Dear JCANA Members,

Shanah Tovah – A Happy and Healthy New Year to you all!

We missed having the opportunity to get together with you at a conference this year, but we’re happy to report on great steps forward for JCANA. After a very successful conference in Boston in June 2018, the JCANA Board decided to take a year off from a conference and engage in some strategic planning. We felt this was necessary, to ensure that JCANA remains relevant to you and can continue to serve you and Jewish cemeteries across North America. We wanted to explore ways to increase membership and refine our mission, objective, and strategies for continued success, as JCANA moves into a second decade of service.

On September 16-17, 2019, Board members met in Boston to undertake an intensive strategic planning process. We were fortunate to have been led by Daniel Langenthal, Director of Leadership Development Institute, a program of Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston. Together, we worked through JCANA’s Mission, Goals, and Objectives. We brainstormed, debated, and innovated. Attached are some photos of the worksheets throughout the day, which will think will help you see our process.

Through this process, we arrived at a revised Mission Statement: JCANA is devoted to the sanctity and continuity of Jewish cemeteries in honor of our ancestors and future generations. We raise awareness and provide resources to sustain and preserve Jewish cemeteries.

We think our strengths as an organization, combined with some clear objectives and strategies can help us increase membership and better serve our existing membership. In addition to continuing with an annual conference, these include: Reviving the Newsletter; Creating a Speakers Bureau, Launching an Online Forum and Resources page, with templates and sample cemetery documents.

Your feedback after the last conference and over the past several months has been critical to helping us understand how we can better serve you, and we hope you see the above steps as responsive to that vital feedback, as well as representing a hopeful future for JCANA. And we look forward to hosting an amazing conference in Cincinnati in 2020! SAVE THE DATE: June 7-9, 2020!

Enjoy the newsletter and stay tuned for future updates, announcements of upcoming webinars you can join as a member of JCANA, and let us know what you think of our work!

Jamie Cotel and Lisa Vaeth
JCANA Co-Chairs