FUNDS, ENDOWMENTS, FOUNDATIONS...AND QUESTIONS

An article in the Forward -- Fast-Growing Charity Funds Raise Issues -- raised and discussed the "propriety" of charitable tax deductions for the "fastest growing method of philanthropy you've probably never heard of..." My issue is with an attitude that seems to be prevalent among many Federation Endowment and Federation-related Foundation professionals that their role is to maximize endowment and foundation assets (including but not limited to donor-advised funds and other forms of philanthropic funds) without regard to how the income and principle of those funds are allocated. A New York Fund professional expressed it best when she told the Forward's Paul Berger: "Our goal is to facilitate our donors' philanthropy and to do it within strict legal parameters." And there's the rub. For this attitude reaches the largest so-called "Jewish foundations." 


As reported this month in ejewishphilanthropy -- A Look at Jewish Foundation Giving -- The Institute for Jewish and Community Research studied the "...giving characteristics of selected Jewish foundations with approximately $20 billion in combined assets..." Among the findings -- "[N]early one quarter (24%0 of total dollars donated by Jewish foundations, or $335 million, went to Jewish causes..." Should this finding be worthy of celebration?

Our communal endowments -- and the philanthropic and donor-advised funds therein -- have grown at a rate far exceeding that of the communities Annual Campaigns. That growth has been a source of incredible pride -- we now hear with great regularity speeches about communal FRD that by necessity emphasize growth in communal endowments and downplay the downturn in annual campaign. But nowhere is there any discussion about how the income and principal of those funds are being distributed. JFNA has a strong Endowment and Planned Giving effort but G-d forbid that this question is ever discussed there, ever raised with communal planned giving and endowment professionals. And the reality is that there is good reason for this "shhhhh." And, look at the record -- how many lay Chairs of the PG&E Department have resigned in frustration or otherwise since the merger?

The endowment professionals see their roles as principally focused on "growth," not on distribution. My own "research" suggests (and, certainly the results confirm) that in the main they refuse to move donors toward federation goals out of fear that they will lose that "growth." Sure, if Donor A wishes to distribute $1,000,000 from Donor A's philanthropic fund as an Annual Campaign gift, "we'll take it, but we're not going to push it." That's not perceived as "our job." The attitude is "better that the money is with us than with Fidelity" or something like that even if the results for the community end up being the same.

You can't even have a conversation on the subject. I recall a visit with one of the greatest professionals driving the communal foundation effort. I had looked at the data for this foundation -- allocations to Jewish causes, of which Federation and federation agencies were just ones among many -- and found that allocations to secular, non-Jewish causes were as I recall about 80%. So I asked, like the dumb son at the Seder, "at what point do you just stop calling it "The Jewish Community Foundation or ______________________" and just "rebrand it the Community Foundation?" The response, more or less: "..if not for us the community wouldn't even be getting the 20%" or whatever that percentage was/is.

I'm probably wrong about this. Maybe it is better to have whatever percentage it is "with us" than "elsewhere" no matter where the funds ultimately go. But, I do know:

     ~ The Annual Campaign is the lifeline of the community. Those funds support federation, our agencies and Jews in need wherever they may live -- all of it;

      ~ Planned giving and endowment funds, evidencing continued strong growth, are funding donors' wishes, often in the broader, secular community to the exclusion of federation and agencies' plans...and all we count nationally is the total of those funds' growth;

     ~ And, should not JFNA be the venue where we, as a continental polity, actually discuss how we can best, if we can, and if we should, be the facilitator and advocate among fund donors/creators for federation-centric funding. Isn't that also our responsibility? Would not the debate have value -- a debate from which our national endowment and planned giving professionals walk away from as quickly as they can.

I know, silly me.

Rwexler