Anticipating Our New Website

We Are Eagerly Anticipating the Launch of our New Website!

By Emma Koblick, Director of Communication

We are looking forward to launching a brand new Temple Israel website at the end of May 2021! Since our last website redesign in 2015, we have evolved as an organization and it's time to update our online presence and functionality. In addition to new programs such as the Tent for Greater Boston Teens and the Center for Adult Jewish Learning, which are engaging eager new learners from across the country, we also have seen a 15% website traffic increase in this past year of virtual programming. We've re-committed to our REDI (racial equity, diversity, and inclusion) mission, and we need to update our messaging, imagry, and functionality to be inclusive and accessible to all who visit our website.

Through countless small group meetings with clergy, staff, lay-leaders, and congregants, as well as a communitywide website survey, we laid out goals for our site and strategies to achieve them. With thanks to our lay-led website redesign task force and copyediting team, we are proud of the collective efforts that brought this website redesign to fruition.

Be sure to keep an eye out for details for the official launch! In the meantime, here are some of the key features of the new website:

CUSTOMIZABLE ENTRY POINTS

• We are thinking about who is coming to our website, what they might be looking for, and what the narrative of belonging is for each story.

EVENTS AND PROGRAMMING HUB

• This redesigned events and programming hub is more than a calendar, it's the engine of the website and an engagement tool! • We are ensuring that the new calendar is reliable, accurate, user-friendly, searchable, personalizable, and reflects the cycle of the

Jewish calendar.

WORKFLOW EFFICIENCY AND CONSISTENT MESSAGING

• Our new website will be fully integrated into our other technology and communication systems. • We will have a rich library of easily accessible content: videos of sermons, podcasts, music, lectures, photo galleries, learning prayers, etc.

RELATIONAL TOOL

• Our new website will focus on mission-centric story telling: who are we and why do we exist? • The new structure of the website will break down silos of departments so that there are more ways to discover all the things happening at Temple Israel.

INCLUSION AND ACCESSIBILITY

• We are deeply engaged in enacting our

REDI (racial diversity, equity, and inclusion) mission to be more inclusive in every way, through inclusive language, photos, and ability functionality.

OPERATIONAL TOOL

• We are improving registration and payment functionality, search capabilities, and cybersecurity readiness.