts and culture, community development, and other areas for which synagogues may seek grants.

The Foundation Center also publishes an RFP bulletin that lists Requests for Proposals (RFPs). Each listing presents a brief overview of a current funding opportunity offered by a foundation or another grantmaking organization. This weekly posting is available free of charge and can be sent directly to your e-mail box upon request. The Web address for The Foundation Center is http://www.fdncenter.org.

For more information, please contact the UAHC Department of Development by phone at 212.650.4140 or by e-mail at development@uahc.org.

Share Your Ideas and Input. Do You Have... Programs that have worked well in your congregation? Topics about which you would like more information? Suggestions for articles for Inside Leadership?