PRIORITIES-SETTING

Well, friends, here's the thing: instead of a thoughtful, planful process leading to the setting of priorities by the JFNA Board, what we have seen instead is an organization dying the death of a thousand cuts while having no priorities. The result is that we have an organization jumping from shiny object to shiny object budget to budget with the following sad, sad results:

• Having abandoned the consulting services function for at least one year, Silverman pasted a bandage on this gaping void by patchwork -- expanding a modest FRD consulting team of 4 part-time consultants to 8 and calling them a comprehensive "Community Consulting Team" (or, in JFNA acronymicalese, the "CCT");
• Having abandoned Mandel and its CEO Search function for the federations, we are now seeing the JCCA (those first three letters of this acronym represent the Jewish Communities Centers) beginning to fill the search void. (Note to those CEOs who refuse to allow the GA to become a biennial event for fear that others will step into that void; take note, JFNA's lunch is already being eaten)
• Having abandoned advocacy for the core budgets of JAFI, JDC and WorldORT, JFNA killed the UIA's promising advocacy effort while its own embryonic Envoys Program under JFNA-Israel, has failed to gain traction and operates mainly as a one-person effort of David Brown, the Chair of JFNA-Israel;
• Having abandoned the legacy National Agencies-Federations Alliance, which is now passing into oblivion, in its death throes with JFNA performing the last rites after Silverman demanded (and received) millions out of the National Agencies Funding Pool, , the orphaned National Agencies -- all of them -- will be knocking on Federation doors across the country seeking direct funding, exactly the result that the Alliance was created to avoid;
• Having abandoned the national planning and research function that was a source of pride and strength under great pros from Norbert Fruehauf (for CJF) and Bob Hyfler (for JFNA), JFNA has now hired a professional (not even sure she is full-time, operating out of Philadelphia) to jump start the effort anew. And what is that professional's first assignment -- to staff the National Agencies Alliance on a part-time basis.
• Having abandoned the FRD function, JFNA made what appeared to be a superb hire in Brian Abrahams as Senior V-P then emasculated him, refused to budget sufficiently to enable Brian to hire full-time staff, saddling him with a part-time Senior FRD Consultant who appears to be running that part-time CCT (see, above) given that that consultant hired and assigned the part-time consultants who make up that "team."

Look, there is so much more; it's head-spinning. You don't need a management consultant, you don't need a McKinsey, to know that JFNA isn't engaged in management by chaos, it's just in chaos. A change at the top might not turn this around...

...but it would be a damn good start.

Rwexler