After two years without an executive director, Golden Slipper Club & Charities has hired a new one, Lori Rubin. The new executive director made the announcement in a LinkedIn post.
“I’m excited to share that I’ve stepped into the role of Executive Director at Golden Slipper,” Rubin wrote. “I’m honored to lead Golden Slipper into the future and look forward to working with a dedicated team to build connections and expand our impact.”
Golden Slipper — known for the Golden Slipper Camp in Stroudsburg, which offers financial aid to a majority of campers, and other charitable programs, like an annual Passover Seder — last had an executive director, Marti Berk, in May 2024. But Berk left to take on a leadership role at Caring For Friends, a Philadelphia nonprofit focusing on food insecurity. Since her departure, Golden Slipper’s board decided to make it work, but that was unsustainable, according to Cynthia Stein, the current board president.
“I’m a lawyer. I have a full-time job. I can’t also run a nonprofit,” she said.
When the board started searching again, Rubin, a Rydal resident, quickly proved to be the perfect fit. The Beth Tikvah B’nai Jeshurun and Or Hadash member had spent the last three and a half years as the director of leadership and governance at the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia. In that role, she helped manage the board, recruit professional staff, build relationships with lay leaders in the community and organize fundraisers.
“It felt like Lori had the exact qualifications we were looking for,” Stein said. “She has experience in a variety of fields.”
Berk started in her role as executive director of Golden Slipper in July 2023, replacing Steve Rosenberg, who had been serving as interim director and also led the search process for his own replacement. But when she left after less than a year, the organization’s board didn’t want to rush to find a new executive director, according to Stein. Board members wanted to find the right person.
As the search began, a friend of Stein’s told her to talk to Rubin. The Federation executive was not job searching at the time. The friend recommended that Stein call her because Rubin knew so many people in the Philadelphia Jewish community from her time at the Federation, as well as from previous roles at the Katz JCC in Cherry Hill, Jewish Learning Venture, jkidphilly and Or Hadash: A Reconstructionist Congregation.
Rubin was happy to help. But as they started talking, Stein said she wanted “a unicorn,” or someone who knew a lot of people, understood development and understood camp, Rubin recalled.
“I sort of said, ‘I have a lot of these skills,’” Rubin said.
She realized she might be ready to run an organization for the first time.
“I felt like it was the right time and place,” Rubin said. “I can bring those skills into an organization that does meaningful, relevant work.”
The new executive director liked that Golden Slipper was a “multifaceted organization.” It serves Jews in the community across the lifespan, from young campers to seniors who attend the annual Passover Seder.
More than 200 kids attend the Golden Slipper Camp each summer. It is the organization’s biggest program. But Rubin also wants Jews in the community to gain a greater awareness of Golden Slipper’s other programs.
A Golden Slipper group called Human Needs and Services offers grants to families in need. If a family needs a washer and dryer, the grant can pay for it. The organization’s Passover League offers similar pools of money for low-income families and communities that want to organize Passover Seders, a separate initiative from the communitywide Seder that Golden Slipper also hosts. “I think that, while Golden Slipper has been around for 100 years, not a lot of people know about all the facets of Golden Slipper,” Rubin said. “I want to get more kids to camp, provide resources for people in need and get the funds for doing so.”
Golden Slipper has about 1,000 paying members. During her first several months, Rubin wants to get to know them. In the long run, she hopes to expand the club.
“I’m really looking forward to meeting all the members, potential members and getting the word out. It’ll be a lot of coffees for sure,” she said. “How we increase the membership is what I’m looking at.”