Many of us are quite curious about others, our community, our world. Most want to know why people do the things they do. The better we understand our community, the better the JEA and Federation can serve it. Hence, the motivation for the Community Survey that took place at the end of this past Summer.
This “Opt In” survey was sent out in the Federation’s weekly Community eNews, through participating congregational bulletins, Facebook, and through personal appeals from many leaders throughout the community. In just over six weeks there were 432 respondents (estimated to be 11% of the entire community) who “weighed in” on a variety of questions. The result was over 7,000 data points to be considered in the coming months.
A survey’s value has a fundamental assumption to be meaningful: that the respondents honestly report their beliefs and preferences. It is part of the reason that the Federation hired an outside consultant to develop and administer the survey with absolute anonymity. No one, not even Joy Goldstein (the designer and administrator of the survey), knows who responded or what comments are associated with the submission. We hope that people felt good about their anonymity and answered the questions as honestly as possible to give the community a reliable view of itself.
One of our Board members said to me, “Its great that we took this survey, that there is so much information, but how to we get the information?”
This Wednesday at 7:30pm, Joy Goldstein will be providing a “high level” virtual view of the survey responses on YouTube. The entire community is welcome to click in to hear the 20-minute presentation. You will be able to type in your question(s) right online on YouTube which will be moderated by Jamie Richman. The broadcast will begin promptly at 7:30 and finish at 8:00pm, so you’ll want to be in front of your computer, TV, phone, tablet promptly.
This is not the end of the survey, merely the beginning. The boards of the JEA and Federation will be debating and analyzing the results for many months and using them as a guide post for future planning. We look forward to seeing you (virtually) on Wednesday evening when we go live on YouTube.
Shabbat Shalom
