By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews
They knew it wasn’t going to be a great year, and officials at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle are holding the annual community campaign open for what they hope will be just a few extra weeks to allow latecomers to help fulfill the promises the organization made to the partner agencies it supports.
“We would prefer to end the campaign at the end of the fiscal year on June 30. Because of the distressing economic times it’s meant that some of our major donors have delayed their gifts,” said Richard Fruchter, the Federation’s president and CEO.
The community campaign is projected to decrease by 5.7 percent over Fiscal Year 2009, a total of $5.257 million. The 2009 campaign itself was down from Fiscal Year 2008, which had raised $6.05 million.
“We got a little lucky last year when we started our campaign earlier, and we did better than most of the places in the country,” Fruchter said. “But this year it’s hit us harder than in other places, so we’re scrambling.”
At a time when Jewish nonprofit organizations, in particular social service agencies, have seen significant downward trends in their own fundraising, nearly all of the Federation’s partner agencies both in the Puget Sound region and internationally have seen cuts in their allocations. Letters sent to agencies with their allocations stated the projected amount each would receive. Fruchter said he is confident the Federation will be able to meet its projections, but in the event that doesn’t happen, the board would have to decide how to proceed.
“We were conservative. If we don’t reach it we won’t be off by very much,” he said. “As we get closer to the deadline of the campaign, contributors have stepped forward and been more supportive.”
Many agencies have had to pare down, cutting staff or reducing levels of service to meet their budgets, and the Federation said it has cut its operating budget by 3.5 percent and was able to make up some cuts through leaving positions open and taking surpluses from previous years’ operating budgets.
The organization laid off the equivalent of three positions at the end of the last fiscal year.
To determine allocations, the Federation uses a system called the Dwaffler Attributes, which takes criteria based upon objective data about how well any given organization meets its mission, plus how much it improved over the past year, and calculates a total.
“It’s been a robust system for us. It’s worked really well,” Fruchter said.
In the three years since the Federation began using Dwaffler, organizations were guaranteed a baseline of what they received the previous year. This year, that number was reduced from 75 percent to a 50 percent guarantee.
Lisa Fein, the outgoing chair of the Federation’s Planning and Allocations Committee, which deliberates on how the allocations should be made, said that with a lower campaign intake, making decisions was more challenging. But she said that with everyone on the committee assessing and prioritizing needs, the process is fair.
“The economy, and those…very vulnerable to having the basics of food and shelter would have been top priority,” Fein said, “but I don’t know if that has shifted much overall” from past years.
Only two agency received increases in allocations: One, Leket Israel, gleans produce from farms and gives it to Israeli food banks and soup kitchens.
The other, the Jewish Federations of North America umbrella organization, is the partner for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the Jewish Agency for Israel, which provide services for Jews internationally.
Jewish Family Service, which has historically received the largest local allocation, saw a 14.1 percent decrease, from $404,400 to $347,500.
“It’s really substantial money lost,” said Claudia Berman, associate executive director of JFS. “We try to maximize our grants and do a pretty good job of that, but there are only so many grants out there today.”
JFS received a total of $250,000 in Federation endowment grants in the past year in addition to its allocation.
Dianne Loeb, board president of JFS, said the Federation had warned them their allocation would not be as large as in previous years.
“We are conservative in the way we budget, so we try to prepare for maybe not the worst,” said Loeb. But “this one is a little bit worse than we really wanted.”
What concerned Berman more was the 21.3 percent hit to the Seattle Association for Jews with Disabilities, a satellite agency of JFS: A $15,600 reduction to $57,800 from its 2010 allocation of $73,400.
“We just feel like that’s the population that’s least visible and most in need of our community, and that Federation sort of represents the community support for programming like SAJD,” Berman said, “so I think that cut feels even more difficult.”
Rather than make cuts, Loeb said, JFS will try to make up the shortfall.
“We’ll have to work harder to fundraise to meet the needs of existing clients, and needs in almost every area continue to grow,” Loeb said.
The Washington State Jewish Historical Society, with a small budget and allocation, saw a 27.8 percent decrease in its allocation — a $500 decrease from $1,800. WSJHS is also housed in the Federation’s offices at reduced rental rates.
“Five hundred dollars is a program for us,” said Lisa Kranseler, WSJHS’s executive director. “It’s a cutback. It’s a big difference.”
But “in all fairness, basic human needs do come first in any community,” she said. “I am of that opinion, and so is our entire board.”
Kranseler said she has repeatedly asked for a significantly larger allocation for the historical society to maintain the entirety of the Jewish archives for the state of Washington.
“I don’t know what it’s going to take to convince other organizations here, including the Federation, that we need help to support those archives, and to do it justice,” she said.
JTNews, which receives an allocation in the form of rent, saw a 26.2 percent decrease from $25,200 to $18,600.
While the community campaign itself is down, the Federation actually disbursed nearly $10 million in total, with much of that coming in the form of endowment funding and special campaigns such as $101,727 raised for summer camp scholarships.
“It’s a different way we look at the community,” Fruchter said. “We must have raised $100,000 in scholarships this year, which is dramatically more than in years past, but it needed to be done and it couldn’t be done through the annual campaign.”
Federation officials stressed that community members who want to ensure a successful completion of the campaign should make a gift.
