Soul Operators

After spending several years in healthcare administration, Lori Cohen decided to work where her heart is, in a synagogue. But she quickly found that her extensive experience in the business world and temple life did not prepare her for some of the challenges she faces as executive director of Temple Shalom of Naples.

While a church, temple or other place of worship requires many of the same gritty, earthly operational details as other businesses, its purpose and mission make running it unlike any other kind of organization-not-for-profit or for-profit.

"The reality is, there are no training grounds," says Cohen, who has been at the temple for nearly six years. "To be executive director of a house of worship is a unique challenge. You can know business really well and temple life really well and assume there is a connection between the two, but you can't equate it to running a company that sells widgets. You're dealing with someone's family, their soul, you're dealing with passionate issues of faith and trying to manage those with compassion and business principles."

One difference: Not in many business environments would an executive try to work out a financial arrangement with a client who was sitting in the office weeping. Cohen says she feels privileged to be entrusted with such intimacy.

For a church or synagogue, the congregation-with all of the individuals and their troubles-is the organization's raison d'être.

"To me, the congregants are the stockholders of this organization; it's theirs, they own it," says Cohen. "From a business perspective I have to manage it, but the congregation is it."

That level of personal involvement and emotion is precisely why some churches prefer not to employ congregation members, says Simeon May. He is the CEO of the Texas-based National Association of Church Business Administration, a 50-year-old organization that provides training and resources to congregations handling the business side of a church.

"Running a ministry and trying to meet people's needs is different from running a company, but there's certainly a lot of overlap," he says. "The difference might be in the way a church would carry out human resources management. Churches-we hope, anyway-are much more people-conscious and fair and almost loving in the way they treat employees. Nobody wants to fire anybody, even more so in a church, and doubly so if it's a church member."

As a result, he concedes, ill-suited employees sometimes end up in jobs longer than they might in a for-profit company.

But at many places of worship, there's never a second thought about employees being members. "I'm firmly convinced that employees don't choose to work at Temple Shalom for the money," says Cohen. "They choose to work here because it's a very special environment."

Risk Management

The association fields a lot of questions about tax and legal issues as well as risk management, says May.

"One thing in common with schools and other entities is child abuse," he says. Consequently, more churches are seeking legal advice and looking for companies that perform background checks. A number of insurance companies, including Church Mutual, Brotherhood Mutual and GuideOne, "joined forces to help churches with policies for the prevention of child abuse," says May.

Other risk-management issues also have come to the fore, such as 15-passenger vans, he says. They're commonly used by churches, but have been involved in an alarming number of rollovers, resulting in members' injuries and deaths. As with for-profit businesses, churches are liable for such risks. "There was a day and time when nobody would think of suing a church," says May. That day is long gone.

The Executive Boards

In some small churches, it's up to the pastor and elders to handle the finances and operations. As a place of worship grows, in most cases, so does its staff.

"It takes a fairly good-sized church to hire staff," says May. Depending on the funding and policies of a denomination, "the business administrator might be the second position hired, in others it might be the fifth or sixth." The typical point for a church to hire staff is when its regular attendance reaches about 500 or its annual budget hits $500,000 to $1 million, he says.

Even with a staff, managerial responsibilities often lie with the spiritual leader.

"It's a financial challenge and a spiritual challenge and a public relations challenge to run a parish," says the Rev. Joseph Spinelli, pastor of St. Elizabeth Seton Parish in Golden Gate. "It can be difficult a lot of times for a priest, because we're not trained for business; we're trained for spiritual."

He has help, however. The Catholic Diocese of Venice, which governs the parish, sets policies and provides resources. And-as in other churches-congregation members volunteer their expertise through committees that focus on finance, membership, grounds and facilities maintenance, and other areas that parallel departments or positions in a business. Faith organizations that have schools (and many of the larger ones do) also have boards of directors or committees that focus on school business.

As assistant senior pastor of First Assembly Ministries, Brad Liebe not only preaches, he also is chairman of the board of elders. But it's the board and its committees-all made up of volunteers from the congregation-who hand down policy.

First Assembly's finance committee is made up of lay people with a strong financial background. The building committee includes professional developers and builders. Attorneys, CPAs and insurance professionals all lend their expertise to the church, says Liebe, who participates in decisions and oversees the staff that carries them out. "Daily activity is following policy and procedures set by these entities," he says.

That expertise is invaluable, says Cohen at Temple Shalom, which also benefits from members' expertise; but running an organization by committee is much different than a for-profit business.

"When you're the CEO of an organization, you make the best decision you can with the information you have and go with it. In a religious organization, there's a lot more collaboration, and that's not always the easiest path," she says. "It's the right and best one, but it can be complicated."

Dealing with Growth

In Southwest Florida, places of worship are challenged not only by dramatic seasonal fluctuations in congregation size, but also by the region's growth. Churches and synagogues have been growing with demand, and expansions are funded by member contributions.

Christian churches encourage congregations to contribute a tithe, defined in the Bible as 10 percent of a person's income. That revenue accounts for First Assembly's general fund, and congregants make additional contributions for missions, says Liebe. The church tracks contributions, but doesn't know whether their contributions represent 10 percent of a member's income. "I have no idea what anybody in this church makes," he says. Ultimately, what they give is up to them. "That needs to come from the heart, and they need to choose to do that."

At Temple Shalom, membership comes with a financial as well as a participatory responsibility, says Cohen. Family membership, single membership and associate membership (for seasonal residents who belong to other temples) cost a set annual amount. While some choose to contribute more, Cohen works with those who can't afford it, a process that often wraps her into their personal lives.

St. Elizabeth Seton

St. Elizabeth Seton boasts a membership of close to 3,000 families and, in addition to its Sunday school classes, a school of about 150 children in pre-kindergarten through eighth grades. It also provides Spanish services. The combined staff is fewer than 20.

Just five years ago, it completed a new church that seats 1,100-about 800 more than its predecessor.

St. Elizabeth Seton has paid off its new church, and for the past few years it has been raising money for a new school gymnasium, says Spinelli, who estimates its annual budget at around a half-million dollars.

Because of the rapid growth, the diocese is splitting up the parish, just as it did when St. John the Evangelist was established in 1988. Once the new St. Agnes Chapel opens in the spring on Collier Boulevard and Vanderbilt Beach Road, both St. Elizabeth Seton and St. John will lose some of their members to St. Agnes, which already holds services at Gulf Coast High School.

That loss will affect St. Elizabeth Seton's budget, but probably not for long, says Spinelli, because newcomers continue to join.

Temple Shalom

At Temple Shalom, there's also an emphasis on growth, not from a missionary perspective but from the need to accommodate Jews in the community, says Cohen.

A learning center was completed about three years ago that doubled the facility's size to about 44,000 square feet, but once again, it's "bursting at the seams," she says.

In addition to its religious school, Temple Shalom has a preschool, accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. About 150 two-, three- and four-year-olds from all faiths attend it.

"The preschool is so well respected that we're juggling space to be able to accommodate them all," she says. This year during holy days, the sanctuary was filled to capacity, so temple leaders are looking for ways to accommodate the demand, perhaps by adding more services or closed-circuit TV if not a building expansion.