A Message Critical to Our Community -- Not a Fundraising Letter
Dear Community Members,
We come to you in a time of vulnerability, with the proverbial Good News and Bad News.
The Good News is that in 2020, at the start of the pandemic, we strongly rallied as a community to meet the emerging needs of the Kadima community. We created and attended online programming in huge numbers, we led the pack in developing best practices for engaging, accessible, experiential online programming, and we increased as a community in every way possible. This included increased financial giving and Kadima was able to grow the most substantial reserve that we have *ever had*.
Which brings us to the Bad News. Now, three years later, we have all been hit hard by the pandemic. As individuals and community members we are exhausted and depleted, emotionally, mentally, and financially. Despite ways in which Kadima regularly fought back against isolation, 2021 and 2022 were years of continued high stress and retreat for many people, even as we yearned for connection. This resulted in a decline in Kadima membership. Many members that remained reduced their Nadiv Lev pledges each year, resulting in a smaller forecast of income, and additionally a record number of households have been unable, due to the financial impacts of COVID, to follow through on the Nadiv Lev pledges that they did make.
This situation we are in is no one's fault. It is the predictable and catastrophic result of this pandemic experience that we have all been through. While we have worked to avoid this moment, we find ourselves in it together and we are reaching out to you now.
This is not a fundraising letter but a notice and a request for communal action - for it will take many of us.
We have run through our cash surplus from 2020. We had a wonderful and connecting Heart & Chutzpah event in April, which usually provides funds to even out the spring and early summer slump in the annual Kadima financial cycle. However, this year we had so much less coming in from Nadiv Lev payments that Heart & Chutzpah money was used up far earlier than usual, and is now nearly depleted as Kadima spends anywhere from $30-40K per month - over 75% of which is for payroll.
After running our mid-June payroll, our account is down to a mere hundreds of dollars and without the work and collective attention needed, we may not make payroll at the end of June to pay our teachers and staff.
You may need a moment for that fact to sink in or be absorbed in your mind and body. We have seen different staff and board members react differently to this news over the last week, as known and foreseeable trends have indeed reached a breaking point. Please pause if you need a moment to take care of yourself, and then please be sure to read on.
Kadima's finances are a dynamic system. We have received pledges for $10K even since first drafting this letter, which if received in time, will be just enough to get us through our June 30 payroll expenses.
To make it through the forecasted summer we will still require $15K in addition to already scheduled member Nadiv Lev payments in July. We may need additional support in August and what we do now will determine this. Our cash shortfall may ease in September due to the regular cycle of membership renewals and Kadima school tuition payments as well as an anticipated IRS employment retention credit.
While this is not a fundraising letter, we are asking you to help with this critical situation in the following ways:
We have done a commendable job as a community figuring out how to continue to rebound from the effects of the global pandemic we still find ourselves in. This time last year, outside of small invite-only b’mitzvah services, we still had not had a community event with an indoor, in-person component. And here we are figuring our way back toward one another in so many ways. Let this be a call to come together to ensure that while slower, our financial rebound can follow the example of our relational one.
B'hatzlacha - to our success,
Kadima Board & Staff
www.kadima.org
[email protected]
Kadima
PO Box 28455
Seattle, WA 98118
We come to you in a time of vulnerability, with the proverbial Good News and Bad News.
The Good News is that in 2020, at the start of the pandemic, we strongly rallied as a community to meet the emerging needs of the Kadima community. We created and attended online programming in huge numbers, we led the pack in developing best practices for engaging, accessible, experiential online programming, and we increased as a community in every way possible. This included increased financial giving and Kadima was able to grow the most substantial reserve that we have *ever had*.
Which brings us to the Bad News. Now, three years later, we have all been hit hard by the pandemic. As individuals and community members we are exhausted and depleted, emotionally, mentally, and financially. Despite ways in which Kadima regularly fought back against isolation, 2021 and 2022 were years of continued high stress and retreat for many people, even as we yearned for connection. This resulted in a decline in Kadima membership. Many members that remained reduced their Nadiv Lev pledges each year, resulting in a smaller forecast of income, and additionally a record number of households have been unable, due to the financial impacts of COVID, to follow through on the Nadiv Lev pledges that they did make.
This situation we are in is no one's fault. It is the predictable and catastrophic result of this pandemic experience that we have all been through. While we have worked to avoid this moment, we find ourselves in it together and we are reaching out to you now.
