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.

Apologies

Your bloggers need to apologize. We have caught the attention of The Forward which, among other things, noted that our Posts have been "...rife with typographical errors." We have to admit that it's tough finding the "Check Spelling" button when we are forced further and further into the darkness of the bunker. We'll try to do better.

The Reorganization...A Continuing Saga

If you, our readers, are confused as to why morale here at UJC has never, ever been lower, given that we are at work for the Jewish People we love and are, they tell us, well paid, consider the current sorry state of the Rieger-Kanfer "Organizational Strategy." This was the March "Reorganization" that, all of us were told, would focus UJC on 6 critical "strategic goals. Well, not so much. Here's the pattern that has emerged:

• Doron Krakow was left with a title and his compensation but...no job. He resigns
• Eric Levine, a long-time Senior Executive in Development working under the direction of Vicki Agron and Gail Reiss, crunching numbers and drafting development plans, as he had for New York UJA-Federation, was transferred ahead of the Reorganization to run UJC's Renaissance and Renewal work, now is further elevated to professionally direct the Jewish Peoplehood thing
• Development is transferred to a new framework -- "Community Capacity Building" -- and directed to report to Barry Swartz, a master of the UJC Bureaucracy working out of Atlanta (!) -- never a fund raiser. Agron would no longer report directly to Howard Rieger, the CEO, but through Swartz. Sequentially, Agron and Reiss leave UJC.

So, there you have it. All the pieces in place for the new strategy, right?

Uh, no. This Rieger - Kanfer plan so well thought out, written behind closed doors, imposed without the possibility of criticism, has already been redone, two months after the General Assembly where it was the "centerpiece." Follow this bouncing ball (if you can):

• Levine, just months ago the darling of Jewish Peoplehood, is transferred to run Development (without anything but a "heads up" from Rieger-Kanfer to Campaign lay leadership). Not so fast though, Levine will not report through Swartz but directly to Rieger;
• Susan Sherr-Seitz, a bright and articulate professional is then promoted "to manage" the Jewish Peoplehood "Group" but she will apparently report through Levine even though he has been transferred over to run Development. (Hope you are able to digest all this.)
• Swartz, who for almost two months was directing community consulting, Capacity Building and the Washington Office (we think), has apparently been reassigned to be the professional to whom only Consulting and the Washington Office(we think) report;
• William Daroff, who directs the Washington Office with fantastic success needs no supervision from within the bureaucratic cocoon of the Rieger staff Table of Organization (and maybe he reports not to Swartz but to Sam Astrof, the CFO Howard elevated to COO shortly after Rieger came on Board);

If you are lost in all of this, don't worry, surely the geniuses who lead UJC will change it all again ... and soon. But, we have to admit, we're not even certain we have our facts straight. No one meets with us to fill us in -- we are as in the dark as lay leadership.

Does anyone out there care. The state we are in has been permitted only because federation lay and professional leadership -- you all, the owners -- allow it.

There's No dues Like No Dues

These can't be the best of times at Disunited Jewish Communities, but your bloggers agree it's the worst. Now, on top of losing critical Senior Managers one after the other; on top of promoting a dictated "Organizational Strategy" that can't possibly move the organization forward but is presented as the best thing since Saran Wrap, federations of all City-sizes are not just protesting their super sized dues, they have decided not to pay them in whole or in part.

Some examples, you ask:

• South Palm Beach County. This southeast Florida Federation, headquartered in Boca Raton, sought hardship relief from UJC arising out of, among other things, uninsured costs of hurricane damage to multiple facilities. When UJC leadership determined that the community's wealth, successful annual campaigns and unwillingness to borrow to meet its "obligations" in a decision smacking of arrogance and noblesse oblige, UJC denied the community any relief. The community is currently paying its dues but had advised UJC that it will not be bound by any dues decision for 2008-2009.
• Palm Beach County a major partner in UJC has advised the national organization that it will not pay any increased dues to UJC and demands a complete review of the UJC budget which has begun an upward "creep" dictated top-down. The home of top leadership of the JDC and Jewish Agency, it has been visited by Messrs. Rieger and Kanfer who lectured the federation on its responsibilities. South Palm Beach has been constantly threatened with membership termination.
• Detroit. One of the strongest, most tight-knit of federations, Detroit advised UJC over 2 years ago that it would limit its dues payments going forward to $1 million per year unless the dues formula was changed from its current strict emphasis on annual campaign achievement, the organization reformed itself to engage with both the federations' needs and with its obligations to its overseas partners, among other thins. Getting annual promises from UJC that something would be done to meet Detroit's dues concerns, but no action, and after many, many meetings, promises and threats, in 2007 Detroit began transmitting its overseas payments directly to JAFI and JDC fearing that UJC would make up budget shortfalls out of allocations intended for The Jewish Agency and the Joint -- something UJC has promised not to do.

