Congregation Etz Chayim: Office Staff Takes Control of Data Mgmt Activities

Congregation Etz Chayim is a liberal Jewish congregation located in Palo Alto California with about 300 families. We differ from other congregations in the area because

• We are unaffiliated with the Orthodox, Conservative, or Reform movements
• We wrote our own prayer book which includes Hebrew, English, and transliterations so that everyone can participate
• During the Bar or Bat Mitzvah service there is a unique question and answer dialogue between the Bar or Bat Mitzvah student and the congregation

Several years ago we started a project to update our website at http://etzchayim.org. One of the challenges with the site was keeping it up to date and being able to add new features. We were very dependent on volunteers with technical backgrounds to manage changes.

Being in the heart of Silicon Valley, many of our members work in high technology and we wanted our members and prospective members to do things online. We decided to use Drupal as our content management system and a package called Shul Suite from Pogstone which is built on top of CiviCRM. We use the following features in CiviCRM:

• Membership Database – We track family relationships including children in the religious school, children of members, and parents of members. Shul Suite has customized fields in themembership data base so that we can track Yahrzeits or the yearly anniversary of a relative’s death
• Membership Directory – We use CiviCRM to allow members to search the membership directory by name or by address. This feature allows our members to find people who live in the neighborhood and can provide rides to services or carpooling to religious school
• Calendar and Event management – We maintain a consolidated calendar for religious events, social events, and the religious school. We have instructions on our website so members can integrate all or part of the synagogue calendar with their personal calendars.
• Event Registration – We used event registration during the High Holidays to register visitors and guests. We also use it during the year so that people can register online for the Passover Seder, concerts, and other special events.
• Online Donations -- We use forms and integration with credit card companies so that members can renew their membership online. Both members and non-members can make online donations.

The combination of Drupal, CiviCRM, and Shul Suite allowed us to update our website and to provide new services through our website. Our office staff took over many of the web and back office data management activities which were formerly done by a technical specialist and they are able to keep the site up to date and manage many programs, activities, and donations online. The combination of products provides a solid foundation for us to grow our website as our congregation grows.