WHEN TRUST IS LOST... OR NEVER GAINED

Our federation system is, at its very core, based upon trust -- trust of our donors in federations' lay and professional leaders, trust by the federations in our national and overseas partners...TRUST. What I am seeing, in so many places is a breakdown in that trust... a breakdown that we have brought upon ourselves...a breakdown that threatens the institutions we have built as never before.

First, it should be clear. Trust must be earned; it cannot be demanded. Whether our federations, UJC:The Jewish Federations of North America, JAFI, JDC, ORT, etc., trust requires full disclosure, an adherence to process and full transparency. It also requires lay and professional leaders who are themselves trusted. And the message that it is collective action embodied in the construct of collective responsibility that separates federations from all other Jewish charitable organizations must be understood and articulated by UJC's leaders who, to this point, failed to learn that its own Dues are an expression of collective response as much as anything else.

Second, the organization's message(s) must be clear, transparent and inspire the intended audience to engagement. If the message is constantly in flux -- Operation Promise morphs into the Israel Emergency Campaign (maybe), a Reorganization Strategy is swallowed whole into the Federation Leadership Institute, an emphasis on the NextGen is embodied in a "Suite" of programs for the rich and lost in a swing to "volunteerism" ala UJC -- there is no message at all. It is as if UJC has become the graveyard where federations' dreams for a viable, meaningful national system have been buried.

There must be a constant reference back to the values and principles that are the foundation stones for Jewish communal life. Who has gone back and reread (or read for the first time) Phil Bernstein's, z'l, magnificent volume on our Jewish institutions To Dwell in Unity, or Jon Woocher's superb and insightful volume, Sacred Survival, or J.J. Goldberg's excellent, and prescient work Jewish Power: Inside the American Jewish Establishment? (For those who are obsessed with this Blog, I might respectfully suggest that you turn your attention to all of these citations.) You can't tell the story if you don't know it. You can't incorporate values and principles in your decisions if you don't know them.

In some communities and, certainly at 25 Broadway, trust has never been built on the strong foundation required for communal unity and success. Trust has been presumed as if were a debt that the federation owners owed to a very small retinue of leaders. If federations view themselves only as conveners, only as "gatherers" of funds for others, and nothing more, amcha will eventually figure it out. If donors perceive that they should direct all of their donations to projects or programs, no matter their excellence, the roles of federations as the central planning address and communal umbrella will be lost.

UJC's leaders must have said "trust us" more often to Joint and Jewish Agency leadership than they did to federations. I have come to believe that the UJC Executive Committee as a group and individually almost to a person understand how the current lay leader in chief has literally dictated a strategy that has constantly deprecated the value of our historic partners. Then having set the table, he rationalizes the precipitous drop in allocations on his watch. Sadly, the members of his officers group, the past CEO and the Executive Committee paid deference "because we elected him Chair" like fiddlers while Rome burned. Yesterday's meeting among UJC, JAFI and JDC represented a new beginning but leaders who still speak of "us" and "them" as if they were delegated to lead an attack for "us" against "them" need to understand right now that their time has gone.

Today we are seeing the impact of decisions that federations are making that are fraught with the seeds of their own destruction: allocations to local, national and overseas partners only in response to communal "RFP's," taking designated giving to the federation level, where all allocations are self-determined by either federation itself or by federations driven by the loudest voices rather than by the greatest needs; where the lay-professional partnership has never been understood either by the laity or the professionals...or both; where there is neither transparency nor accountability. And the national organization merely sits by and wonders why the federation owners are voting "no" with their dues. UJC has lost all relevance to the federations which own it and to the national agencies and Israel and overseas partners which relied upon it. Jerry and Kathy have an enormous task in front of them.

This is not a call to "repent;" it is a call to change. It appears that call has already been heard in many places.

G'mar hatima tova.

Rwexler