And, the reason I ask is that for most of our communities, our agencies, local and national, and our historic overseas beneficiaries, the Jewish Agency and the Joint, annual campaigns have been in serious stasis, if not worse than that. There are, of course, exceptions -- the Jewish National Fund - U.S.A., the Chicago Jewish United Fund, Baltimore and a few others come to mind -- but the rule has been...stasis if not worse.
And, where are we?
- At the Jewish Agency, as I've written ad nauseam, a great professional fund raiser has left, her staff remains but financial resource development leadership is now in the hands of the JAFI CEO, not a fund raiser (not that she couldn't be), the head of campus shlichim, not a fund raiser, a. former American federation professional, not a fund raiser, etc. JAFI is receiving less core budget support from the federation system than at any time in its 90 year history. Hire a fund raising professional, one who will demand that the lay leadership -- from North America and, yes, from Keren Ha'Yesod and the WZO (!) -- step up and make financial commitments to the organization reflecting their financial capacity.
- At the JDC, with a number of superb professionals, proven successful fund raisers on its Israel staff, FRD suffered a major blow when its last CEO (who has now returned to academia), proved to be a major fund raising disappointment. Like JAFI, JDC is receiving less core budget support from the federations than at any time in its history; unlike JAFI, JDC has a strong lay leadership cadre of philanthropists willing to advocate for the organization within their federations, but are they "able?"
- FRD at JFNA confuses me. CEO Eric Fingerhut, so bright and inspirational, determined shortly after he was hired that, with no federation fund raising experience, he would take on the vacant senior FRD leadership position at the organization. As someone once said: "mistake, big, big mistake." The JFNA CEO should engage in financial resource development, certainly; he shouldn't lead that effort. Hire a senior campaigner -- BTW, Gail Reiss appears to be available and knows our system as well as any campaigner. The JFNA Campaign Consulting Team has experienced a great deal of turnover -- turnover it can hardly afford -- at the top, losing two of its best (one from Chicago, another from New Jersey). Financial Resource Development at JFNA had already collapsed. Eric and Chair Mark Wilf need to totally reorganize this effort -- bring your best and brightest professionals from the communities, forget about the usual cookie-cutter consultants and get it done.
The line between real success and continuing failure is incredibly thin.
Rwexler
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2 comments:
Nothing new regarding JAFI and JDC being left alone and unsupported.
Nothing to be confused about as far as FRD at JFNA is concerned. It doesn't exist and hasn't existed for some time now.
JFNA has abandoned the FRD role (except maybe for raising money for itself).
The only remnant of FRD at JFNA is maybe an occasional "mailbox" but nothing resembling active fundraising or encouragement to meet any standards whatsoever of "campaign" work.
The "merger" was supposed to combine the roles and goals of 3 organizations into one. The result was the abandonment of the roles and goals of two of them (first UJA and then UIA) and a rather poor performance record with the roles and goals of the third (CJfWF).
We now have a trade organization which is a leaky umbrella for federations with limited roles and goals as well as sadly limited performance and efficiency.
what exactly was UIA supposed to do in your view? It became just a pass-through portal it seems...but what do you think it should/could have been today? what value could it have added to the system/the Jewish world given the realities of 2020?
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