There are more, many more -- what you read here are, from what we are hearing inside the hallowed halls of 111 Eighth Avenue, the tip of a growing iceberg (even in this time of global warming). UJC's leadership's idea of "federation engagement" is to visit with federations when their dues are threatened. So, if you want a visit from Howard, Kathy, Joe or Michael Gelman (and who wouldn't), just let them know your federation will/can no longer pay its dues; they will down shortly thereafter promising "things will change," then proposing increasing the dues for, e.g., a vital $845,000 branding research project.

When they come to see you, say hello for us, the neglected boys/girls of UJC

The Great Place to Work Survey

In a vivid demonstration of the "denial" with which UJC's Chief Professional Officer works or his ill-formed belief that he runs a very happy ship (after all which one of us wouldn't be happy working in an environment in which the boss is the consummate bully), UJC signed on to participate in the Great Place to Work Survey. This research tool is designed, according to its sponsor -- the Great Place to Work Institute -- "...to building a better society by helping companies transform their workplaces...that trust between managers and employees is the primary defining characteristic of the best workplaces." Noble and inspirational. Federations ranging in size and scope from New York to Colorado engaged in the research and published the results.

So, the UJC staff was called upon to complete the Survey in 2007, before Vicki Agron was forced out under humiliating and unprofessional circumstances, before Val Cutina quit, but after the Gail Hyman force-out, the Doron Krakow force-out, etc., etc. And, guess what -- the lay leadership of UJC was (1) unaware the research was being conducted and (2) when they became aware, denied access to the results.

Those of us inside the organization didn't need a Survey to know that morale has never been lower, that more resumes are in circulation "on the street" than ever before, and that UJC's top professional leadership wants no data that would conflict with their perception that everyone at UJC is happy, happy, happy. They're daft.

Anger Management

The UJC CEO posts a weekly pre-Shabbat message -- Howard's View. Typically very personal, maybe a form of therapy, to those of us inside UJC, they are usually the occasion for an exchange of e-mail commentary about the pedestrian self-aggrandizing tone. Our e-mails regularly use words like "pitiful," "insipid" and "ich."

On the occasion of the first Shabbat of 2008 (January 4, 2008), the View focused on Howard's Rabbinic learning about the futility of anger, urging all of his readers to abandon anger in the New Year. Surely those inside and outside UJC who have experienced the "Rieger Treatment" know that those who offer a different opinion from Howard's on any matter are scorned, isolated, ignored, ostracized and treated as poison. So often Howard's decisions about professional and lay leadership advancement are made strictly based on loyalty and unquestioning support. The results of Howard's "anger" are as simplistic as one would expect of a CPO who proudly flunked out of college twice or was it three times -- the creation of a class of sycophants who advance and another class of "everybody else." Those who worked with him in Pittsburgh remember a "boss" who demanded total loyalty, stubbornly pursued policies that were often ill-founded, and based his personnel decisions on those who implemented his policies without ever questioning them. When professionals in Pittsburgh of at UJC pushed back, they were met with anger and with threats that they were "clearly not on the team" -- the threats of a bully boy."

Anger management anyone?

Messages from the Trenches

Friends of the boys/girls who are "the Blog" have written us from "inside" with comments on the sorry state of our "Disunited Jewish Communities." We can't print all of the comments we have received to date, but some strike us as particularly on point and all reflect the sorry state of what should be the "shining light on the hill."

A couple of examples:

• From a long-time professional -- "this leadership, lay and professional, has taken something magnificent and made it pedestrian."
• A long time student of our national institution from both inside and outside wrote: "[T]he unraveling of 'professionalism,' the centralizing of control, the resistance to the new realities in Jewish life regarding new organizations speaking to the young, the elitism of so-called leadership, and many more realities conspire to feeding the flames of growing irrelevance of the system as a whole."
• And, another: "In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."
• Finally: "To Rieger and Kanfer the only valid ideas are there's and there's alone. All others are irrelevant, poison not to be touched."

Nice.