Shadow Shul turns a volunteer group from a group chat into a real operation — without asking permission. Here’s the shape of it.
No IT project. No staff onboarding. No migration from the shul’s system of record.
Any committee chair, gabbai, or volunteer lead can spin up a workspace for their group. Name it, describe it, set who’s in charge.
Invite members directly or pull from the congregation directory (where available). Roles and permissions handled — chairs, members, observers.
Schedule events, open sign-ups, assign tasks, send announcements, track who’s doing what. Everything the group actually does, in one place.
Optional publishing to shul-wide calendars and bulletins — when you choose, on your terms. Staff stays informed without being a bottleneck.
Shadow Shul is not a kitchen-sink platform. It’s a focused set of tools for the specific shape of volunteer coordination.
Events, meetings, minyanim, programs. Publish to the shul calendar when ready — or keep it internal to the group.
Shiva meals, kiddush sponsors, leining assignments, ushering, bikur cholim visits. Built for recurring commitments.
Who’s in the group, what they volunteer for, how to reach them. Respects the main shul directory’s source of truth.
Send to your group — not the whole shul. Email, SMS, or in-app. No more “please ask the office to send this.”
Who’s picking up the challah? Who’s calling the family? Lightweight tasks, not another Jira.
The playbook, the vendor list, the contact for the rabbi’s wife’s cousin. The stuff that normally lives in someone’s inbox.
Shadow Shul is defined as much by what it refuses to do as by what it does.
We don’t do dues, billing, donor CRM, or financial records. Your shul management system keeps doing that.
No feeds, no reactions, no endless scroll. This is an operations tool, not an engagement product.
Volunteer leaders can stand up a group without going through the office. That’s the whole point.