Some of you may know that my children
are third generation members of Congregation Etz Chaim. My parents joined Etz Chaim more than 40
years ago. One reason that I began
volunteering here is that I wanted to strengthen Etz Chaim for my children and
perhaps one day their children. Some of
you who are here tonight were already members of the congregation when my
family moved to Elmhurst in 1969. Others
of you joined the congregation in subsequent decades, and some of you may be in
our sanctuary for the first time tonight.
Regardless, as we gather to celebrate these High Holidays, the
congregation is here for us. I would
like to ask you tonight to join with me in thinking about what we should do to keep the congregation here for us and
for future generations. Let’s think
about what we already are as a community, and about what we need to do in order
to survive and thrive in the future.
What we already are is a remarkable
community, brought together by our commitment to Judaism, to Etz Chaim, and to
each other. Our bonds of friendship have
grown strong over the years and decades, expanding and opening to embrace those
new to our community, and providing a Tree of Life for all of us. We succeed and flourish because we draw on
the talents, skills, energies, resources and commitment of all of our
congregants. We all chip in our fair
share to meet our expenses, and we all work together to keep ourselves and each
other engaged in our congregational life.
What I really want to talk about
tonight is what we need to do in order to survive and thrive in the future. To all that is already good about our
community, we need to add a thorough understanding of our Congregation's financial
structure and financial needs. This
evening, to begin this process, I want to lay out for you the basic financial
workings of the congregation. I promise
you that I’m not going to end my talk by hitting you up for money, so please
sit back and relax as I talk you through our financial structure.
Imagine four buckets. They represent four different financial
categories, with four distinct purposes. Let’s talk about them one by one.
The first bucket is the “operating
budget.” The operating budget is the
money we plan to spend each fiscal year in order to run things. Our operating budget represents an annual set
of expenses. Every year, starting in
December, the Budget Committee creates the operating budget based on
conservative assumptions and careful expenditures. The operating budget is presented to the Congregation
in the spring and voted on in May at the annual meeting. We use the money in the operating budget to pay
our employees, to run our school, and to operate our building and pay our bills. These are the expenses that are our core financial
obligations.
Our operating budget is funded by the
money that we pledge in dues, as well as school fees, b’nai mitzvah fees,
advertising income, and social hall rental income. I think it is important for you to know that,
at many congregations, funding of the operating budget depends not only upon
the sources of income I’ve just mentioned, but also upon additional appeals to
the membership over the course of the year.
Indeed, many congregations include an income line in their budgets labeled
“High Holiday Appeal” and assume significant extra donations as part of their
budgeting process.
We don’t do that. With our fair share dues system, we have
never made a “High Holiday Appeal,” nor are we planning to. Instead, we make assumptions each year about
what we think our income will be, based primarily on dues and school fees
assumptions. In these uncertain economic
times, this process has been challenging, and even our very conservative
assumptions resulted in a shortfall in the past fiscal year. However, I am confident we will weather these
tough times with both our culture and our finances intact if we all continue to
contribute our fair share of dues.
The second bucket is the “building fund.” The building fund is money that
is dedicated to paying the mortgage, a financial obligation we assumed when we
built the office and classroom wing addition to the building about 15 years
ago. The building fund is completely
separate and segregated from the operating budget. None of your dues money goes into this
bucket. Rather, each new member who joins
Etz Chaim is asked to contribute a set amount to the building fund over a
period of years. This means that the
continued health of the building fund depends upon our ability to attract new
members at a steady rate over time in order to keep our building fund
consistently replenished.
The third bucket is the “donative
funds.” Our congregation currently has
18 donative funds, plus the rabbis’ discretionary funds. As the name suggests, the donative funds are
places to donate money earmarked for specific causes. The donative funds allow us to do things
above and beyond what we could afford if we were limited to our budget. The donative funds buy new prayer books, pay
scholars to come and teach us, help kids go to OSRUI, provide aid to those in
need, and do many other things that are at the heart of our mission but are not
covered by our budget. Without
continuing generous donations to the donative funds, we would not be able to
achieve many of our goals.
