Soon it will be easier than ever before to give your money away — safely.
With the launch of FedWeb, a comprehensive Web building system developed by United Jewish Communities, people will have a secure way to make donations to nationwide Jewish federations, online.
They’ll also be able to access current Jewish news, learn about and register for Jewish events, keep current on local federation happenings and stay connected to all other things Jewish just by logging onto the Internet.
“FedWeb will hook federations together and help Jews, affiliated and unaffiliated, who want to get involved in their community,” said Richard Pearlstone, UJC marketing committee chairman.
FedWeb will enable the 189 North American federations to create state-of-the-art Web sites from easy-to-use templates. For a small fee, each federation gets a secure server and access to any of FedWeb’s template features.
As a result, each federation will be able to provide sophisticated Web services easily to anyone with a computer and Internet access.
The project, funded by the UJC and built and designed by the New York-based X World Communications, should be operational by year-end.
But first, a pilot run aimed at working out any possible bugs in the system will be launched in March from four federation Web sites. The S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation is among those pilot sites.
Others are those of Las Vegas, Atlanta and Tidewater, Va.
Locally the JCF has been readying its site for the March test launch.
“It’s important for us to keep our communication up with the times,” explained Suzan Berns, JCF associate marketing director. “We’re a community building and fund-raising organization. This helps us get the word out and also helps people to communicate with us.”
The basic structure and design of the already operational JCF site — www.sfjcf.org — will stay the same under FedWeb, said Web manager Catherine Falk. But there will be additional features, including national and local news feeds, an electronic federation newsletter and a more secure server for donations.
“We already have a pretty secure service,” Falk added. “This will make it even tighter, in all areas of the site.”
The JCF, however, is actually in a strong position as one of very few U.S. federations to already operate a multipurpose site. Most federations, said Pearlstone, have either a static site with no practical uses or no site at all. FedWeb, he said, will come in especially handy for them.
“It’s affordable and it will drive down their costs,” added Pearlstone, explaining that federations will save a lot of money on supplies if they begin offering services online. “Instead of sending faxes or incurring charges for long-distance calls, they can use the FedWeb system as a way to communicate.”
In fact, Pearlstone said UJC’s shipping, mailing and printing costs have gone down by 30 percent since implementing Internet service.
FedWeb will also save federations the cost of paying top dollar for a professional Web designer.
“You don’t have to be a techie to use this,” said Berns. “And no one will have to learn HTML.”
But above all, it will make Jewish information available to those who are seeking a closer connection to Judaism, but may not know where to start, said Pearlstone, from those who have recently relocated to the younger generation, which tends to gravitate toward the Internet. “If it’s Jewish, they’ll be able to find it.”