Shul Planning Guide—Part 10—Budgeting

When you make your presentation to the Board, or if you are the one who will first broach the subject of the shul getting involved in kiruv with the Rabbi and President, it would be a good idea to do a bit of research to get some kind of an initial idea of the amount of funding your program will require. Often, that is the determining factor for a shul to go forward with anynew program. Truthfully, you can get started with no money at all, but, of course, money makes things happen faster since it can enable you to take advantage of existing materials and programs and enable you to bring in nationally recognized speakers who can help kick off your kiruv efforts with an exciting event.

Incidentally, very often organizations such as Project Inspire (www.kiruv.com) can help you get access to terrific speakers who are willing to donate their
fees, so essentially you get their services for free, but you would still have
to pay travel expenses and arrange a comfortable place for them to stay in the community.

So how much do you need?

Obviously, that depends on your plan. Do you want to have a big kick-off Shabbaton with famous kiruv speakers? Do you want to start just with an ongoing weekly Shabbos morning Beginners Explanatory Service? Do you
want to run a “Turn Friday Night Into Shabbos” or “Shabbat Across America” Program once, to just give it a shot? Do you want to give one class for 4-6 weeks or do you want to set up a whole curriculum for people with no background? By utilizing volunteer talent provided my members of your shul, you can keep costs down. You can also get help very inexpensively from outside organizations, such as the National Jewish Outreach Program (www.njop.org) and Torah Lab (www.TorahLab.org), in accessing programs they have already designed.

Then there is the issue of advertising and publicity. Here’s where money can make a big difference. How are you going to find the not-yet-religious people you want to reach out to? The cheapest way is to rely on word of mouth
from your committees and congregants to encourage their friends to come. Combined with that you can easily write up and send out press releases to local news outlets, both Jewish and secular. But advertising will help a
lot. That takes money. How much depends on which publications you
use, the size of your ads and whether your ad will be in color or black and
white. I will teach you more about getting publicity and buying advertising in future blog posts. For this post, however, the point is that you have to do some research to see what your ads are likely to cost so you can factor that in to your budget.

Budgeting for your shul kiruv program does not require a full blown business plan. But you would be wise to do some homework so you have as much information as possible to realistically plan a successful first year.