By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews
Though officials at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle had expected to close the community campaign for Fiscal Year 2010 by the end of the summer, it began to come clear as fall approached that there would be a shortfall, even in a campaign that was down over the previous year’s. On Fri., Dec. 17, the Federation sent out letters to its beneficiary agencies that it would be reducing its allocations by an across-the-board 1.75 percent.
“Because it’s a relatively small reduction, I don’t think that it’s material to the agencies, but we do regret having to make these reductions because we believe that their services are vital to the community,” said Planning and Allocations committee chair Jack Almo, who signed the letter.
The percentage reflects one-third of the $128,000 difference between the $5.257 million projected revenue from the campaign and the actual amount it was able to collect. The Federation absorbed the remaining two-thirds.
“We decided that in the best interest of getting the most money out to the agencies, we would take two-thirds of those cuts internally, and we would ask all of our beneficiary and partner agencies to absorb the other [third],” said Richard Fruchter, the Federation’s president and CEO.
Though Fruchter said the Federation believed its projections were conservative, “there were a number of givers who simply couldn’t give their gift this year or give at the same level as in the past,” he said.
After the decision was made to close the campaign once and for all — once a new campaign begins, fundraising energy should be focused on that and not on previous campaigns, Fruchter said — the Federation’s Finance and Administration committee, which sets parameters for internal operations, made the decision to shoulder the two-thirds of the deficit.
“The decision was based largely on the fact that we had already identified some savings and that we would split the balance with the [beneficiary agencies],” said Andrew Cohen, who chairs that committee. “It just seemed like the best thing for the community right now was to minimize the impact…as best as possible.”
“We looked at what we felt we could do internally without stopping the core work of the Federation,” Fruchter said.
From there, the Planning and Allocations committee decided that taking a blanket percentage from each of the beneficiaries would impact the agencies most fairly.
“When we reviewed the numbers, we found that it was most equitable to take some out of every agency,” Almo said.
The allocation reduction will manifest itself through the monthly distributions to beneficiary agencies over the last six months of the fiscal year. (JTNews receives an annual allocation.)
Hilary Bernstein, community director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Seattle office, said her agency would feel the drop, even at a loss of $28 a month.
“It’s going to have an impact on the work that we’re able to do here in the community,” Bernstein said. “As a beneficiary agency, we rely on support from Federation. We know that people here give their dollars to Federation so they can be dispersed to help those organizations in their ability to serve the community.”
Claudia Berman, chief operating officer at Jewish Family Service of Greater Seattle, said her agency would find a way to shoulder the additional $6,067 — particularly because it’s a drop in the bucket compared to state funding the agency stands to lose with a $4.1 billion shortfall in the next biennium.
“Equivalently speaking, what are you going to do? We’re going to deal,” Berman said. “It’s obviously the wrong direction and is concerning, particularly in light of other factors going on.”
Inside the Federation, the way this nearly $88,000 will be accounted for hasn’t been fully determined. Fruchter said most of the shortfall will come from savings, but more focus will be placed on its core fundraising and planning operations.
In addition, the Federation will be “looking at how we move forward with probably a smaller staff that puts more money out into the community,” Fruchter said.