This is not a fundraising letter but a notice and a request for communal action - for it will take many of us.
We have run through our cash surplus from 2020. We had a wonderful and connecting Heart & Chutzpah event in April, which usually provides funds to even out the spring and early summer slump in the annual Kadima financial cycle. However, this year we had so much less coming in from Nadiv Lev payments that Heart & Chutzpah money was used up far earlier than usual, and is now nearly depleted as Kadima spends anywhere from $30-40K per month - over 75% of which is for payroll.
After running our mid-June payroll, our account is down to a mere hundreds of dollars and without the work and collective attention needed, we may not make payroll at the end of June to pay our teachers and staff.
You may need a moment for that fact to sink in or be absorbed in your mind and body. We have seen different staff and board members react differently to this news over the last week, as known and foreseeable trends have indeed reached a breaking point. Please pause if you need a moment to take care of yourself, and then please be sure to read on.
Kadima's finances are a dynamic system. We have received pledges for $10K even since first drafting this letter, which if received in time, will be just enough to get us through our June 30 payroll expenses.
To make it through the forecasted summer we will still require $15K in addition to already scheduled member Nadiv Lev payments in July. We may need additional support in August and what we do now will determine this. Our cash shortfall may ease in September due to the regular cycle of membership renewals and Kadima school tuition payments as well as an anticipated IRS employment retention credit.
While this is not a fundraising letter, we are asking you to help with this critical situation in the following ways:
- Attend the Membership Meeting on June 25th at 2pm on Zoom to take action to both solve our immediate cash flow problem, and jumpstart our recovery from this financial crisis. Stay tuned for notice as soon as possible.
- If you are employed, inquire about employer matching. Your employer could potentially match any donations you have already made this year!
- List out who among your friends and family might want to donate to sustain your Jewish home. Fill out the Friends & Family form so we can ask them on your behalf, or ask them yourselves (we are happy to provide support on how to make an ask!)
- Host a Facebook/social media fundraiser or in-person house party for your birthday, anniversary, or just because
- Catch up on your Nadiv Lev and/or Kadima School pledge payments if you are behind, or get ahead and finish your pledge payments if you are on time (you will be receiving a pledge update email in the days ahead, with instructions on how to catch up or get ahead).
- Renew your membership now! If you have already paid your Nadiv Lev (and school, if applicable) pledges in full for the year, renewing or re-enrolling now (even if early) will help us get started with new pledges and payments.
- We applied for the Employee Retention Credit from the IRS in March (thank you to Kadima member Richard Ginnis, CPA!). This is a governmental COVID relief refund on Kadima’s portion of employee taxes that we paid to the IRS and should amount to more than $100K. We had been hoping that this would come in before we bottomed out. However, we just received a letter that the IRS expects it to take 60 more days to get back to us. We need a stop-gap!
- We are applying for loans from our credit union and other institutions. If you know of a good place to try, please let us know!
- We will be reaching out to a limited number of members to make individual asks of larger amounts, which can be a gift or (if necessary) a loan. Let us know if you should be on this list.
- We will be calling members who are behind in Nadiv Lev or school payments, but have not contacted us for a reduction. We will ask if you can catch up on your pledged payments. Additionally, we will call anyone with an unfinished pledge and ask if you can make any early payments.
- For the longer term, we are committed to relying on our membership LESS, and developing more diverse funding strategies. To that end, we are planning on hiring both a consultant on fundraising strategy, and a year-round part-time communications & fundraising staff position, in addition to having an action plan to do significantly more grant writing in the coming year without increasing our payroll to do so. Of course, we need to get over this cash flow hump before that can happen.
- We are also deeply looking at ways Kadima can better support the community in recovering from the pandemic through support and programming, while at the same time we as individual staff and board members also work at recovering our own capacity. If you yourself are experiencing an emergency financial need, contact the Hebrew Free Loan Association of WA.
- We have also enacted a temporary spending freeze as much as possible to ensure our priority of making payroll.
We have done a commendable job as a community figuring out how to continue to rebound from the effects of the global pandemic we still find ourselves in. This time last year, outside of small invite-only b’mitzvah services, we still had not had a community event with an indoor, in-person component. And here we are figuring our way back toward one another in so many ways. Let this be a call to come together to ensure that while slower, our financial rebound can follow the example of our relational one.
B'hatzlacha - to our success,
Kadima Board & Staff
www.kadima.org
[email protected]
Kadima
PO Box 28455
Seattle, WA 98118