INTROSPECTION

Forgive me.

I have written on this subject before responding to the question I myself had raised: what value does an organization have to its owners/members if it can only retain them as full-paying Dues members by threat of penalties? For example, take JFNA (as in the Rodney Dangerfield "take my ____ please), which has demanded Dues paid in full or in settlement of "hardships" (as determined by JFNA with no standards) threatening, inter alia, termination of donors participation from a federation even in financial hardship in the Young Leadership Cabinet, Women's Philanthropy or the General Assembly (when the last was a "threat" not of a lost benefit).

Here are the two rationales I've heard for requiring the payment of full Dues:

• "If, insert community name here, fails to pay full annual Dues, it will destroy the System." Really? How do we know? Undisclosed Dues deals have been cut with a number of federations as JFNA leaders could not take the risk of non-payment. Unlike your, e.g., Country Club which "posts" names and numbers for unpaid Dues and assessments, JFNA and its federation members have effectively conspired to keep that information secret.
• When JFNA has heard that there is a possibility that Community A will not pay or under-pay annual Dues, constituency Chairs and JFNA senior professionals call, e.g., National Women's Philanthropy or Leadership Cabinet leaders to "alert them." Then, the apparently irresistible pressure.

Oh, of course deals have been cut -- usually denied by JFNA and the impacted federation -- major cuts to Dues often long past due -- but never has JFNA examined even the possibility that the Dues Budget is disproportionate to the benefits federation receive. I share the belief that if we did not have JFNA we would have to create one -- the difference being that my belief in that truism is centered on the need to actually create JFNA anew. When was the last time the federations were convened to determine the purposes and goals that they wish JFNA to achieve? The answer: not since the merger which created the organization. Isn't 21 years long enough?

 

The extensive and expensive work of the Bridgespan Group was never designed to offer federations the opportunity to determine JFNA's directions and focus. I commend reading the Report if you can find one -- it has been determined to be "Confidential" (as I was reminded after I published small portions of the document) -- I have no doubt that Bridgespan could have conducted that research

but -- and I'm just guessing here -- JFNA's then lay and professional leaders just were far more interested in Dues formulas and excising the United Israel Appeal.

So, what would I suggest?

    1. Chair Wilf -- quietly request the retirement of all those officers who have served in more than one such role over the past decade, appointing a set of new Chairs who may have some new ideas and who have evidenced real energy;

    2. CEO Fingerhut -- take a further look at the JFNA professional roster and effect real change at the highest, rather than "mid-" levels. (Psst: it appears to this outsider that the JFNA EVP and the head of the JFNA Israel Office are joined at the hip, protecting one another. Other than that mutual aid pact: What have they accomplished in their long-term professional leadership roles?) In today's communal environment, there are great professionals whom I believe would want to work alongside the JFNA CEO;

    3. The Chair and the CEO -- appoint a true Blue Ribbon Committee of a group of Federation Chairs and CEOs representative of every City-size to conduct a deep dive into the purposes and foci of JFNA for the benefit of the federations. There needs to be a serious examination of whether it is time for JFNA to delimit its roles to those of a Trade Association (which many believe that it has already become -- an expensive one); or a more expansive set of defined roles for which federations are willing and will bind themselves to pay.

And, of course, more. Throughout a process, Federation leaders should read and then abide the advice of Rabbi Sherre Hirsch in her article in ejewishphilanthropy -- Time to Reassess What Is Essential.

Let's assure that federations finally will see value-added and a return on their investment in JFNA. What could be better than that?

Just get on with it.

Rwexler