By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews
Last summer, the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle held a special fundraising campaign alongside its regular community campaign. At the deepest point in the recession, the agency raised approximately $100,000 to send 236 children whose parents might otherwise have had trouble affording it to overnight Jewish camps in the region.
“We’ve been successful in going to donors for extra things, but its been fragmented, and it hasn’t been a part of our core mission,” said Richard Fruchter, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation. “If we understand that Jewish camping is one of the great identity builders for youth, why is that an extra thing?… Why isn’t it part of the core work that we do?”
Thinking about situations like this, the Federation’s Center for Jewish Philanthropy, its fundraising arm, and several key volunteers began to reinvent the Federation both in how it raises money and how, as a grant-making organization, it gives that money away.
“We have been talking about this and working on this for the past one-and-a-half to two years,” said Keith Krivitzky, the Federation’s vice president for the Center for Jewish Philanthropy. “What it’s been forcing us to do is to really look at all elements of how we do business, from fundraising to grant making and allocations to priorities.”
What has emerged — though some of the details are still being discussed and the plan has yet to be approved by the Federation’s board, a vote that should happen later this month — is a model that gives donors a choice in how their money is allocated.
At the same time — and this has its current beneficiary agencies nervous about the future — the model moves from an unrestricted allocation that can be used for anything like salaries or operations or internal initiatives to goal-based, specific projects that will be mapped out by each agency.
“Allocations will be made based upon an agency’s request to a specific goal within an impact area, and allocations will be made to agencies based upon the programmatic request that they’re making,” said Amy Wasser-Simpson, the Federation’s vice president for planning and community services.
The Federation began rolling out the plan about three months ago to its beneficiary agencies, as well as to representatives from synagogues and organizations it currently does not support. A series of meetings explained the new system and sought feedback. Refinements, Federation officials say, are ongoing.
“I have been impressed by the process in which they have listened to either me or to my staff people,” said Ken Weinberg, CEO of Jewish Family Service. “I think it helps our agency, but I also think it helps the Federation develop as good a model as possible by incorporating the folks who actually do the work give [them] their input.”
Judy Neuman, CEO of the Stroum Jewish Community Center, said that though she and several lay leaders have attended as many meetings as possible and have tried to be an active voice at the table, she is taking a wait-and-see approach as to how well the new model will work.
“I’m optimistic, but I don’t think any of us have any specifics to say, ‘Yes, this model is going to work,’” she said. “Change is always difficult, but sometimes at the end of that change you have a much better end result, and I think that’s what we’re really looking for as community.”
One major change for this new model is in who can receive money from the Federation’s community campaign.
“Any agency that we don’t currently give an unrestricted allocation to is a potential new partner for us,” said Amy Wasser-Simpson, the Federation’s vice president for planning and community services. “Any synagogue would be a new partner. We don’t now give them an unrestricted allocation.”
According to Weinberg, this is the aspect of the plan that has him and other leaders of current beneficiaries nervous.
“We’re anxious over the notion of if all Jewish agencies are now eligible, does it divide the pie into too many pieces where everyone gets too small a piece?” he said.
But, he noted, he has been assured that the Federation will do what it can to keep that from happening.
Fruchter said the solution comes from the donations side: “If we raise more money, we have the ability to continue to sustain all the great work that’s done now and to really drive some innovative and exciting new ideas in the community,” he said.
The assumption by Federation officials with this new model is that there will be more money to go around, even though it has been harder in the past two campaigns to come by. It’s this aspect of the model that has them excited about what comes next: Donors will be able to decide where their dollars go.
“The next generation that’s coming up is much more interested in having an ability to see where the donation goes and measure it,” Fruchter said. “They’re less enamored of the idea of umbrella giving and having enough trust to allow the organization to make the allocation for them.”
The donor choice model would not mean giving to specific agencies — the Federation has long facilitated pass-through donations — but toward specific projects or goals in what they’re calling impact areas, which are largely based upon the current community campaign pillars: Jewish education from birth to grade 12, social services, building community from college through adulthood, and helping Jews overseas.
“There are people now, no matter what age, [who say], ‘If only I could just direct my money to Israel, I don’t have to give it locally,’ you could have that. Or ‘If only I could give to human need,’ we have the opportunity to tap into people who would be philanthropic but who haven’t found the vehicle through us,” Fruchter said.
At the same time, there is “a large group of people who’ve said, ‘I’d give you more if I didn’t have to have my money go here, or if I wanted to say Israel or not here,’” Krivitzky said. “‘We like 85 percent, or 90 percent of what you do, but….’”
Donors who were comfortable giving unrestricted gifts will continue to be able to do so.
“There still are people who are perfectly happy with the way things went, know that we do a good job of prioritizing and vetting and making sure that their dollars are going to the places most needed,” Fruchter said. “I assume that many of the gifts will still come in as unrestricted gifts, which will give us the opportunity to move them where they’re most needed.”
The question about what constitutes the most needed is still under discussion. If the economic hardship of past two years continues, for example, how will social service organizations that are seeing more need but bringing in less money bridge the gap?
“That’s partly where the unrestricted [funds] will come in,” Wasser-Simpson said.
Though a formula has not yet been devised, Wasser-Simpson said, priorities based upon the needs of any given year would be developed and constantly revisited to ensure that the Federation is allocating its available dollars in a way that best benefits the community.
Ultimately, the Federation is setting its future course as a leaner version of itself that funds projects based upon their ability to grow and engage the Jewish community, while calling upon organizations to do more of the heavy lifting.
By working to eliminate redundancy among programs and services throughout the community and increasing collaboration among all local Jewish organizations, Federation officials hope to reverse their own declining fortunes while increasing those of the community they serve.