By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews
A year from now, the financial pictures of many of Western Washington’s Jewish organizations could look very different from how they look today. On July 28, representatives from the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle began the public rollout of its new fundraising and allocations model, a radical shift from the way this communal funding agency has operated for much of the past 85 years.
Though beneficiary agencies can expect many changes in the allocations process, the changes will be most obvious in two ways:
• Instead of receiving unrestricted allocations that cover operating costs, agencies will need to request grant money for specific projects;
• Where a handful of local organizations in the past received funding from the Federation, any Jewish 501(c)3 charitable organization in Western Washington, including synagogues, will be eligible to apply for these grants.
“This is very different from our old model…. We’re now looking at the broader community,” said Jack Almo, chair of the Federation’s Planning and Allocations committee. “The statement that we’re really making is that we’re a community tackling community challenges.”
But that statement, said Richard Fruchter, the Federation’s president and CEO, will need to be proven through action — the results of which are the culmination of more than two years of study and planning.
“We are positioning the Federation to be a forward-looking organization, the future of the community, and trying to say, ‘Here’s how we can take a community that’s good right now and really turn it into a great community,’” Fruchter said.
Rabbi Jonathan Singer of Temple Beth Am in Seattle, who also sits on the Federation’s board, has long promoted the idea that synagogues should be eligible for Federation funding. He said he was impressed with the structure of this new model.
“All the Jewish organizations can reach out together and work on fundraising and on development and communal engagement, so I’m very happy and proud of what the board achieved,” Singer said.
What marks this new strategy from the nationwide standard of federated giving — a big pot of money is collected each year, then distributed to local and international organizations based on various community-directed criteria — is how the fundraising and allocating are inextricably linked. Donors will now have the option of directing where they want their money used. JTNews will provide more details about the donor side of the strategy in a future edition.
This new grant-based model will include mechanisms to measure how each project benefits its intended population. These measurements will be based on metrics set in part by the agencies that receive the funding, meaning they will be required to put more work into their requests than in the past.
“We’re really looking for the agencies to help guide us on…the right measurable objectives that we can all use and agree upon to measure the success of the programs that they’re running,” Almo said. “Each project that we fund is going to have its own metrics that we look at and evaluate, and we’ll be asking before their grants are renewed to really evaluate them in year two and beyond.”
Projects most likely to be funded are ones that fit into four of what the Federation is calling impact areas: “Helping our community in need,” “Experiencing Judaism, birth to grade 12,” “Building Jewish community, post grade 12,” and “Strengthening global Jewry.” The Federation will also maintain an unrestricted fund to fill any funding cracks and to account for emergencies or other contingencies.
The most important criteria for funding, Almo said, “is does the need get met?” Where possible, agencies that partner with each other on projects could make the requests more appealing.
“Partnership is a mechanism for success but isn’t necessarily a requirement for success,” he said.
Where Almo said he has seen some nervousness about this new model is in who and what these grants are intended for: “It’s not just for new and innovative programs,” he said. “It may be for programs right now that are being done in a terrific way. We want to continue to encourage that.”
Rusty Federman, board president of the Stroum Jewish Community Center, said his board and leadership are standing behind this initiative.
“Our hope is that the community will embrace this new model and see the value in driving programmatic excellence in rating the areas that are the highest priorities for the community,” he said.
As the second-largest local recipient of community campaign funds, the SJCC is holding a wait-and-see attitude with how the overall funding plays out when allocations are announced in the spring.
“It’s real money in our budget,” Federman said. “All the agencies…have great need and we’re all looking to grow our bottom line as much as possible.”
Though Federman said it was still premature to comment on how the new model will affect his organization’s budget, he doesn’t foresee any major changes to the programmatic model the SJCC has been building over the past few years.
Federman and Judy Neuman, the SJCC’s CEO, have met with Fruchter and Federation board chair Shelley Bensussen to discuss the model, and expect to have more one-on-one discussions with the Planning and Allocations committee to get a better sense of how to most effectively apply for grants.
Those discussions, Almo said, will not be exclusive to the larger organizations. He said the Federation plans to hold sessions to provide grant-writing instruction as well as a letter-of-inquiry process that will give any agency feedback on whether a proposed request would be likely to receive funding.
As a lifelong member of Seattle’s Jewish community, Wendy Rosen looks forward to seeing this new model put into action.
“I’m excited about it. I’m energized about it,” she said. “I think that they have really responded to what the donors are interested in — that’s philanthropy in 2011.”
As executive director of the Seattle chapter of the American Jewish Committee, however, Rosen is skeptical. The AJC would most accurately fit into the “Building Jewish community” impact area, but the international organization focuses on reaching out to other faith and ethnic groups, and not working as closely within the Jewish community.
“We feel like we are doing invaluable work for the Jewish people and for Israel, but it doesn’t fit into the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle’s criteria,” Rosen said.
The AJC has seen shrinking allocations from the past several Federation campaigns, as has its largest fundraiser and community event, the Seattle Jewish Film Festival. It’s the festival, however, where Rosen sees opportunity.
“For some people in Seattle, this is their only experience in the Jewish community the entire year, so I think that definitely builds Jewish identity,” Rosen said. Given the difficulty in fundraising for the arts these days, “I’m hopeful that the Jewish Film Festival will receive more dollars than it has in the past.”