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Friday November 17, 2006

As Super Sunday nears, Tom Dine reviews his 1st year at JCF

by joe eskenazi
staff writer

Before Tom Dine was hired by the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation and far before he unfurled the federation’s spreadsheets on his well-worn desk, he confidently predicted he could augment fundraising by 10 percent. The estimate, he said, was “intuitive.”

The buzz phrase he inadvertently created around the federation’s waterfront offices was intuitive as well. Starting with his first days as CEO of the JCF a year ago, Dine began hearing about “The Tom Ten.”

“That was sort of cute, but I took it seriously,” said Dine, who will be overseeing his second Super Sunday on Nov. 19 (he was hired just days before last year’s).

“I put the cart before the horse. I said 10 percent without giving a reason. My purpose was to break the stagnation and complacency.” And he did that — just not to the tune of 10 percent.

In the financial year that concluded on June 30, the S.F.-based JCF’s general campaign raked in $24.6 million, an increase of more than 7 percent from the year before. And while seven isn’t quite 10, the increase was the sharpest fundraising jump of any federation in the country and the campaign was the JCF’s most lucrative yet.

In the current fundraising year — which will be anchored by the coming Super Sunday — Dine has, again, set the bar high. He’d like to raise $26.5 million for the general campaign and an additional $10 million for its Israel fund (nearly $5 million has already been raised for Israel).

Dine is the first to acknowledge it won’t be easy simultaneously fundraising on two campaigns. But he believes donors will respond.

The CEO’s top overseas priority is beefing up employment and education in the far north of Israel both in the long- and short-term. In the future, Dine sees Kiryat Shmona’s Tel Hai College joining the nation’s elite institutions and becoming a regional powerhouse. In the present, however, the JCF’s major effort is sending scholarship money to northern Israelis who were unable to hold down the summer jobs they depend on to pay for college due to the Israel-Hezbollah war.

Closer to home, Dine has far-reaching plans. He’d like to convene all the Jewish service agencies in the Bay Area, come up with a workable plan to combat the root causes of local Jewish poverty and implement it. He’d like to make Jewish education affordable to families that aren’t wealthy. And he’s already established relationships with a number of area rabbis in an effort to welcome interfaith families and unaffiliated Jews into the community.

“Some Jews don’t want to be inclusive. I find that to be abhorrent, to tell you the truth. We want to invite everyone inside our tent because it’s a big tent — [there’s] Reconstructionist, Reform, Conservative, Orthodox and further Orthodox,” he said.

“I didn’t realize it when I came here, but there were strained relations between the federation and synagogues over the years. I’ve already spoken at five different synagogues. I’ve developed relationships with rabbis and they all say the same thing: ‘I’ve never spoken with anyone in the federation leadership.’ We’re going to partner with them on projects to bring more people inside.”

Fulfilling a “campaign promise” of Dine’s, the JCF will be holding Super Sunday events in San Francisco and Palo Alto this year. Dine emphasized that the federation is strongly committed to its wildly growing constituency on the Peninsula — he visits the Peninsula weekly, and the JCF sank millions into the Taube-Koret Campus for Jewish Life. While some in that area have in the past grumbled about forming their own federation, Dine dismisses such talk with a wave of the hand.

“Not on my watch,” he said.

Dine, the former longtime head of AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, has a reputation for shaking things up. And at the JCF he insists he is shaking — slowly. “Making change here and everywhere is not easy. There’s resistance in one form or another. I thought I could do it faster than I’ve been able to,” he said. He shook his head and smiled.

“It’s OK. I’m here for the long haul.”

The S.F.-based JCF’s Super Sunday is Nov. 19. Information: www.sfjcf.org/supersunday or call (415) 777-0411.