Sunday, November 2, 2014

FIDDLING

The Global Planning Table Committee met by phone on October 20 to listen (I guess that's what that Committee does) to "recommendations on the 'split'" of core allocations dollars between the Jewish Agency and Joint. I don't know what the results were/are but the materials sent to the Committee the morning of the meeting (!!) were sufficiently confusing as to only raise serious questions and yield the obvious conclusion that JFNA/GPT are, like Nero, fiddling while Rome is burning -- you were expecting something different?

  • While federation annual campaigns, with no assistance or direction whatsoever from JFNA, have increased since 2011, core allocations have dropped over the same period from $139,200,000 in 2011 to a projected $120,200,000 this calendar year -- a 14% reduction to the lowest point...EVER
  • Somehow JFNA advanced $2.9 million from its own "reserves" to core in 2012, federations then advanced $2.3 million (net) in 2013 but, apparently, that $5.2 million will be deducted from federation allocations in 2014? Huh? Where wqas this deduction voted upon? By whom? Why?
  • JAFI and JDC and World ORT will each receive the lowest core allocations from the federations that they have ever received...that's EVER. Each and every year, for the last 8 years and more, these core allocations have reached a succession of new lows year-by-year.
Here are some of the b.s. you would hear were you on the Committee:
  • The overseas beneficiaries (to continue to call JAFI/JDC/ORT "partners" under the circumstances is blasphemy) should not complain, look how much they received from the "Stop the Sirens" and "Save the Ukraine" "campaigns." This is, of course, so facile and so false. These emergency dollars went directly to program, often to third party service providers, so to attempt to "count" special campaign distributions is a rationalization of failure, pure and simple. (And, never forget, in that last Terrorists' War, the federations [not JFNA...never JFNA] raised over $300,000.000; the War this Summer yielded maybe...maybe...a claimed $50 million, far more than the JFNA "target" and JFNA has not even seen that much.);
  • "We're projecting an increase in core allocations in 2015." On the basis of what, prayer? (That projection would somehow see a decrease in ORT's allocation.)
  • "We think the split should change." In its first year, the then ONAD (Overseas Needs and Distributions Committee), later to become as big a failure as the GPT has been from its beginning, was under the thoughtful and respected leadership of New York's Alan Jaffe. Its recommendation was that allocations divisions among the then partners (for that is how JA/JDC were then treated) should not be changed at a time of decreasing allocations. Later that would be reflected in both federation recommendations and the agreement of JAFI/JDC rejected unilaterally by Kathy Manning for reasons never explained -- that increased allocations be divided 50/50. Although a number of federation leaders who supported a freeze on core changes back then retain their great influence on the failure that is the GPT, I doubt they even remember where they stood then let alone stand up and fight for what they surely believe to be a matter of principle.
I have no doubt that the Neros who lead our wreck of a system today will call for significant modification of core allocations. I also have no doubt that the federations, the "market," if you will, will continue to make their allocations decisions as they have. JFNA has abandoned core allocations advocacy; the GPT leadership has given that advocacy its usual lip service without follow up. And CEO What's-Advocacy, will continue his uninformed silence as JFNA marches further in its pursuit of irrelevance.

The balagan continues.

Rwexler

13 comments:

  1. Add JFNA's failure to advocate for the support of JDC and/or JAFI to the extreme cut by the International Fellowship of Christian and Jews to the Jewish Agency's core and you have a financial catastrophe. jana's leaders act as if they have neither responsibility nor obligation. Awful.

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  2. Add JFNA's failure to advocate for the support of JDC and/or JAFI to the extreme cut by the International Fellowship of Christian and Jews to the Jewish Agency's core and you have a financial catastrophe. jana's leaders act as if they have neither responsibility nor obligation. Awful.

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  3. I assume that Chicago which raised millions for the last emergency and only sent maybe 30-40 percent to JFNA did so because they wanted to control where their money was going. Is Chicago doing the same thing now with "core". If not why not? As the second or third largest funder of core wouldn't that make the same statement that they do not want the ineffective system making terrible decisions for them?

