FIDUCIARY DUTY -- UH UH

At JFNA, fiduciary duty is ignored on every possible occasion -- ignored by the most senior lay and professional leaders, by the JFNA Executive Committee and by the JFNA Board. In fact, based upon all of the evidence, there is a lack of any understanding of what fiduciary means, what it is and what it is supposed to be. 

I strongly recommend and fully endorse The Maimonides Fund's Doron Kenter's brilliant analysis of fiduciary duty in his post in ejewishphilanthropy “Rich or King” Redux: What Are Our Obligations to Our Jewish Communal Institutions? Defining fiduciary responsibility as "our obligation" is vital.

Mark Wilf understands fiduciary responsibility as a personal obligation to the institution he was elected to Chair. I would merely point out that others in leadership do not. What I've observed is that there are those who have facilely rationalized that "...my self-interest and JFNA's interests are one." To these folks there is nothing beyond the rationalization. This is what led to the Global Planning Table, to #ish, to TribeFest, to hundreds of thousands of dollars just taken from the heritage National Agencies, to advising St. Paul they can write-off $3,000,000 owed to JAFI/JDC, to the elimination of FRD, to the deconstruction of UIA, all the way and inevitably right through a recent travesty -- allowing the deployment of the Young Leadership Cabinet lists to promote a "Yoga weekend." 

There is a l'etat, c'est moi ethos permeating JFNA -- it emanates from the senior management and too many in the senior lay leadership. And I know those lay leaders, many of them took their talents from communities where they were taught fiduciary responsibility well to the continental organization where they seemed to forget all in the quest of the next office, the next rung up the leadership ladder. 

Here's one person's prescription of some of what is needed:

1. Some tough love -- the only person who can administer this medicine is the Board Chair -- perhaps with Michael Siegal. There needs to be a serious discussion of what must be done to apply a fix to the organization where failure has become metastasized. 
2. A public acknowledgement that all is not well at JFNA, at 25 Broadway. If nothing else, the Bridgespan Group found so much that is wrong. Stop the pretense that all is well. AA has taught us that alcoholism cannot be beaten until one acknowledges that one is an alcoholic; JFNA cannot change until it faces its failure.
3. Among the changes: broaden the leadership roles (those who have already served in one JFNA leadership position need to be immediately succeeded (like tomorrow) by a new set, broadly diverse and well-mentored.
4. Speaking of mentoring: assure that the new CEO (who should have been engaged last year if not 5 years ago) has a set of mentors who understand the fiduciary culture so vital to the creation of trust.

But, of course, if past is prologue, nothing will change. Fiduciary responsibility will remain just a memory of some old codgers.

Rwexler