Project Bina, (meaning “insight”) is a volunteer committee working to establish a long-term feedback loop at Temple Beth Am. Project Bina seeks to deepen understanding of the needs of the Beth Am congregation, collect diverse perspectives from all TBA congregants, and use feedback received to inform our future planning, programming, and services.
The 2025 congregational survey gathered feedback from 116 members, covering topics that included programming, financial support belonging and engagement. The survey findings will help set congregational priorities and improvements in the year ahead, including new educational programs such as the Friday Forum, Tzedek re-envisioning and a re-vamp of our annual meeting.
Survey highlights are below:
Feelings of belonging at Beth Am have increased since 2023.
Adult Education (72%) & community-building programs — including Hearth Groups, Social Justice initiatives, and Neighborhood Get-Togethers — generated the highest interest among survey participants.
The greatest volunteering interest was seen in hosting events, greeting, and committee roles.
More than 1 in 4 congregants (27%) are interested in teaching or sharing their expertise — revealing strong potential for member-led learning and mentorship opportunities.
Nearly 1 in 5 congregants were interested in getting additional context around giving.
At this point in time, email is the preferred communication channel overall and across all ages.
The survey report slides (link) and summary may be found here (link).
In spring 2026, Project Bina is collaborating with the Tzedek Task Force to reimagine Beth Am’s social justice work, and will be hosting a series of house parties to learn from congregants.
Project Bina conducted expert interviews to support the Task Force. The goal of these interviews was to collect guidance and experiences from members of the Temple Beth Am community, who have been leaders in either Beth Am or external social justice leadership, as inputs to planning for Tzedek work. We asked them how they defined social justice, their personal engagement in social justice causes, learnings and best practices from their work, volunteer engagement and measuring success. The results from this work will inform the upcoming congregational listening sessions as well as the larger efforts of the Tzedek Task Force.
We hope you are having a great summer. A few updates from the Project Bina committee:
Stacey Symonds provided an overview of Project Bina to Rabbi Ruth’s rabbinic cohort. They were very interested in how we’ve approached gathering insights and Stacey’s had some follow-up conversations on how other Jewish leaders can leverage this type of feedback in their work.
We have been hard at work on a new congregational survey! We will be covering topics including belonging and engagement at Temple Beth Am, interest in different programming options and ways we can better support congregants’ giving of their time and financial support. We will also have questions on volunteering and interest in sharing your knowledge or skills with others. This was highlighted as a key opportunity to get more involved at Temple Beth Am by sharing your time and talents, in the remarks that Gaby Charlton, our Board President and Steven Snyder, Chair of our Board Governance Committee shared during the High Holy Days last fall. This survey will be sent out in mid-August and we would love to get your feedback to inform our programming and events for next year. Be on the lookout at the Annual Summer Barbeque for early access to the survey and in Temple Beth Am Happenings emails in late August.
We are gearing up to support our clergy and staff for a new congregational listening project in 5787 as we move into our 70th anniversary year at Temple Beth Am. More details to follow!
Greetings from the Project Bina committee. We’ve been hard at work and wanted to share an update about our current projects.
Here is a snapshot of our key findings:
The Project Bina committee supports and guides the Temple Beth Am community in the collection of research and data insights to help inform the development of our programs, events and services. We are committed to transparency, best practices in collecting information and helping our clergy, staff, board and other lay leaders create insight-informed action plans.
Committee Chair: Stacey Symonds
Committee Members: Heather Camp, Corinne Fligner, T. J. Stutman, Rachel Zerrell
Staff Support: Amanda Radman, TBA Membership and Development Associate
Project Bina shared their first results of this project at a well-attended Town Hall on March 19th.
If you did not have a chance to attend, click here to view Project Bina’s High Holy Day Survey Results presentation.
For more information about Project Bina, please email feedback@templebetham.org.
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