Curiously, The Alliance was the outgrowth of a Commission formed back in the early days of then United Jewish Communities, and chaired by the then Chair of the New York UJA-Federation, Louise Greilsheimer, who shortly after the "Greilsheimer Commission" threw up its hands in despair at ever reaching consensus, led the formation of The Alliance. Shortly thereafter Louise walked away into a professional career at New York's UJA where one of her "responsibilities" apparently was to threaten The Alliance with drastic cuts from New York-UJA (which was then providing [and continued to provide] a disproportionate share of ther "voluntary" allocation to The Alliance).
And, then, in the midst of the last fiscal year, JFNA, not a qualifying Agency and exempt from The Alliance's elaborate reporting requirements, demanded and received a $500,000 (I might be off by a bit) "grant" ("stolen" from the under-allocations to the qualifying Agencies) to "quick start" JFNA's "Education Unit." That's internal FRD under Silverman. And, now:
Shabbat shalom,
"From: Kline, Stephan
Sent: Friday, June 17, 2016 11:26 AM
Subject: Alliance Funding Announcement
The National Federation/Agency Alliance (Alliance) is a coalition of 30 federations that provide core (undesignated) financial support to the national agencies listed below. Many of these national agencies have been long-time historic partners of the Jewish Federations and engage in extremely important work on behalf of the federation system and the national Jewish community.
For a number of years, UJA-Federation of New York has been the largest sustaining member of the Alliance and currently allocates almost $1.6 million or 38% of the overall funding pool. Yesterday, UJA-Federation informed us that it will discontinue its support to the Alliance, effective June 30, 2017, given the long-standing challenges in broadening financial support across the Federation system for the Alliance funding process.
We recognize that New York’s departure from the Alliance will have significant implications for the Alliance process. Over the next few months the Alliance will be working with you to explore next steps.
Stephan Kline, Coordinator, National Federation/Agency Alliance"Marcie Orley, Chair, National Federation/Agency AllianceShabbat shalom -- really!!?? That's the best JFNA's Alliance lay and professional leaders can do? Do you think that they even recognize that this is the end game for the collective responsibility that was supposed to be embodied in The Alliance?
Here's the historic reality -- New York had made its intention known for years. And, for years, JFNA has pled with New York "please, please don't." Yes, friends, once again and as always, JFNA's leaders were sound asleep assured that certainly New York UJA would do nothing. Instead of "broadening financial support" for the National agencies, instead of expanding the number of federations participating in The Alliance, JFNA qua JFNA did what it always does -- nothing; apparently believing that New York just "would never do it." (This while The Alliance leaders for reasons unclear expanded the number of agency participants include Jewish World Service and BBYO, neither a federation agency, while, as noted above, granting significant dollars to JFNA itself [an amount that will increase in 2016-2017 and subsequent years to $900,000].) It is JFNA in microcosm.
The level of disgust just keeps rising. And, ain't nobody doin' nothin' about it. Shame on all of us.
Rwexler
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9 comments:
Imagine for a moment that "collective responsibility" created entitlement and fostered a lack of transparency and accountability.
Imagine....
Now imagine that smart, thoughtful Federations from NY to LA are defining a new "collective responsibilty" based on strategy, donor engagement, priority setting, measurable outcomes and partnership.
I will respond to this Comment in an upcoming Post.
I received the following Comment from a professional of decades-long superb service to our communities and national system:
"A shame. This "nail in the coffin" for the Alliance will likely guarantee one result - like JAFI, JDC and World ORT (traditional "partners" of the Federation system) before them, each will be forced to redouble their individual fundraising efforts in the USA. And the likely first "prospects" will be the Federations and their local donors.
As the federation/national agency system devolves, the impact on local communities' donor base will be measured in how many individual appeals the federations and their donors receive and the dollars then siphoned out of the undesignated core
"A shame. This "nail in the coffin" for the Alliance will likely guarantee one result - like JAFI, JDC and World ORT (traditional "partners" of the Federation system) before them, each will be forced to redouble their individual fundraising efforts in the USA. And the likely first "prospects" will be the Federations and their local donors.
As the federation/national agency system devolves, the impact on local communities' donor base will be measured in how many individual appeals the federations and their donors receive and the dollars then siphoned out of the undesignated core campaign to cover these new requests. The competition for the hearts and financial support of donors will increase and only the more robust national organizations with heavy local lay support will likely thrive if they survive at all.campaign to cover these new requests.
While I don't necessarily think the killing of the Alliance and the ripple effect was the intent of the UJA-Federation of NY's action, the results are inevitable. Without the NY money in the pool, the Alliance funds become almost irrelevant to the recipient agencies. They will have no choice but to aggressively compete in the federations' local markets or die".
http://ejewishphilanthropy.com/the-national-federationagency-alliance-takes-a-hit/?utm_source=Monday+June+29,+2016&utm_campaign=Mon+June+20&utm_medium=email"
While I am in a community that is not a part of the "Alliance," our community does provide funding that mirrors the historical partners. You are surely correct, each and every one of these groups will come to the same donors and have a very strong pitch.
Each move away from collective responsibility and a centralized gift makes our movement less and less compelling.
The Jewish Agency's national fundraising has to date failed. JDC is only successful with Federation assistance. same with Birthright, PJ Library etc.
And ORT?!?
I see the sky and it hasn't fallen.
To Anon 346:
Latest study finds federation fund raising dropping while overall "Jewish" fund raising gains -- the point seems to be that while Jewish Agency fund raising may have "failed" (and, BTW, it has not failed at all), the fund raising it has done as well as JDC's and local agencies which can no longer count on the federations as the main provider has significantly and consistently driven federation-led fund rain downward. Get you head out of the sand...or wherever it is stuck.
To Anon 4:03 - Head in the sand? You actually reinforced the entire point of this exchange. Federations are supposed to be the central fundraising arm for the community and for overseas partners who are not represented at the table. There are lots of advantages to this structure, not the least of which is that every organization can concentrate on its mission while federation concentrates on providing the resources, every donor can give one gift that covers lots of beneficiaries thus not being put in apposition of competing forces asking for donations, beneficiary agencies avoiding having to develop their own fundraising budgets, staff and so forth. JFNA (or some national organization) needs to be the model for federations promoting all beneficiaries. Instead this is what we get - a national organization that chews up and spits out $30 mil annually, fails to advocate and represent the international organizations, and forces the national organizations that we created to service the local agencies to become independent fundraisers. (BTW - what will now happen as federations raise less money and they give less money to their own beneficiaries as well - the national organizations of these local beneficiaries will now need to compete directly with the local agency they represent for the same dollars from the same donors. And if you pull your head out of the sand you will see that in very few cases will the donor select the national agency over funding the local agency they are supposed to be servicing.
Let's face reality. For a variety of reasons, donors increasingly want to decide where their dollars go, rather than having a federation allocation committee decide where they go.
Is a centralized fundraising system (federation, United Way, Combined Federal Campaign, etc.) more efficient? Probably. Is it what today's donors desire? No, as evidenced by the near-universal decrease in giving to centralized campaigns of all stripes.
Some are trying to stem the tide by offering various types of designated giving. Which leads to the $10,000 donor who designates her Federation gift to the JCC and the pays off her pledge by having her United Way gift designated to the Federation. Thus with one $10,000 gift, she becomes a macher to United Way, Federation, AND the JCC.
Jafi is an instrument of collective responsibility. So is JDC. Federations are simply a community chest -- and it's pretty obvious what the marketplace thinks of that concept.
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