Thanks for Your Support: A Year in Review
This letter is written by our Director of Operations, Liz Thompson
During our recent staff and board appreciation dinner, each attendee shared a highlight from the year. Unsurprisingly and in Kavana-like fashion, the highlights were incredibly varied and also super meaningful to each individual, ranging from the annual camping trip, the High Holidays, and the Annual Partner Meeting to personalized lifecycle events, relationships with kids in our youth programming, and so many more. As I listened, I couldn’t help but realize how much was packed into the last 12 months – not only the number of opportunities, but also the number and depth of changes that took place on the operational side of our cooperative. So, as our fiscal year wraps up today, I’d like to share some operational highlights and some pictures from the year, too -- as operational updates can only be so exciting!
Staff and board members share highlights from this year during the recent annual Staff and Board Appreciation Dinner.
Highlight #1: Behind the scenes, we have been working very intentionally to build the infrastructure needed to support this vibrant community. This work has been supported by Project Accelerate, a cohort program in which we have been learning and growing alongside seventeen other innovative, high-performing, small and medium sized Jewish organizations that are at a similar stage of development. It has been a real honor to have been chosen to participate in this cohort program over the past two years! Our three main areas of focus have been: community engagement, technology, and professional development for staff and our board – and we have made huge strides in each area, with next steps on the horizon.
Over 100 partners joined us for our Annual Partner Meeting this past May. The focus of this year's gathering was to bring folks up to speed on the Project Accelerate work, share a financial review and program highlights, and to spend time together small groups to ask some initial questions around growth.
Highlight #2: This year we hired new full-time staff members to round out what I like to call Kavana’s Dream Team. A huge thank you to our team of full-time staff, part-time educators, musicians and administrative support staff, and to our incredible board of directors for pulling together an incredible year of meaningful opportunities to engage in Jewish life and community:
Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum, Executive Director
Rabbi Jay LeVine
Avital Krifcher, Director of Community Engagement
Rachel Osias, Director of Education
Liz Thompson, Director of OperationsBen Farkas, Administrative Assistant
Ana Franco, Custodian
Kohenet Traci Marx, Musician/Spiritual Leader
Chava Mirel, Musician
Abbot Taylor, Bookkeeper
Educators: Maxine Alloway, Liv Feldman, Jack Hogan, Maya Itah, Rebecca Mather, Rachel Nagorsky, Sophia Nappa, Anaelle Oiknine, Noah Segal, Michael Taylor-Judd, Lon Wolton and Daniel Zelinger
Dana Bettinger, Board President
Marni Klein, Board Secretary
Steve Lewis, Board Vice President
Sharon London, Past Board President
David Sabban, Board Treasurer
Board Members: Callista Chen, Chuck Cowan, Ingrid Elliott, Matt Offenbacher, John Policar, and Betsy Rosenman
As you can see, it takes a village! In addition to this amazing staff team, many of our partners played key leadership roles in supporting programming and community building opportunities – thank you so much for leaning in and engaging in this community so meaningfully! You put the “co-op” in the Kavana Cooperative!
Kavana partners volunteered to make meals this spring, so we can support our community members in times of need.
Highlight #3: 17 years into building and co-creating this community, Kavana's Executive Director, Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum is currently on her first ever sabbatical. While I really miss working each day with my closest collaborator, I am so excited for her to have this opportunity to rest. There is a lot of research around the benefits of sabbaticals, and we are proud to be living our Jewish values by implementing this new Sabbatical policy (eligible staff will be offered a sabbatical every 7 years). It is not until this year that we have been able to build a team that can sustain and support the organization in such a healthy way. I’m so proud of our organization for reaching the level needed to function (dare I say continue to thrive?!) during a key player’s extended absence.
Rabbi Rachel in action; leading the family service at this year's High Holidays.
Highlight #4: We are ending this year financially healthy with a net-surplus, in part due to the success of our What’s Your Why Campaign. Thank you to everyone who helped us surpass our fundraising goal, and to our small but mighty fundraising team led by Board President Dana Bettinger. These funds are allocated to initiatives such as hiring a full-time Community Engagement director, launching a brand new website and taking a deep dive into fundraising/development training. We’ve also been working with consultants to create new HR and organizational systems since our team has grown significantly. And in the fall, we plan to launch a new customer relationship management (CRM) system.
While infrastructural work isn’t very flashy, it is critical for ensuring that Kavana can continue to build meaningful relationships and offer a wide array of pathways to engage people more deeply in Jewish life.
Kavana's annual camping trip is always a fan favorite for building community and deepening connections among all ages and stages of life!
As we plan for next year, we are again deliberately preparing to operate at a deficit, as a few larger chunks of our Project Accelerate work will actually take place next year. We plan to actively start spending down some of our reserves to sustain our staff team and better support our community.
To that end, if you haven't had a chance to contribute yet during this current fiscal year (July 2022 - June 2023), or if you feel moved to make an additional contribution now, we would be very grateful for your support. Please click here to contribute to Kavana online, or mail donations to Kavana, PO Box 19666, Seattle, WA 98109.
Kavana partners lean in and help create rich and meaningful experiences for the community. Here, Partner Stacy Lawson leads a yoga session during the High Holidays.
On July 1, Kavana will be entering its 18th year – which feels significant given the connection in Judaism between the word chai (life!) and the number 18… I can’t wait to see how the year unfolds given our hard work behind the scenes on operations! We are now poised to support our partners better than ever before in “creating an innovative Jewish cooperative that empowers each community member to create a meaningful Jewish life, develop positive identity, and receive support on their journey.”
On behalf of our staff and board of directors, I am so grateful to YOU, our partners and supporters, for helping to make this new chapter of growth possible for Kavana!
L’Chaim!
Liz Thompson, Director of Operations
