by Elaine Durbach
NJJN Bureau Chief/Central

May 14, 2009

Gerald Cantor says that as president of the Jewish Federation of Central New Jersey he has a responsibility to balance two competing needs. Speaking before a recent meeting of the executive committee of the federation, he said, “We’re doing our best to provide all the help we can now, but we also have to ensure that this organization will still be around when the community faces crises in the future.”

With the 2008-09 fund-raising campaign expected to end at least 12 percent below last year’s level — from $5.1 million to $4.49 — fulfilling that dual goal is proving a major challenge.

To meet that challenge, lay and professional leaders say they are trying alternative funding solutions — like offering interest-free loans to some partner agencies even as they cut allocations by 10 percent — and cutting costs, a measure achieved, in part, by sharing services with other federations.

These recommendations are to be presented to the umbrella philanthropy’s board of directors for approval later this month, having already been approved by the executive committee.

The federation, through its annual campaign and its Jewish Community Endowment Foundation, provides funding to local Jewish agencies and its own programs and support for programs in Israel and other overseas communities.

The local piece includes allocations to its partner agencies, which include Jewish Family Service of Central New Jersey, two Jewish community centers, Jewish day schools in Elizabeth and Essex County, Rutgers Hillel, and a chaplaincy program.

Last week, federation executive vice president Stanley Stone outlined some of the proposed funding changes and the cuts in the organization’s own spending.

“We’re trying to make it as painless as possible,” he said. “At the outset of the allocations process we adopted a triage approach. We knew we were in an emergency mode and the decisions we are recommending hopefully will get us through this time and also help maintain our foundation for the future.”

Stone outlined the various approaches to the agencies and other funding recipients:

• Stone said allocations to the agencies have been reduced by 10 percent across the board, rather than the 12 percent indicated by the campaign drop. The margin of 2 percent is being filled by a much larger cut — 19 percent — in grants to Israel and overseas programs, and by a withdrawal from the federation’s reserve fund.

• On the plus side, Jewish Family Service has been given $176,000 for its new mobile economic response team. The same amount has been promised for next year. The team — a social worker and a vocational specialist assisted by volunteers — aims to provide counseling and financial and employment help at JFS, area synagogues, and in private homes and other venues.

• The cut in the grant to the Jewish Educational Center in Elizabeth — from just under $249,000 to just over $224,000 — is counterbalanced with the offer of an interest-free loan. The grant to the Solomon Schechter Day School of Essex and Union is being increased — from $30,000 to $50,000 — but the money provided separately last year to help cover the cost of busing children from the area to the Schechter campus in West Orange has been dropped. The loan offer will also apply to Schechter, but the amount is still a matter of discussion between the federation and the school.

• While the JCC of Central New Jersey and the YM-YWHA of Union County will receive the 10 percent cut, an additional amount of $32,000 — also from the reserve fund — will go to camp scholarships at the day camp programs run by the two centers and for JFS clients being sent to sleep-away camp. Stone said that for many families, being able to place their children in camp is essential as a form of child care over the summer — not a luxury — and with many experiencing a drop in income or outright unemployment, those additional scholarships were deemed a necessity.

• Funding for the Federation Chaplaincy Program is being maintained, as is funding for the Israeli shaliah, or emissary, program, even as the Israel/Overseas portion of the budget faces a reduction of 19 percent. Under the shaliah program, an Israeli emissary is brought to the area for a year for educational programming. “In this day and age, it’s particularly important,” Stone said of the program. “The shaliah makes it possible for the kids to grab onto what Israel is about in such a positive way, it paves the way for a future connection, and it shows them that we are part of a global community.”

‘Responsive to people’

To cut federation expenses, Stone has taken a lead in discussions with other federations around the state, meeting with their leaders and holding telephone conferences in an effort to avoid duplication, share functions, and trim costs through joint purchasing.

One example is in the Central federation’s elimination of the post of the director of community relations in February (see Central federation joins regional advocacy body). The federation hopes to be joining with two other NJ federations — United Jewish Communities of MetroWest (covering Essex and Morris counties) and UJA Federation of Northern NJ (in Bergen County) — in a regional community relations council.

Instead of hiring private consultants to handle information technology issues, Central is hoping to use the services of MetroWest’s IT department, thereby reducing its own costs.

Stone said the changes are designed to strengthen the federation rather than weaken it, “to make it a convener and facilitator of services, to enable the different parts of the system to be responsive to people in need.”

The Central federation, he said, has always championed a regional approach — for example, teaming up with a cluster of other federations in its Partnership 2000 relationship with Israel, in its chaplaincy program, and in publishing NJ Jewish News’ first edition outside of its original MetroWest edition.

Now that approach is gaining momentum.

“Crises can be a challenge and an opportunity,” Stone said. “Hopefully, some good will come out of this.”

This year’s allocations are guided by a strategic vision that was drawn up last year. Working from that blueprint, the communal planning and allocations committee, chaired by Marcy Lazar, recommended the priorities for the upcoming year. Those include placing local needs above those of Jewish communities overseas, and strengthening Jewish identity in the younger generation through support of education and summer camps.

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