Did the lay leadership of the Jewish Federation of the Greater East Bay decide that CEO Loren Basch was no longer a good fit after he was on the job for five years? Or was it Basch who felt that he had enough? It might be that neither party is to blame for Basch’s sudden departure on Dec. 17. The essential problem might be that the donor base in the East Bay is too small, making fundraising costs too high — with the result being an inefficient and ineffective federation.
Nevertheless, it is all too tempting to hold the CEO accountable for that state of affairs. (Sports fans will recognize the parallels in the way that losing teams often seek to replace their managers rather than deal with the weakness of the team.)
Not long ago, Basch told me that the federation donor base had diminished by one-third in his five years with the agency. Obviously the federation board was not happy with that shrinkage, but the fault might not lie with the professional. As Willy Loman, in “Death of a Salesman,” said about New England, the East Bay — as well as the areas served by the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation — is simply not a good “territory” for the retention of Jewish donors by federations.
Nor is the phenomenon of donor shrinkage unique to Bay Area federations. However, the factors that I see contributing to this shrinkage might be particularly marked in the Bay Area.
There are two primary factors contributing to federation’s difficulty in maintaining its donors. The first lies in the aggressive effort by Jewish service agencies to develop their own donor base. Agencies that have seen their allocations cut by federations, or that have not had their allocations grow as rapidly as they think necessary, have demonstrated their entrepreneurship.
To sustain or expand their services, agencies often have felt that they needed to go beyond the resources that federations have been able to give them. Agencies hired their own fundraisers and increasingly developed their own sources of financial support, thus diminishing (or eliminating) their dependence upon federation. As part of this development, certain donors moved their giving loyalties and priorities from federation to the service agencies.
For many donors, charitable giving is a zero-sum effort. If one gives more to agency B, giving to agency A is likely to suffer — and readers of j. certainly know of the continuous round of Jewish agency fundraising events that take place around the Bay Area.
The same phenomenon of agency rather than community-directed support can be observed in the larger nonprofit world, where “designated” giving began to replace non-earmarked dollars in donations to the United Way. (It was as if one could earmark their federal taxes to one or two favorite U.S. agencies.)
The second major factor in the shrinkage of donors to federations is the continued acceleration in the marriage of Jews to non-Jews. While we all know of non-Jews who develop deep commitments to Jewish causes, or at least to raising their kids as Jews, the sum of what is happening is a shrinkage of Jewish family units and of donors to Jewish causes.
And if the mixed family unit makes a “Jewish” gift, it may be more likely to give straight to the service agency rather than to a federation that represents the less tangible idea of “Jewish community.” (This speculation deserves further research. Some observers say that the non-Jewish partner is often more comfortable with the idea of local Jewish services than with the support of Israel. Federation fundraising is powerfully based on support of Israel.)
As the foregoing begins to account for the disappearance of Jewish donors to federation, and to the shortened tenure of federation directors, what is to be done? I suggest consideration of the following steps:
• The creation of an over-arching federation of the Bay Area so that fundraising costs can be controlled and the power of major donors in San Francisco and Silicon Valley can be maximized for the entire Bay Area Jewish community. (That being said, the merger of smaller federations into larger ones is not always the right answer. Some smaller federations do just fine in the shadow of larger agencies, especially if they are blessed with a few large donors. The East Bay federation is hampered because an important percentage of East Bay residents work in San Francisco and a portion of them have strong connections to the leadership of the S.F.-based federation.)
• Bay Area-wide service agencies need to be created, and the relation of those service agencies to a new area-wide federation needs to be re-specified. For example, create Jewish Family and Children’s Services and a Jewish Community Centers Association. Then, at a minimum, these agencies would limit their fundraising and begin to responsibly transfer to general community agencies those services that are not integral to the well-being of the Bay Area Jewish community.
• There needs to be a new compact between synagogues and the new Bay Area federation. In the early days of many federations, synagogues were not considered an appropriate recipient of federation-raised funds. (They were considered “too sectarian.”) The situation has changed radically. Synagogues are now a front-line agency in serving the Jewish community and must have a seat around the federation table.
• An entirely new strategy needs to be developed on intermarriage, one that reasserts the importance of Jewish identification for the non-Jewish spouse. And there needs to be a rethinking of how to pursue “in-reach” toward those who carry an identity as Jews.
Is any of the above possible? Would it work? These might not be the right answers for the Bay Area. But is our leadership prepared to sit by and remain trapped by current strategies that seem to ensure the continued diminution of the federation, the one agency that can represent the totality of the local and overseas Jewish enterprise?
Mel Mogulof was the CEO of the East Bay federation from 1980 to 1985 and the executive director of community services for the UJA-Federation of Jewish Philanthropies in the New York City area from 1974 to 1976. He is currently retired and working on his tennis game.