Amy Asin

We are in the third year of High Holidays like no other. As we approach the yamim nora’im (the days of awe) and the festivals that follow, take advantage of the offerings from the URJ to supplement your programming and manage your operations.

Last Saturday, amid what should have been a peaceful Shabbat, our global Jewish family watched in horror as news emerged that members of Congregation Beth Israel, a Reform synagogue in Texas, were being held hostage by an armed gunman. After an 11-hour standoff, we breathed a collective sigh of relief and profound gratitude upon learning that all four hostages, including Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, were finally free.

According to conventional wisdom, congregations will look different in 10-15 years. If this is the case, we need leadership that can come together to actively create our future. Otherwise, we will be reacting passively to forces and trends, and are less likely to be successful.

One of the requests we frequently get from congregational leaders, even more so since the onset of Covid-19, is for clarification about emerging revenue structures of Reform congregations. In particular, many want to understand the existing dues models. In this post, we highlight in broad strokes the dominant dues models, and then lay out some questions we believe leaders need to consider if they are thinking of adjusting or changing their current model.