New strategic plan will guide Alliance for next 3 years

How can the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island better serve you and create the right programs and options for our community?

This fall a team of board members, community members and Alliance staff came together to create a strategic plan for the next three years. They created a community survey which more than 350 people responded to. Another 150 people participated in small group discussions. The goal was to gauge how the community’s needs have shifted or solidified in key areas since the last strategic plan

With that information, the group discussed the following questions: “What does a vibrant thriving Jewish community for all look like over the next three years?” and “What are the most important ways that the Alliance can make that a reality?”

To read the plan in more detail, click here.

The working group found that, while the communities’ needs had not changed drastically over the four years since the last strategic plan, there was a need for a more focused and concise plan. To do this the group created strategies that build on each other to address three key areas of focus: connection, safety and capacity.

The group worked to come up with ways to tackle these three issues with strategies that can address multiple goals at once. Success was both imagined as a scenario and broken down into measurable parts. Each “Key Strategy” was also assigned “Key Initiatives” that the teams and partners needed to complete the strategy.

“What was really heartening about the planning process was that the community told us that we are working in the right areas,” said Alliance CEO and President Adam Greenman. “Continuing to bring people together throughout our community, continuing to address antisemitism and hate, and continuing to ensure the community has the resources to be vibrant and thriving are going to be our main areas of focus.”

Survey participants were overwhelmingly concerned with the rise of antisemitism. This is addressed in the plan through connecting with other communities, creating resources for the workplace including Jewish employee resource groups, and continuing to advocate at the state level to increase awareness when it comes to planning around Jewish holidays and addressing hate, and creating resources and tools about fighting antisemitism for the community to access and utilize.

The goal of connections also addresses providing resources to Jewish communities outside of Providence through increased programming support. Many communities outside of the greater Providence area expressed a desire not to have to travel to access Alliance programming, but to have it available in their own communities through partnerships. Key initiatives in this area include working with partner organizations and synagogues, investing in partner organizations and recruiting participants from these areas for a leadership development program.

Additionally, the Alliance will continue to use its role as a community convener, connector and funder to address and support statewide efforts with other nonprofits and government officials to address poverty in the Jewish community and beyond. This will be done through increasing the number of coalitions the Alliance participates in to address basic needs and poverty in the Rhode Island. The Alliance will also focus on helping to pass legislation that addresses basic needs and economic justice.

The goal of growing capacity is to support all other strategies through increasing the available financial resources needed to do the work. This includes increasing the number of major donors, as well as increasing the number of overall donors to the Alliance. Part of this goal is to develop clear and concise messaging around the mission and success of the Alliance’s work and to circulate that message widely in print, digital and through secular media.  

Growing capacity will also allow the Alliance to invest in programs from a variety of organizations locally, in Israel and through our overseas partnerships to help achieve its other goals of connection and safety. This will be measured through the funds distributed, the return on investment on each program, and again through a leadership development program whose participants serve on community boards and committees.

And finally, there is the strategy of making the Dwares Jewish Community Center in Providence a destination for programs and activities that support the strategies of relationship building and community engagement for those in the Jewish community and those who do not identify as Jewish. This will be measured through an increase in the number of people who come into the building each day, an increase in JCC members and membership revenue, increasing events, and increasing people who attend multiple events. These metrics include all aspects of the Dwares JCC from the David C. Isenberg Family Early Childhood Center, to fitness and aquatics, public policy programming, Jewish Life and Learning programs and more.

“I was excited by how many people participated in the process, and how passionate people are about the community,” said Greenman. “Strategic plans can only be successful if everyone pitches in, and I'm inspired by how many community members showed a willingness to roll up their sleeves and help us with this work. It gives me great confidence that the future of this community is bright!”

This more focused plan continues the work important to the community and works to clarify the Alliance’s impact on the community over time. With full implementation by 2028, the Alliance will have clarified its message, increased its donor base, and implemented programs, events and investments that lead to a more vibrant, thriving community for all.

Board member participants: Hadley Bazarsky, Reza Breakstone, Harris Chorney, Susan Froehlich, Marisa Garber, and Cara Mitnick. Community member participants: Jeff Buckler, Natasha Buckler, Rabbi Barry Dolinger. Staff participates: Sarah Greenleaf, Adam Greenman, Stephanie Hague and Emily O’Connor.

To hear Adam Greenman discuss the new strategic plan with Emma Newbery, go to https://www.jewishrhody.com/stories/in-conversation-with-adam-greenman-the-3-year-strategic-plan.

SARAH GREENLEAF (sgreenleaf@jewishallianceri.org) is the digital marketing specialist for the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island and writes for Jewish Rhode Island.