LAJF Strategic Plan 2021-2026
As we embark on the next strategic plan, we aim to build our “program ecosystem” with the Camp Rising Sun program at the core, adding new initiatives that strengthen and underscore the impact of the camp program. The following introduces the six pillars of the proposed strategic plan.
Over the coming months, the plan will be further developed and presented to the LAJF board for a vote in July 2021. The staff will then operationalize the plan to be launched beginning October 1st.
We will strengthen and continue to improve Camp Rising Sun.
With more than 90 years of history, Camp Rising Sun remains an innovative, high-quality educational experience. The past five years have allowed us to formalize programmatically aspects and strengthen our core program.
We look to further evolve our in-person programming to reflect the importance of contemporary world matters such as climate change and social justice, and we intend to grow the number of campers served in each of our two sessions from 60 to a maximum of 80, to widen the reach of our mission. We will continue to make prudent investments in our facilities to ensure a modern campus and accommodate the increase in campers.
We aim to broaden our program offerings, increasing our reach of new populations and growing the ecosystem of programs at the LAJF.
The following initiatives will be piloted over the next five years and developed at a pace and scale that is incremental and achievable.
We aim to pilot and develop a camping program for middle school aged participants from NY state. The program, 1-2 weeks in length, will serve to expose young people to our program model and pedagogy, in a design that is developmentally appropriate. Funded by grants and sponsorships, the long-term goal is for the programs to be financially self-sustained.
We will develop and run an educator training/leadership fellowship program aimed at providing 12-15 participants annually, aged 18-25, with facilitation and educator skills rooted in the CRS pedagogy. The program will utilize both virtual and in person learning, offering the opportunity to utilize our campus and facilities at Clinton outside of the summer months.
Our virtual education programs are grounded in our mission and offered to youth aged 16-18, internationally. Each program is developed to encourage critical thinking, self reflection, global understanding, and reinforce youth’s role as change makers. This programs are open to youth ages 16 18 and is fee based with generous scholarships available.
We will continue to extend the impact of our programs and prolong the life-span of our Investment in alumni towards building a better world.
Nurturing and advancing the relationship with alumni is an important part of the plan. We believe that alumni share the unique experience of having been together at Camp Rising Sun. They were exposed to the values of teaching and learning, critical thinking, giving back and making the world better. These values are the foundations on which we want to build relationships between alumni and LAJF. Concretely, we will focus on:
Content-driven alumni programming: Virtual programming and formalizing networking through internship opportunity sharing, alumni mentorship committee and professional panel events.
Supporting young alumni: College-guidance programs, G.E.J. Scholarship, Fellowship program and virtual programming.
Events, Reunions and Community building: Annual reunions, fundraising events, Sundial and newsletters, support of local alumni associations and alumni-community infrastructure.
Financial and physical infrastructure to support our programs
Diversification of Revenue Streams: Over the next five years, LAJF aims to grow while becoming less reliant on the annual draw from the investment portfolio. We will diversify funding streams and invest in fundraising infrastructure to support the proposed program offerings.
Staff Infrastructure: To adequately and sustainably support our Camp, alumni and new programs, we will phase in 3-4 additional full time program staff.
Facilities: In the last strategic plan, major investments were made at Clinton to address deferred maintenance in order to secure the site as the long term home for Camp Rising Sun. At Red Hook, we completed essential projects to secure the roofs and safety of the buildings and basic grounds maintenance to continue using the property for our camping trips. The Building and Grounds committee is proposing an overall investment of approximately $1,000,000 over the next five years in our two campuses.
Strategies for diversifying funding streams
Modeling the values of our mission throughout our organization
We will pursue expansive diversity among our staff, Board and committee members. We aim to evaluate our governance structure in context of mission. We will seek input from alumni from marginalized communities on alumni programming recommendations.
Some concrete projects already planned are underway are: revising our curriculum and summer-staff training, implementing a value-based approach to external communication and revising camper selection and staff-hiring practices.
The Strategic Planning Committee will work to establish a meaningful way to track our progress and efforts, to model the values of our mission throughout our organization.
Developing processes to evaluate and measure our progress
In order to make this plan a success, we will continuously assess progress and report status annually to the LAJF Board. For each pillar we will define key performance indicators (KPIs), a scorecard for the six pillars, bridging the progress-tracking to our analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and obstacles.
The Strategic Planning Committee will continue with to meet in lower frequency capacity, as the body that evaluates progress on opportunities in plan and new opportunities.