Friday, January 18, 2008

A Different "View"

This week UJC used its in house View to reflect with pride, as it should, in the accomplishments of the federation system in 2007; $2.4 billion in financial resource development from all sources is fantastic. Quotes from the UJC CEO and Chair of the Board even suggest that UJC had something to do with these successes beyond reporting them (and the success of the Washington Office has been vital) without one quote from within any federation where the income was created, where the hardest work is done and where the results of these efforts make the difference for those most needy of the Jewish People at home, in Israel or overseas. And, the creative, committed work of the Jewish Agency and JDC with our system's reducing dollars? Not worthy of mention -- let's dwell instead in the View on the great work UJC did in setting limits on them.

And, let's get the facts straight. No matter how UJC leaders game the numbers, 2007 marked the first year in over a decade in which the total giving to all federation Annual Campaigns is projected (real numbers are not yet available nor will they be for months) to have fallen below the prior year. This is the critical issue, the seminal fact, the painful reality. But we, at UJC, don't like to surface harsh realities -- after all. we in the bunker have been instructed only to paint pretty pictures and come up with something called the "big idea." Since Howard Rieger and, then, Joe Kanfer took their professional and lay leadership roles, the focus on the "big idea" (often then redefined as "purposeful and very strategic change") has been our charge. And anyone who pushes back against a "big idea" for whatever the reason is condemned as "not being a team player" or "against change" or is personally attacked then shunned.

And what is today's "big idea"? Trust us, it will be another scheme, like Operation Promise or the "Organizational Strategy" trumpeted down from the mountaintop without being fully thought through, immune from any criticism from the UJC professional staff or any lay leadership and and beyond change. As with the "big ideas" past, the roll out is being dictated by a meeting date -- not a GA but the January Board Retreat in Newport Beach. We have to have something "important" to discuss there don't we?

Understand, we're just speculating here, but it appears to us that this year's "big idea" will be a massive "Special Campaign for Children." (We don't know much about it; we just work here.) Originated with UJC Israel, through which not a dime has been raised from a donor, it will, by the end of January 2008, have been "discussed" with JAFI and JDC by professional leaders of UJC Israel and UJC's "Community Capacity Building" professionals; the UJC Development area has been excluded from these meetings. Talking a Supplemental Campaign (over, and ontop of the Annual Camapaign) of $80 to $100 million. The federations, at least until this week, uninformed.

Maybe those in UJC lay and professional leadership have forgotten that the mother's milk of the federation system is the Annual Campaign. Without its strength, the federations will not be the central Jewish communal address; federations will wither and die. Perhaps these same leaders are immune from an American economy that is in free fall with potentially devastating impacts on our communities' campaigns? So at a time that UJC should be totally engaged and totally focused with the federations in critical ways to bolster and support these annual expressions of incredible generosity, its leadership is busy in the laboratory coming up with a Special Supplemental Campaign that will compete, by its very nature, with the Annual Campaign, the glue, that holds our communities together and enables the creative works that ennoble them. (We also hear in the hallways and on the UJC grapevine, that Chairman Kanfer is busy working in his laboratory on another "big idea" Supplemental Campaign --"The Fund for the Jewish Future" focused on Jewish Education and Identity -- but we will leave that for another day if we can escape the bunker and learn more.)

You all have a great Shabbat.

3 comments:

Jerusalem Updates said...

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Unknown said...

To Whom It May Concern,

I am not questioning whether your blog has some merit. However, I cannot completely fathom why you have chosen to continue under this grandiose guise of anonymity. Is this out of necessity? Are you a disgruntled UJC employee? Or perhaps an overlooked lay leader? Anonymous blogging is the medium of choice for angst-ridden teenagers, not adults hoping to be taken seriously.

We all look forward to having you stand up and tell us who you are. Perhaps then a real and useful conversation can ensue.

Shabbat Shalom!

A Citizen said...

Super, are you for real? You say "we all look forward to having you stand up and tell us who you are." With all due respect, you speak for nobody but yourself. If you actually read and understand what this blogger is writing, you'd notice that he/she reports that no open, meaningful and secure conversation can take place. Who cares who this blogger is? Sure, credibility is more of a question with anonymity. So it's up to each reader to decide how much legitimacy to bestow. How about we spend time on content -- for a change.