I want to highlight one of these funds
in particular, the Building Maintenance Fund.
I wrote to the congregation last spring, outlining our upcoming HVAC
needs, and requesting those who are able to make donations to the Building
Maintenance Fund. I’m delighted to tell
you that we have had an outstanding response to that request, and that to date our
congregants have pledged more than $27,000 to this fund.
The final and fourth bucket is brand new
for us. It is the "Endowment Fund.”
As many of you know, under the
leadership of Mike Kayman, our new Planned Giving Committee has been hard at
work for over a year to establish the Etz Chaim Foundation, the vehicle through
which our Endowment will operate. We
have not previously had an endowment, and Mike and his committee have done a
lot of hard work and research in order to figure out the right way to
proceed. But what is an endowment, and
why have one? Mike says it's like a 401k
plan for the congregation. It's a way
for us to accumulate money that we will not spend now or in the next few years,
but that we will use down the road, well into the future. By creating an endowment, we are working to
make sure that future lay leaders of the congregation have money available to
help them meet the needs of the congregation at that time. How will we fill the endowment fund bucket? You will be hearing much more from the
Planned Giving Program in the coming months, as Mike and his committee roll it
out, but briefly, the Planned Giving bucket will be filled by pledges (often in
the form of future legacies or long-term vehicles) by congregants who wish to
make such donations.
In our own homes, we all have to budget
our money. We use part of our money for
our month-to-month expenses, part for our mortgage, part for things we want to
do or know we’ll need to do soon, and we save a good chunk so that we can meet
our long term goals. Synagogue finances are
set up in just this way. Each of our
four buckets – operating budget, building fund, donative funds, endowment fund
– is designated to meet a specific need of the congregation. It is essential that we fill each of these
buckets. The reality of the situation is
that a congregation where everyone pays their dues but does nothing to help
fill any of the other buckets will not flourish.
Before I conclude, I want to mention
an initiative we have begun over the past year, in an effort to expand what we
put into our buckets. Up until now, all
of our buckets have been filled almost completely from the resources of our
congregants. Under the leadership of
Joel Spenadel, a new committee called the Development Committee has begun the
process of seeking out external sources of income for Etz Chaim, for example from
foundations or other grant sources. Like
the Planned Giving Committee, the Development Committee is charting new ground
for us. We're excited about it, and
we're eager to learn more about these new possibilities.
Now, I said earlier that, in order to
survive and thrive in the future, we all need a thorough understanding of our
financial structure and our financial needs in the coming years. I understand that many of us start to nod off
when the accountants start talking about balance sheets. I tended to glaze over myself, but I stopped
doing that since I began serving as congregational president. The issues are
just too important. And that's true for
all of us. We all need to take on the
responsibility of understanding the financial structure and needs of our
Congregation – just like we have to understand the finances of our individual
households.
Tonight I’ve tried to give you some
information to start that process. I’d
like to leave you with an assignment:
Over the next six months or so, I am asking each of you to assume
responsibility for learning more than you currently know about Etz Chaim’s
financial status and needs. You can do
this in many ways. Talk to members of
the Planned Giving Committee. Read the
articles that our Treasurer, Wendy Jablow Spertus, will soon include in the
bulletin. Read the current budget that
was sent out to all of you last spring, prior to the annual meeting (and we'll
circulate that again). Join the Ways and
Means Committee. Ask questions of me,
the members of the Executive Committee, or the members of the Board of
Directors. However you do it, inform
yourselves. The more you know, the more
engaged you will become. And the more
engaged you are, the healthier and stronger our Congregation will be.
So, getting back to my opening question: How do we help keep our congregation strong
for future generations? Our first step
is to link our existing commitment and dedication to Etz Chaim with an
increased understanding and literacy about our finances, in the hope that, with
greater knowledge and understanding, we will be able to better nurture our
community in the years to come.
In that spirit, I thank you for the
opportunity you have given me to serve Etz Chaim and I wish each of you and
your families a sweet new year.
L’shana
Tovah Tikatavu.