"Now that you are looking at this you'll have to give credit where credit is due (and no this is not the CEO!) to date over $8.5 million has been raised. It could reach $10 million early next week. Most of these dollars were raised by the leadership of Jerry Silverman. NY, Chicago as well as LA and other cities have already raised significant dollars and there has been incredible in kind support."And, I think all would agree that we have all given "credit where credit is due."
But, then, weeks later, Richard Sandler -- you remember Richard Sandler, JFNA's Board Chair -- sent his own message to the troops asking for further funding (you know, FRD at JFNA consists of mailboxes and letters):
"We cannot allocate funds that we don’t know we have. The volume of activity we are dealing with has overwhelmed our ability to track results community by community. We urge you to update our finance office on your total available funding, and to forward the cash as soon as possible. We have already committed $2.2M in unrestricted relief funding, and an additional $2M in restricted funding is also already committed. But there is much more to do. We can do more and more quickly if we know what we will have to work with." (emphasis added)So, what the hell is going on? Is it $8.5 million -- $10 million or is it only $2.2 + $2 million? JFNA is an organization that continuously misrepresents numbers -- stuff like this just destroys trust, destroys credibility (if any remains at all). The coonstant need to just -- let's call it for what it is -- lie is the only constant at JFNA. (That is if you don't count the constancy of failure.)
It's one thing to lie about attendance at every event; it's quite another to misrepresent the dollars available for life-saving and life-affirming work.
And, yet, there is no accountability, never any accountability; no demand for the facts. Federation leaders are silent; JFNA Board members are silent. Silence is everywhere. Where there should be embarrassment, there is silence; where there should be demands for immediate action, there is silence; where there should be humiliation, there is silence; and where there should be leadership, there is silence.
Maybe it would behoove Sandler, who is committed to the truth when not asserting the organization's demand for "confidentiality" in all things, to ask the questions that he should have been asking for the past two years and earlier.
Will he?
If he asks them, he won't like the answers.
Rwexler
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12 comments:
Maybe Sandler operates in his own virtual reality while Silverman operates in his both realizing that nobody gives a damn what either of them say or if either ever did anything positive, what they've done. JFNA is a farce, wasting millions of donors funds while everyone looks the other way rather than face reality.
Richard, if the person who wrote the comment that you attribute to 25 Broadway is reading your post, which we all know many at 25 Broadway do, then I would say that if they are a responsible employee, they will write a response to your post in an attempt to set the record straight.
On the other hand, if in fact this person was "Not Jerry Silverman", then they might need to remain silent because the knowledge of such information would narrow down the list of suspects for the Thought Police.
Richard, I serve on the JFNA Executive Committee and have to write anonymously because, well, you know what would happen to me as what has happened to you...but I wanted you and your readxs to know that the Executive Committee is almost as completely in the dark as is the Board on almost every matter you've raised. Consultant contracts, the General Assembly, the amount wasted onthe Global Planning Table, compensation decisions, you name it.
Transparency is the lifeblood of the best non-profits; darkness an shadows are where the worst of non-profits reside. JFNA is clearly so afraid of truth, of facts, of letting the sunshine in that they keep everyone out as if the organization holds some precious truths to which no one else is ever allowed access. These leaders have made so many terrible mistakes and secrecy is the worst.
Anonymous on October 25, 2017 at 9:16 AM
My God. Well this is pretty damning evidence...
9:16am If you're really on the Executive Committee how many questions have you asked about these issues. I suspect if you are on the EC and how would we know?!? You sit silently on the call. Where's your responsibility?!?
There is a funny truth about Federations, on the local level and the national level, and at all times.Everyone, lay and pro, wants to stay in the room and protect their status to be there. And everyone believes there is another room where the decisions are really made.
Excellent...and so true.
It seems to this disaffected JFNA Board Member that the only things that JFNA has to hide in the "darkness" are its failures, all or many of which have been lowlighted on the pages of this Blog. In fact JFNA would be best-served if it would shed light on real accomplishments but as it has almost none it deems it best to hide everything.
I've asked numerous times over many years for JFNA to share accomplishments. It almost never happens, even with multiple proactive asks.
Why would any organization spending millions of donor dollars be permitted to hide how those dollars, in this case, are wasted. This appears to be a prima facie violation of New York's Charities Laws.
The opaque curtain drawn across the actions of non-profits blocking out scrutiny and making transparency a joke is exactly one of the causes of the scandals that have been exposed at Jewish non-profits from FEGS to New York Legal Assistance to the 92nd Street Y and so many others. The failure of lay oversight, acquiescence in secrecy are part and parcel in the corruption. The price that is paid is in the destruction of the trust necessary to build great institutions. JFNA could well be the next.
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