Updated at 5:55 p.m.
When the new board of the Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund meets for the first time in January, it might want to use a smaller table.
The S.F.-based Federation is trimming its board from the current 25 to 15. That’s down dramatically from the dozens who in years past routinely sat on the board of the century-old institution.
Everyone behind the change agrees that a leaner board is the right move.
“This is the first time in 125 years there’s been this kind of change,” said Melissa Blaustein, who will join the board as a new member when it first convenes on Jan. 15. “To be on a board with only 15 members, to have a big impact and to be able to move nimbly is terribly exciting.”
The change, announced Tuesday, is part of the Federation’s strategic plan. Implemented last year, it shifts the nonprofit’s focus from fundraiser and grantmaker to community foundation, emphasizing its philanthropic advisory role.
“Historically, federations have had very large boards,” CEO Joy Sisisky said. “Sometimes board meetings were like conferences. For us, what’s important is that every member plays a very active role.”
Laura Lauder, the incoming chair, said that with only 15 members, the board “will be totally focused on being responsive and collaborative, on being a convener and catalyst. We are not going to have an executive committee. The board is the executive committee.”
Renee Rubin Ross, principal of the Berkeley-based Ross Collective, an independent firm that helps nonprofits bolster their boards but does not work with the Federation, sees value in its plan.
“It’s good that the board is smaller,” said Ross, a former program officer with the S.F.-based Jim Joseph Foundation. “We recommend to our clients that a board should allow a group of people to be able to sit around a table and talk. In terms of diversity, a board should be composed of people who look like the staff and the people served. It seems that’s what they’re working on.”
Another feature of the new board is its relative youth. Three of the directors — Blaustein, Aaron Mitchell Finegold and David Friedkin — are under age 40, making it proportionally the youngest board in Federation history.
“As part of our strategic planning, it was important to bring outside voices,” Sisisky added. “Young, diverse and energetic.”
Finegold, 37, is a corporate marketing and communications executive who also sits on the board of S.F. Congregation Emanu-El. The Milwaukee native said he was motivated to join the Federation board partly in response to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre in Israel and subsequent torrent of global antisemitic hate.
“The climate in which we find ourselves is particularly challenging,” Finegold said. “Antisemitism has always been real, but it is felt very deeply and acutely in this moment, both in the Bay Area and the wider world.” Finegold’s perception is that antisemitism is “overlooked and dismissed,” he said, “and that makes it distinct from forms of discrimination that I have felt as an LGBT individual and Asian American.”
Blaustein, 36, is a technology entrepreneur who currently serves on the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area’s development committee. She recently was re-elected to a second four-year term on the Sausalito City Council and, in 2023, became the mayor after her fellow councilmembers elected her to a one-year term.
Blaustein said she believes that every Jew “has had to pause and question what it means to be Jewish in a post-Oct. 7 world, supporting each other, supporting tikkun olam and continuing to live out our values. This board is unique in that there are voices of people who have been with the Federation for years, and some who have never been involved. It presents a great opportunity to answer the question of who we are as a Jewish community.”
Among the returning board members with a long history of involvement is Tiburon attorney Michael Jacobs. In the past, he has served as Federation campaign chair and on the CEO search committee and governance task force. Jacobs has also been president of JCRC and co-chair of the Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Awards national selection committee.
The North Bay native grew up attending San Rafael’s Congregation Rodef Sholom, where he remains a member, and his children attended Brandeis Marin. Jacobs’ community involvement is part of his family legacy. His great-grandfather, Israel Rosenberg, was a prominent Orthodox rabbi who personally pleaded with President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1943 to help save Europe’s Jews from the Holocaust.
Regarding the landscape for Jews today, Jacobs said he believes “we have a house-on-fire emergency. Ranging from public schools through university to the nonprofit sector to many areas we didn’t think we had to worry about, we are meeting a crisis of anti-Jewish sentiment. I think that as we meet the emergent needs, we will realize one of the most important things we can do is reinforce Jewish identity.”
Though the board itself is smaller, the Federation is looking for more people to participate in several advisory committees and subcommittees, overseeing areas such as governance and leadership; business strategy focused on donor-advised funds and fundraising; and Jewish impact, focused on assessing community needs related to Israel and impact investing.
“The smaller board enlarges opportunities for people to become much more involved,” Lauder said. “That’s one of the biggest differences on this board compared to boards of the past.”
In addition to chair Lauder and members Jacobs, Blaustein, Finegold and Friedkin, the other board members are vice chair Dan Safier, treasurer Jamie Weinstein, Galia Amram, Barrett Cohn, Jennifer Friedman, Lily Kanter, Guy Miasnik, Karen Kaufman Perlman, Dara Pincas and Jeffrey Zlot.
Lauder already has a sense of the agenda once the new board starts meeting.
“Certainly addressing antisemitism. We are hiring someone to focus exclusively on it, working with JCRC, the ADL and AJC,” she said, referencing the Jewish Community Relations Council, Anti-Defamation League and American Jewish Committee.
“The other major focus is impact investing. This is how we will reach the next generation from the perspective of a Jewish community foundation,” Lauder said.
Added Sisisky, “This is a balance of things the Federation has done really well for 150 years and the uncharted territory going forward. All of this is possible only because of the board we have now that has spent the last three years working to see this come to fruition.”