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    Replies
    1. The conversation on advocacy needs to shift and focus on three basic truths:
      1. The indivisible nature of local and overseas needs- hence a single Jewish agenda built around peoplehood and community
      2. The unique set of deliverables provided by global partners (what we once described as "the franchise")
      3. The acknowledgment that for 3/4 of our Federations or more local needs alone cannot maintain the loyalty of their biggest donors

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  4. A lot of time has been spent discussing the drop in core allocations to JAFI, JDC, and World ORT.
    For all we know, JAFI, JDC, and World ORT may, in fact, be receiving more total dollars annually from the federation system than at any time in history....or maybe not.
    Doesn't JFNA have the data on not only how much each federation sends JFNA for allocations to the core, but also in addition to the core allocation, how much each federation allocates directly to JAFI, JDC, and World ORT?
    That, it would seem to me, would lay all the cards on the table for a transparent analysis of the situation.
    And it would seem that this information should, in fact, be public information for the members of the JFNA System.

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  5. While the answer is "probably not," your point is an excellent one.

    Wasn't one of the demands of the dystopian Global Planning Table when it established the wholly illusory "Second Membership Criterion" that member federations send ALL allocations to "Israel" through JFNA? How's that Second Membership Thing working?

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  6. To the 4th (or is the 3rd) anonymous. Do you really think JAFI, JDC and ORT would spend all the time and money that they do on the GPT if they were receiving more un-designated money (core) from federations directly? If you do, I have a bridge I would like to sell you.
    It wasn't that many years ago that the combined amount of core funding exceeded $200 million. If, as Richard points out, the collective is rapidly approaching about $120 million, that means for you to be correct, the federations have to be allocating over $80 million directly to the three organizations - forget the impact of inflation. No chance.

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  7. Regarding the last comment, commenting on the '4th or 3rd' comment, my point wasn't that federations might be sending additional undesignated money directly to the 3 'partners'.... I don't understand why they would do that: My guess is that if they are not sending the money through JFNA, that it is 'designated, and not part of the 'core'.
    I would also think that the 3 are spending time with the GPT for 2 reasons: 1) Not wanting to offend the JFNA leadership who have been pushing this losing cause for close to 6 years now and, 2) To shore up their relationships with the individual federations so they might receive 'designated/project' dollars.
    The point I was trying to make is, why waste time on the hypothetical? Doesn't JFNA have the numbers?
    Also, where is that bridge?

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  8. The bridge sits in CEO Jerry's backyard.

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  9. To the last anonymous: There are two problems with your assumption. 1. Even if the three are receiving designated funds I would be astounded if it is anywhere near the $80 mil drop in core. Furthermore there has always been designated funds since the creation of Project renewal and P2K. Ten percent of the total allocation was always allowed to be designated. So if core funding was $200 million then designated was about $20 million = total of $220 million. Do you still think that JDC, JAFI and ORT are receiving $100 million in designated on top of the $120 million in core? Richard may have some up to date information but I would be very surprised if designated funds exceed $30 million or so, nowhere near $100 million.

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  10. jana's own allocation numbers for 2013-2014 disclose that federations made a little over $40 million in designated allocations, but fail to disclose how much of those dollars went to JAFI/JDC/ORT. Thanks to the many excellent Comments to this Post, I will will devote a Post in the coming days/weeks to the subject.

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  11. I am embarrassed to admit that I sit on the Global Planning Table Committee. I and my fellow members have wasted I don't know how many hours and how much money watching nothing being accomplished. The Committee is a captive of Kathy Manning with David Butler as her faithful servant. They and those who are tied to them as if by rope, talk about all they are doing, will do and then don't do at all. The Strategic Initiatives Advocacy Committee under Bruce from Baltimore accomplished nothing and never even reported to us.

    Will this never end?

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  12. Moses has finished his gig. The voice of god is spoken. Thunder and lightening provide background as the people contemplate what next. Get to a chinese restaurant before closing time? an alternative happening with a golden calf? Express our fealty naaseh vnishma, we will act and we will internalize the truths just spoken? Drop a thousand shekel check on the closest Cohen, take a selfIe with Miriam and her dancers and tell your Grandkids 40 years later that vou were a delegate at the Sinai GA and thought Joshua ben Nun was a comer and a hunk to boot. Travel safely chevra!

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