by jacob berkman & dan pine
special to j.
It’s all Bill Gates’ fault.
The Microsoft billionaire rewrote the rules of philanthropy a few years back when he launched his $30 billion charitable foundation, which takes a hands-on results-focused approach. Gates doesn’t just give it away. He expects a return on his “investment.”
That’s increasingly true for the Jewish community as well, especially in the federation system, which has been forced to change some long established policies. Gone are the days when federations simply raised money and doled it out, no questions asked.
Many federations are moving to outcomes- and priorities-based planning. Outcomes-based planning requires recipients to show they are spending grant money wisely. In priorities-based funding, a federation identifies community needs before allocating any money. The federation then reaches out to organizations –– inside or outside the federation system –– proposing grants to meet those needs.
When the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation implemented the approach two years ago, it started with a strategic-planning process that named five areas of priority.
One of them was welcoming interfaith families, says federation planning director Karen Bluestone.
“There’s been a sea change at the federation in the last two years,” says Bluestone. “It’s about the organization getting more efficient, gaining focus based on data and bringing all aspects into play instead of just relying on the annual campaign to be responsive to the community.”
A recent demographic study showed that about 75 percent of Jews in Marin and Sonoma counties, where nearly 50,000 of the Bay Area’s 250,000 Jews live, were intermarried. Within that group, however, many families sent their children to Jewish nursery schools.
So the federation worked with the Union for Reform Judaism (not typically a recipient of federation money) to bring a sensitivity training program to Bay Area employees of synagogues, JCCs and early childhood education centers to make them more accessible to non-Jewish parents.
The federation also began discussions with a progressive organization called Jewish Milestones, which helps unaffiliated families bring Jewish ritual into their lives.
The federation then offered grants to synagogues with programs to attract unaffiliated Jews. Before it switched to the outcomes-based planning method, the federation gave only $11,300 a year to individual synagogues, but since 2004-2005 the number has increased to $131,645.
At the Jewish Community Federation of the Greater East Bay, changes have been underway for some time. “The federation made a decision to go from allocations to grants in the late ’90s,” says federation CEO Loren Basch. “They felt they wanted to be closer to the needs in the community on an ongoing basis.”
Basch says he and his colleagues pinpoint potential funding targets before launching annual campaigns. This allows the federation to anticipate donors’ desires and then pitch suggestions. If education is important to the donor, then the federation’s Jewish day school program just might be the ticket.
He is quick to add that longtime grantees that predate the changes are still in the game. “We ask them to put in proposals,” says Basch. “They are adapting to the new changes. They’re still very important to us — we’re just not giving the same way we used to.”
One way Basch makes things easier is through the federation’s Family of Funds, a menu of options that allows donors to designate money to specific areas, such as social justice, spiritual renewal, Israel or Jewish education.
The San Francisco federation has a similar program for its donors. “If donors contribute $50,000 or more to the annual campaign, they can target their increase from one year to the next towards any particular project or theme,” says Bluestone. “Another way is giving to the endowment. You can target money to anything in the endowment” with a donor-advised fund.
So, does the new model help or hurt the bottom line?
Most federations using the new model have seen their revenue stream rise. For example, the San Francisco federation saw its general campaign increase from $22.9 million in 2004-05 to $24.6 million the next year. Its campaign goal for 2006-07 is $26.5 million, according to Bluestone. In the East Bay, the federation’s 2007 campaign target totals $3.4 million.
The new model also has allowed federations to engage, for specific projects, foundations that normally would not have given them money. The UJA-Federation of New York, which began using an outcomes- and priorities-based process in 1999, identified caring for the aging as a core need. It was able to secure a $1 million grant from the Baltimore-based Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation to start New York’s first regional system of Jewish hospices.
The change in the 155-federation UJC system really has begun in earnest in the past four years, UJC officials said. There are now pilot strategic-planning models that incorporate some form of outcomes- and priorities-based planning in as many as 19 cities, according to Becky Sobleman-Stern, vice president of UJC Consulting.
But some aren’t fully on board.
As the Boston federation enters the early stages of a strategic-planning process, it will look at incorporating some outcomes-based planning methodology, said Patty Jacobson, vice president of marketing and community building for the Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston. But, she noted, “there are some important things we have to consider first.”
For one, switching to an outcomes-based method involves a fundamental rewriting of the relationship between a federation and its subsidiary agencies — not an easy task, Jacobson added. And the reporting itself can be problematic because it is hard to measure how effective, for instance, Jewish Family and Children’s Services is at helping people, unlike in the business world, where outcomes can be measured in dollars on the bottom line.
Much of the funding that federations give to their partner agencies is operational and doesn’t show up in outcomes-based reporting. Said Jacobson “It’s basic, lights-on funding.”
But there’s more to Jewish life than light switches.
Says S.F.-based federation’s Bluestone, “When you combine this fundamental work with an enhanced ability to accomplish critical things in the community, you have the best of both worlds.
Jacob Berkman is a writer for JTA; Dan Pine is a j. staff writer.
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California