Making Your Vision a Reality

It’s wonderful to hear you have an idea that you are excited to bring to the community.  We're excited about the potential to work together and help make your vision a reality.  As you may imagine, lots of members often have ideas for the community.  Whilst every idea is excellent, we are not always able to make all of them become a reality at this time. Sometimes we don’t have capacity, sometimes the community is ‘over programmed’ and will struggle to get a good turnout, and sometimes for other reasons. Here’s how we evaluate whether an event or group will be a great fit for the community.

To support a thriving, ongoing group or event, we look for the following key factors:

• Dedicated Leadership: We’d love a key lay leader who is both passionate about making this initiative a success and has time to help ensure it is a success. Ideally, this person has experience volunteering for the community, e.g. by taking part in a similar project before, thus building confidence in their leadership and a commitment to seeing things through. They'll work alongside a designated staff member who shares an interest in the project’s focus.
• Supportive Team: To ensure the group's success, we encourage the lay leader to build a small team (of 2-3 additional lay leaders).  This helps both share responsibilities, as well as demonstrating commitment to the project from other members. Alternatively, we might encourage the lay leader to work with an existing team that works in a similar area.
• Interest and Engagement: We look for evidence that the initiative resonates with our community, usually with at least ten people interested in attending.
• Recruitment Commitment: Lay leaders should be prepared to actively recruit participants to build momentum and ensure turnout.
• Ongoing Evaluation: We value reflection and planning. After the initiative has launched, the team will have an agreed time to meet, evaluate its impact, and determine if and how it should continue, or celebrate the end of a successful chapter.
• Scheduling Fit: Timing is key. We look for initiatives that fit within our calendar and are manageable with our staffing and building capacities.
• Mission Alignment: We aim to support initiatives that further our synagogue's mission and values, ensuring that every project is meaningful and aligned with our goals.

One-Time Event Criteria For standalone events, we apply similar criteria, though don’t always ask for a team to be built.

Partnership Opportunities If you’re interested in a partnership, for example, with an external organization, our process may differ slightly to support effective collaboration. 

Whether you’re planning an ongoing initiative or a one-time event, we’re here to support you and discuss, if you feel the above is doable. Let’s work together to create impactful, mission-aligned programming for our community! Simply email jon@westminstersynagogue.org and we’d love to have an initial conversation with you.