The federation expects to close its fiscal year with $3.3 million in revenue, the largest chunk of which is the annual campaign.
Illustration courtesy Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County
Fresh starts in grim times
Among the new initiatives that have received funding from the Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County in the last year are:
• PJ Library, through which 500 families with young children receive Jewish reading material and other media
• Middlesex Cares, an effort to raise awareness of the resources of federation and its beneficiary agencies to provide vital human services in a comprehensive, compassionate, and efficient manner
• Summer “camperships,” day camp scholarships to youngsters whose parents needed care arrangements so they could keep working but could not afford camp costs
• An additional $12,000 allocated to fund the newly created Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County Shabbat dinner program at Rutgers Hillel. Hillel’s executive director, Andrew Getraer, said the additional funds make Middlesex the top contributing federation in the state to the campus organization.
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June 9, 2009
Bucking a national trend, the Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County has more than held the line in its upcoming allocations, funding virtually all agencies and institutions at or above last year’s level while instituting new community initiatives.
From funding trips to Israel for teens, to adult education, to initiatives to help with job losses, the federation said it was able to avoid cuts in allocations thanks to the generosity of donors, the dedication of its lay leaders — and ingenuity.
The federation expects to close its fiscal year June 30 with total revenue of $3.3 million, a decrease of about 1 percent from the year before.
The total includes not only campaign contributions but also endowments, grants, corporate sponsorships, and funds received for the Israel Emergency Fund, which raised $53,000 to send 1,000 traumatized children from southern Israel out of the region for a day.
“From a financial resource development standpoint,” said federation associate executive director Susan Antman, “we’ve pretty much held our own — which is remarkable, given the state of the economy, and is a testament to the commitment of the people of Middlesex County.”
An 11-member allocations committee representing the spectrum of the community met about eight times throughout the year. Allocations director Laura Safran said members also traveled to New York to visit the Jewish Agency for Israel and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee — the federation’s chief overseas beneficiaries — to become more informed about their work.
“In addition, committee members served as liaisons to various local agencies and communities, a process that worked incredibly well,” said Safran. “They were able to be a conduit from those agencies and speak on their behalf. Especially in these tough economic times, collaboration needs to be a huge piece of the work we do.”
Committee chair Marilyn Goldsmith of East Brunswick said members “immersed themselves in a yearlong intensive process of observation, research, and debate and emerged with a vision of collaborative coordination and transparency around serving local needs in partnership with our Jewish agencies and synagogues.
“We look forward to continuing that discussion with our valuable partners in 2010.”
Committee member Lou Friedman, a newcomer to federation involvement, said the experience “opened my eyes.”
“I knew nothing about what many of these agencies do,” said the East Brunswick resident. He learned, for example, that as an internist he could work with the Jewish Family Service in coordinating patient care.
Being on the committee “helped me not only understand what federation does, but helped me as a physician become better at what I do,” said Friedman.
Antman said that although the campaign itself, representing direct public donations, is down 6 percent from last year, she learned from a meeting of nonprofits that there is an average 10 percent drop statewide in donations over the previous year. Some federations across the state, she said, have posted as much as a 20 percent drop.
The federation slashed its own budget by 18 percent in order to fund nearly all its beneficiary agencies at or above the previous year’s levels, according to Safran.
She added that that was partially accomplished by making the difficult decision to eliminate two staff positions at federation and by not filling two other open positions, decreasing benefits, and instituting furlough days.
The local beneficiaries include area synagogues, Rabbi Pesach Raymon Yeshiva, Solomon Schechter Day School of Raritan Valley, Moshe Aaron Yeshiva High School, Rabbi Jacob Joseph School, Rutgers Hillel, Jewish Family and Vocational Service, Jewish Social Services Agency, and the Campus of Jewish Life (formerly the YM-YWHA of Raritan Valley). Only one agency, the Jewish Community Center of Middlesex County in Edison, received a “slight decrease,” which, said Safran, was a decision based on demographics.
“We really partnered with our agencies to encourage them to also take a hard look at their own budgets, and many of them were able to decrease their budgets as well,” said Safran. “We have consulted with them as part of our network, and they have been responsive and responsible.”
Federation president Lee Livingston said he spoke to every local agency president.
“They were impressed and overwhelmed by the commitment of the federation to maintain and even increase the level of service at the local level,” he said. “I’ve heard stories from them all about the heartbreaking phone calls and requests they get and how much it means to them to have the funding maintained.”
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