Yes, Eric Fingerhut will have his hands full.
Two and one-half years ago, when JFNA announced that Brian Abrahams had been hired as Senior Vice-President for Financial Resource Development, I kvelled. I extolled Brian's perceived "virtues" and the hope his engagement created for a revived FRD effort at the Continental level. Over two years later, I had to confess error. Brian, truly a nice guy, with a great professional background, had proved to be not much more than another professional at 25 Broadway (well, not exactly, inasmuch as he had continued in residence in Chicago, his home) who was never given the chance to lead, adding to the string of disappointments at JFNA over the past decade.
When Brian was hired -- essentially "hired" by JFNA Senior Consultant, Vicki Agron -- I doubt that he anticipated that he would end up reporting to her month-after-month while she "led" an FRD Consulting effort that morphed into the totality of JFNA's community consulting effort with FRD fading further into the void that is JFNA. Meanwhile, for Brian's first 18 months ostensibly leading JFNA FRD, he was rarely seen or heard -- his office in Chicago was some 733 miles from 25 Broadway, where it remained.
If you were to ask those at 25 Broadway, they will tell you that Brian was rarely seen at HQ -- he may have been there from time-to-time, but not with any regularity. Vicki was running the FRD Consulting team she had hired. I have no doubt that the communities with which JFNA FRD consulted were well-served by this original group of superb, experienced FRD professionals, but this was all that JFNA FRD was doing beyond fewer and fewer Missions and serving the two major JFNA constituencies inherited from UJA -- National Women's Philanthropy and the Young Leadership Cabinet, the former thriving under a succession of strong, passionate lay Chairs; the latter, a mere shadow of its original self, but striving to find purpose and relevancy.
Special Campaigns at JFNA had become nothing more than the opening of "Mailboxes," the dollars deposited by federations and donors then withdrawn by JFNA like a JFNA ATM, the organization reduced to cheerleading from the sidelines as opposed to what once was, and allocating as if the organization had played some role in raising the dollars. (I/We had always learned and preached the message that those who raised the dollars proved to be the best and most responsible allocators of the dollars raised. Not at JFNA.)
Sure, JFNA believes that it raised the millions in the Annual Campaign and the Federation endowment funds. If you like fiction, just examine the 990 "Revenue" entries year after year. But, really, ask someone at JFNA how much they raise directly.
And, when Brian Abrahams resigned, Jerry Silverman announced that he would be taking on the professional FRD leadership, and all amcha could do was laugh. If you have noticed any JFNA-led resource development since Jerr y took on this assignment, let me know. FRD at JFNA todsay is not even a shadow of once was -- because nothing doesn't cast a shadow.
#pathetic.
Rwexler
Stop looking for FRD at JFNA. Other than a National Campaign Chair letterhead entry, there is nothing of that left.
ReplyDeleteIt isn't a mess if you understand that the great merger was not the merger of 3 organizations. It was the destruction and jettisoning of the missions of 2 of them and the evolution of what remained into an unsustainable inflated national trade organization.
The resulting monster organization has no real mission beyond being an umbrella organization for our federations, a function that could probably be accomplished with only a small fraction of the currently allocated annual budget.
It isn't a mess. It is a tragic mistake, 20 years in the making, with the remaining umbrella organization nothing more than a gigantic waste.
Eric Fingerhut would best serve our federations by facing this reality and performing the required downsizing before it is forced down his throat.