IMAGINE THIS....

"Imagine This" is a beautiful musical that opened in London last October and closed shortly thereafter. It's story was centered on a Jewish troop of actors in the Warsaw Ghetto and, unfortunately, roused the cynicism of the London critics. It will rise again. I was reminded of the haunting melodies of "Imagine This" when a friend was good enough to send me Jacob Berkman's piece that follows. As you will read, Jacob, whose reporting on our Jewish community in the JTA is always accompanied with hard questions about us, our present and our future, uses his pen in a fine piece for e-Jewish Philanthropy to "re-imagine" our institutions and our work. Please read Jacob's work and think about where we are and where we might be...

"Re-Imagining the Jewish Philanthropic Landscape

by Jacob Berkman
Posted By eJP On June 21, 2009

Imagine for a second that there was a central hub for Jewish philanthropy.


Imagine that it was a clearinghouse to vet and fund bold, new, innovative ideas.


Imagine that this entity also effectively funded the basic Jewish infrastructure that keeps our community up and running - our nursing homes, our social-service outlets, our day schools and our synagogues.


Now imagine that this perfect thing could convene the mega-philanthropists of the world and give them a space to sit down and to talk together with knowledgeable professionals in order to identify the real needs of the Jewish community, and to figure out how to strategically harness

enormous resources to start to cover those needs - without overlap and without ego.


Imagine if the professionals who kept this entity going could then go out and find the six-figure and five-figure gifts to help fill in the larger gaps that the mega-gifts couldn’t cover. Because even though this system has seen its donor base drop from 900,000 to 540,000 in the last fifteen years, it has not seen its dollar intake drop because it cultivates five and six-figure gifts better than any other fundraising entity out there.


But then what if we took the myth that this system also cultivated and valued the $18 and $100 gifts, and made that myth true? One million $100 gifts added together equals one $100 million gift, and three million $100 gifts is the same as a $300 million gift. No living philanthropist has ever given $300 million to the Jewish community.


But what if that was the collective gift the community made each year?


One $100 gift that supports both the old and the needy and the future is still a gift that most of us can make, even during a recession. Even me, a writer, who has never been asked.
What if the mega-philanthropists of the world held that system’s feet to the flame and made it find potential donors like me?


Imagine that the Jewish federation system could be transformed into a system that could pull our community through this recession - and that all such a transformation really required was a total buy-in from the megawealthy.



What if that buy-in could force the system to really look in the mirror? And then what if the system was to realize that it is not the central address for Judaism and that it has no need
to own or control anything? It would simply be a fund-raising organization and an infrastructure.



Because it raises money, it would be the backbone of the Jewish community - not the heart of the community. The heart, the flesh, the blood and the soul of the community would consist of the myriad institutions and startups and people it could potentially feed. The system’s job would be purely their support and not their brain.


And imagine if you had an idea, a crazy idea, that you thought might help engage disenfranchised Jews. You could go to this entity and sit down with people who really know what they’re talking about, who can evaluate your idea, help you develop it, give you space to work on it and expertise to refine that idea. What if it could help you bring your idea before potential funders? Because you went through the system, you would automatically have some credibility, and you would automatically have your foot in the funding door.


What if that foot in the door meant you wouldn’t have to impress everyone all of the time?


What if that open door meant social entrepreneurs could go back to selling products and programs with proven results, instead of selling themselves?


Now, imagine that we don’t have to create a new system from scratch, that it has been sitting there for a hundred years and that it already has buildings, outposts, infrastructure and professionals working in 157 Jewish communities, who have databases of potential donors and the actual manpower to become something better than they are right now.


Imagine if those who ran that system were open to the idea of change and that the lure of big donors, really big donors, could help them make bold decisions to let go of old allegiances that the politics of their system now forces them to keep.


And what if as these outposts went through layoffs, they weren’t merely cutting jobs where they could, simply to make budget? Instead, they’d be looking at the talent standing in the unemployment line and hiring from that line talented marketers, money makers and fund raisers. Maybe a single talented person fired from a Goldman Sachs could more effectively do the job that two mediocre employees now occupy.


Imagine that those who ran small organizations could put aside their biases and feelings of alienation and even their anger at this system that has never really let them in - and could stand together at the doors.


Or better yet:


What if they calmly presented this system with the cold, hard fact that they, these new innovators, had access to and connections with Jews in their 20s and 30s, the folks their organizations reach - and the exact folks that this system has been unable to find and engage?



And what if these small organizations sat down with the professionals and the lay leaders of this system and talked about how they, the young organizations, could share their wisdom on how to reach these young people?



What if this old system could incorporate these new programs into their old slate, and what if that could lead to more funding


Because just like the mega-donor needs the little donor, the big old system needs the grassroots.


Imagine that this recession could force all of us to sit down together to figure out that we need each other to pull through - not necessarily because we want to, but because we absolutely have to, no matter much it hurts.


Maybe this imagining isn’t so far off. Maybe people high up on the federation and the foundation side are already talking about working together.


What if the chairman of that system recently told me that the system needs to change and wants in its heart to change? Something along the lines of: “The private philanthropists have found they are very good at starting new projects, but have a hard time sustaining them. It takes a village to sustain them. And we are the village…What we have is 157 communities that can leverage their work. What they have is the early dollars and
urge to innovate.”


The CEO of the country’s biggest Federation and the president of one of the Jewish community’s most influential foundations recently sat down for a conversation with the Journal of Jewish Communal Service. Both talked about the desire to work better together. The Federation CEO said, “We both need to disarm.” The foundation head said, “I agree that disarming is the first part of it. But we don’t yet have the bridge builders who should be building the bridges.”


Imagine that we took it upon ourselves to become the bridge builders, because we are all in this together, and if we don’t build the bridges ourselves, we might all just fall into the river.


I can imagine. Right?"


****

There is so much to think about, so much that could be acted upon in and out of this thought piece. But...in the beginning there was this...Steve Nasatir thought of the idea and the merger and the merger implemented that idea through the creation of The Trust for Jewish Philanthropy -- a place where the megadonors and the federations' best and brightest would intersect under the umbrella of United Jewish Communities for the very purposes that Jacob Berkman independently outlined above. Unfortunately, though the best possible Chair was in place, the potential was never realized because of internal UJC disputes over Trust professional leadership and a failure of execution. The decision was made to shut down the Trust after three years and the waste of millions of dollars.

But the dream did not die. The UJC leadership and Large City Executives decided to move forward in mid-2007 and the 2008 Budget included $400,000 as "seed money" to restart the Trust -- then, as with so many other matters of import and impact, no implementation and the $400,000 spent on...? Thus, what Berkman imagined was already on UJC's plate but UJC was unable to execute. Could it do so tomorrow, when UJC will be led by Kathy Manning and a new CEO, there is no reason why not...the blueprint is right there awaiting leadership and real commitment.

Where Berkman stumbles, however, is in his presumption that the federations, community by community, are failing as conveners and have failed to set a large enough table where the next generation can sit together with the present generation and build a new system together. Recently I was made privy to a Facebook exchange among professionals where one insisted that he could "count on the fingers of one hand" the number of his acquaintances who would contribute to federation. That young professional used to work at UJC the federations' presumed umbrella; he is Howard Rieger's son. Others in that chain of e-mails disagreed vehemently -- they believe that our system is and certainly can be made attractive to a new generation of donors. The failure has been one of will, of role models of the articulation of a compelling cause and of the failure to fund in a time of scarcity.

Jacob, thanks for imagining a future ripe with possibility, filled with the music of "Imagine This" and thanks to Dan Brown and e-Jewish philanthropy for offering a vehicle where such dreams can be shared.

Rwexler