1. The JFNA Version of FRD. You may recall that after the departure of the JFNA FRD SVP, Eric Fingerhut announced that he would serve, in additioin to his other CEO responsibilities, as some kind of interim. professional leader of JFNA's financial resource development effort. Then, presumably in consultation with the JFNA National Campaign Chair, JFNA down-sized its FRD Community Consultation effort and, lately, best I can tell (and someone correct me if I'm wrong), JFNA has gone out of the FRD business -- at the worst possible time. (I think the National Campaign Chair still travels to communities to speak and inspire, but FRD...no.)
But it was still surprising to read the "excited" announcement that thanks to the generosity of "seven national foundations," which granted "an $18 millon match to the Federation system, which can be matched on a 1:2 basis, creating a $54 million increase for our frontline servoce agencies and programs serving primarily Jewish community members." (No, I don't know what that means either.) This will forever be known as the Human Services Relief Matching Fund.
So, the matching funds have already been commited by the foundations; there is no indication in Chair Wilf's and CEO Fingerhut's announcement that JFNA will be doing any more fundraising -- having done none to this point anyway. Therefor it did come as a surprise that the Matching Fund will be chaired by the National Campaign Chair.
I still remember the halcyon days of yore when the National Campaign Chair as his/her first responsibility was to actually raise money -- I know that was "so Oughts." I bet Mark Wilf remembers those days as well. They are no longer.
2. Maybe There Should Be a Training Program. Many, probably all of us, have Chaired meetings over our leadership years. Hopefully, we all learned from the best of leaders and passed what we learned on to those who followed us -- always either informally or by example. In all of my leadership roles, I always treqasured the opportunity to share.
Recently, I was to participate in a Zoom meeting of an organization I once Chaired.
Then I received the Agenda. It read like this:
- Call to Order, Welcome -- Board Chair
- Approval/Minutes -- Board Chair
- Dvar Torah -- Someone other than the Board Chair
- Direction of the Organization -- Board Chair
- CEO's Message -- the CEO
- Opportunities for Organizational Leadership -- Board Chair
- Telling the Organization's Story -- Someone other than the Board Chair
- Training Sessions -- Board Chair
- Next Steps -- Board Chair
Posts
2 comments:
You usually call balls and strikes as you see them...you're good that way, even when you're occasionally wrong:-). On the human services matching grant program your "call" is confusing. JFNA partnered with the foundations to get them to commit the resources and has been actively working with communities across the country to support them in understanding and raising funds for the match. Isn't this clearly a good thing to be praised? Isn't this a model of how JNFA in the new world can add value/bring leverage to local community fundraising efforts? Lots of readers of this blog -- including me -- are extremely critical of JFNA frequently, but on this, they've come through. You should say so.
Why do we need FRD? Isn't it enough to just set up a MAILBOX and hope that there will be enough of a response to meet the needs?
Once upon a tine we knew how to organize a CAMPAIGN but that is history. Once we knew how to organize a BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS but today we don't even try. Once we would have done whatever needed to be done and then raise or borrow whatever was needed to cover the needs but today we just passively wait for funds to flow in before we do anything. Lets hope and pray that we don't ever need to do anything BIG for our People because the current organizational culture won't be capable of anything beyond feeding its own bloated and impotent organization.
Having a National Campaign Chair without having a campaign is a farce, nothing more than an opportunity to fill another slot on an already overcrowded organizational letterhead.
Post a Comment