Upon completion and roll-out of the omnibus demographic study of the Jewish community in Washtenaw County, the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor convened a diverse group of leaders to join a Jewish Community Strategic Planning Committee to embark on a community planning process and create a community-wide 10-year plan for our joint future. The committee is co-chaired by Robin Pollak and Megan Bernard and includes organization liaisons and individuals representing a range of experiences and connections with many different groups within the broader Jewish community.
Robin Pollak has helmed strategic planning processes for Temple Beth Emeth and the Jewish Community Center and has significant experience with planning and facilitation in her professional career. Megan Bernard is an alumna of and currently works for the Jewish Communal Leadership Program at the University of Michigan School of Social Work. Her experience includes program development and evaluation. Both co-chairs bring energy, enthusiasm and intentionality to their leadership of this project.
During the summer, the committee outlined the scope and process to “create a strategic plan for the Washtenaw County Area Jewish community that establishes an inspiring, realistic vision for the year 2035 with clear and measurable strategic goals that facilitate tracking success in realizing that vision.”
“We want to be the best possible Jewish community for the future, and that will mean continuing to seek feedback from our community,” says Pollak. “We are focused on the community study’s findings that our organized Jewish community is not currently meeting respondents’ needs for engagement. We are also looking at research about how patterns of Jewish engagement are changing nationwide. We aim for this next step in the community process to increase engagement and increase the impact of our local Jewish community as a thriving and vibrant hub of Jewish connection into the future.”
The committee is in the process of selecting an expert consulting team with experience in strategic community planning, strong facilitation and collaboration skills, and an understanding of Jewish community dynamics to guide the planning process. The bold project will include broad Jewish community input, strategic goal-setting, and action planning to shepherd our community into the future. A Request for Proposals has been sent to a number of firms active in this kind of work, and the committee aims to select one to begin work in the first quarter of 2025.
In concert with this communal process, many local organizations are digging deeply into the community study data and using it to inform their priorities in the coming year and beyond. The committee will continue to prioritize community involvement, engagement, and alignment throughout this process.
In recognition of the clear findings that teen engagement is an important focus area, the Jewish Federation allocated funds from the 2024 Annual Community Campaign for collaborative teen programming. The Allocations Committee will be providing information about how Federation will distribute Teen Engagement funds in the coming months.
The Community Strategic Planning Committee will continue to inform the community through the WJN and updates via organizations and social networks. To learn more about community strategic planning, contact Eileen Freed (eileenfreed@jewishannarbor.org).