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June 20, 2003/Sivan 20 5763, Vol. 55, No. 43
New vision for federations
RACHEL POMERANCE
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
NEW YORK - The North American federation system last week got a glimpse of the vision it has long been seeking.
In an address June 9 to the United Jewish Communities board of trustees, CEO Stephen Hoffman presented a vigorous plan to overhaul the federation umbrella group, which has been under intense scrutiny over the four years of its existence about its purpose, vision and structure.
Among his goals, he said, is for the UJC to become "the smartest place on earth about solutions to local and global Jewish issues."
His message came just before the UJC Delegate Assembly approved the 2003-2004 budget of $38.3 million, a 9.5-percent reduction from the previous year.
Cost-cutting measures include eliminating the federation umbrella's uni-versity programs division and Trust for Jewish Phil-anthropy, along with deep cuts in its Campaign/Financial Resource Develop-ment and Israel Overseas departments.
The budget decrease translates into an across-the-board 9.5 percent cut in the dues local federations pay to the federation umbrella organization.
The reduction is part of Hoffman's plan to streamline the system and a response to the complaints by many federations about the UJC's high operating cost in pressing economic and political times.
Critics from local fed-erations have also cited the system's failure to engage them and provide them with critical services along with its inability to garner sufficient funds for the UJC's overseas agencies, the Jewish Agency for Israel and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
Hoffman's vision, which was greeted with enthus-iasm, even from some of the system's greatest critics, comes after working with prominent outside consul-tants from McKinsey & Company and Atid Con-sulting to survey 200 federation professionals and volunteers for their views.
The plan is a broad overhaul of the system to fix its problems and keep up with changing Jewish com-munities at a time of intense global needs.
He described seemingly irreconcilable views within the UJC that have stunted its growth: Should it serve as a mere trade association or exert a leadership role in the national federation system? Should its support for federations' fund-raising campaigns be bolstered or shut down?
Hoffman seemed to leave those questions aside with a vision he pared down to three general "areas of focus." UJC should be, he said: a "vehicle for global Jewish respon-sibility," an engine of innovation and an organ-ization that must strengthen the federations.
The board of trustees moved to address one of the loudest concerns among federation leaders: the underfunding of overseas needs.
The board of trustees passed a resolution recom-mending that federations disburse all of the money saved from their dues reduction to the federation system's overseas pot.
The UJC was formed, in part, to reverse declining allocations from federations to overseas needs.
While the UJC has some-what staunched the drop in allocations, federations are still falling short of UJC recommendations.
And the issue has resulted in increasing frustration by the overseas partners, with the Joint Distribution Com-mittee circumventing the UJC to solicit individual federations directly.
"The savings on the UJC budget represent a meaningful resource for meeting" overseas needs, which "have not been adequately addressed for many years," James Tisch, UJC's outgoing chairman of the board, wrote to the board of trustees in a June 9 memo.
The memo urged federa-tions to allocate half of their savings to overseas needs, but the board went further, approving an amended re-solution increasing the re-commendation to 100 per-cent of federation savings.
But some federation leaders doubted the resolution would have any effect. One said past non-binding recommendations related to overseas allocations did not produce any results. Another leader noted that most federations had already determined their budgets, based on the dues reduction, and therefore were not likely to change them.
In addition, it seems unlikely that federations, many of whose campaigns are struggling and for whom the budget was cut, will have extra money to put back into the pot.
But according to Hoffman, "We have enough federations that are having good years" that they can "do a mitzvah for the needs overseas.''
Fred Zeidman, assistant executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix, said that the local federation has not yet been made aware by UJC of changes in the budget.
Look for a follow-up story about how the UJC changes will affect the local community.
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