A look inside the local campaign

CYNTHIA RAMSAY

As the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver wraps up its annual campaign, the Jewish Independent interviewed Federation chief executive officer Mark Gurvis by e-mail to find out how the campaign is doing, as well as more about how the community’s campaign dollars are allocated and spent.

JI: Where do the pledges stand?

MG: At the time of writing, the campaign is at 6.8 million. Overall, this is a healthy pace, but we still have more work to do if we are to achieve our goal of $8 million. Needs in our community are increasing while other sources of funding for programs and services are drying up. There are thousands of community members who rely on programs and services to be available at dozens of partner agencies – and those agencies rely on funding from the campaign.

JI: What are the funding priorities of this year’s campaign? When and how were these priorities decided, and what are some of the criteria for receiving funding from the campaign?

MG: Locally, only constituent agencies receive funds through the Federation annual campaign, and currently there are 26 local constituent agencies. There is a clearly defined process to become a constituent agency, which is available on our website. Partner agencies must have a mandate that fills an important need in our community; they must have a viable governance structure; and they must share Jewish Federation’s commitment to building a strong, vibrant and enduring Jewish community.

Jewish Federation oversees a two-year allocations cycle. The allocations planning committee consists of 12 community members who are knowledgeable about and sensitive to community needs. Every two years, constituent agencies submit their applications requesting funds for specific programs and services. Each agency meets with the allocations planning committee before they submit their proposals, to share with the committee their current challenges and funding priorities, as well as any new or emerging issues that they are hoping to address through allocations funding.

Funding applications are reviewed by the committee members and rank-ordered; in the last cycle, there were 64 applications. Committee members consider criteria such as community need, agency capacity, financial sustainability and overall program effectiveness in making their decisions. This past year, funding requests totaled approximately $1.2 million more than the amount available for local distributions. Agencies that receive funding are now required to submit mid-term program reports that demonstrate how their programs and/or services are meeting the projected outcomes.

We strive to maintain a balance between supporting the ongoing, critical work of our partner agencies and responding to new and emerging community needs. There were four funding priorities established this year: at-risk youth, supporting seniors to age in place, strengthening our regional communities and poverty reduction. These priorities are determined through a variety of methods, including meetings with community stakeholders, research projects and partner-agency feedback.

For example, in response to two tragic suicides in our community in 2011, an at-risk youth committee was established. It is composed of professionals working with youth and young adults, along with local rabbis and community volunteers. At the request of the committee, Jewish Federation conducted an environmental scan of all of the agencies that serve youth and determined there were a number of gaps in how those youth were served. The results were shared with our partner agencies and community volunteers. In response, a new youth outreach position was funded through the [Vancouver] JCC, and community-wide training is underway to increase the abilities of youth workers to respond to young people in emotional distress. The Federation Planning Council is also developing a three-year comprehensive plan related to at-risk youth that will include funding priorities. As part of this process, a youth survey is underway to capture the voices and ideas of young people. To date, 185 youth have responded.

A similar process is underway as a follow-up to the 2009 report on aging in place for Jewish seniors. We are currently engaged in a planning process involving all of the Richmond-based Jewish organizations that serve seniors.

There is a parallel allocations process, led by the Israel and overseas affairs committee, which allocates funding for programs in Israel and other overseas Jewish communities in need. This includes identifying unmet needs and recommending responses that have meaningful impact. The Israel and overseas affairs committee determines funding recommendations for programs and services that focus on closing social gaps in Israeli society, especially in the geographic and social periphery of the country, and on meeting the needs of vulnerable populations. Particular priority is focused on our partnership region in the Upper Galilee.

Israel and overseas allocations also support programs and services offered by Jewish Federation’s two primary partners that work on the ground in Israel and in Jewish communities in need around the world – the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) and the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). Through JAFI, we are able to effect change in education and foster economic development in our partnership region of Etzba Hagalil in northern Israel through the Partnership2Gether (P2G) program. Through the JDC – often called the “911 of the Jewish world” – we are addressing critical rescue and relief needs in more than 60 countries....

Nationally, funds from Federation annual campaigns across Canada contribute to the operations of our national partner agencies, including the following:

• Canada-Israel Experience (Taglit-Birthright Israel): Since the program’s inception in 2000, Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver has provided nearly $500,000 in funding for local young adults to experience Israel through Birthright. That’s helped over 1,000 local teens and young adults join approximately 300,000 peers from 51 different countries on Birthright.

• The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs: CIJA is the advocacy agent of Jewish Federations of Canada-UIA. It seeks to identify issues important to the Jewish community and assist in communicating with government, media, community, business and academic leaders to build understanding and close relationships.

• Jewish Federations Canada-UIA: The national office serves Jewish federated and non-federated communities with programs and services. The office in Jerusalem represents our Canadian Jewish communities in Israel and is responsible for transforming campaign contributions into social welfare and educational programs.

• Jewish Immigrant Aid Society: JIAS serves as the voice of the Canadian Jewish community on issues of integration and resettlement. We champion the cause of all new immigrants and refugees by positively influencing Canadian immigration laws, policies and practices, and by ensuring that they are humane in nature and responsive to the needs of potential newcomers.

In addition to raising funds through the annual campaign and distributing them through the two allocations processes, Jewish Federation works with donors throughout the year to connect them with special giving opportunities that generate support to get new programs and services off the ground. Last year, over $250,000 was raised for special projects outside of campaign. Here are a few examples:

• Moishe House: In 2010-11, we worked with multiple donor families and Jewish Community Foundation fund-holders to secure resources to launch Canada’s first Moishe House, where four Jewish 20-something roommates have created a home in east Vancouver that has quickly become a centre of Jewish activity for young adults.

• The PJ Library: In 2009, several donors provided funds to support the launch of the PJ Library, which was implemented jointly by Jewish Federation and the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver. On a monthly basis, the PJ Library (PJ as in pajamas) sends out high-quality, age-appropriate Jewish children’s books to more than 500 local families with children aged six months to five years.

• Beit Vancouver: Special giving opportunities also support ongoing initiatives like Beit Vancouver, a centre for at-risk youth in our partnership region of the Upper Galilee Panhandle. On any given afternoon or evening, the rooms of Beit Vancouver are filled with children and teens participating in structured programs designed to provide a safe and stimulating environment in which they can thrive.

JI: Where does the Jewish Community Foundation fit in?

MG: The Jewish Community Foundation is the endowment program of Jewish Federation. It is the central address for planned giving in our community and is a community resource. At the foundation, donors support the charities of their choice by establishing an endowment that provides ongoing support to a broad range of agencies, programs and services.

Fifty percent of the funds under management of the foundation are designated funds that support the not-for-profit organizations chosen by the donors who establish the fund, and 25 percent are agency funds, which the foundation manages on behalf of community organizations that rely on the income to provide a stable source of funding for their charitable work.

Nine percent of the funds under management are unrestricted funds. The income from these funds is distributed through the grant program of the foundation in response to the emerging and changing needs of the community. Grants are awarded each year through a rigorous adjudication process administered by a standing committee of the board of trustees. The unrestricted grant program is open to not-for-profit organizations, with preference given to local Jewish charities. It provides vital seed money to fund new and innovative programs and services that would not yet qualify for funding through the Federation annual campaign, as well as capital and special project funding.

The foundation’s operating costs are supported by fees charged to fund-holders, corporate sponsorship and a grant from the unrestricted funds. No campaign funds subsidize the foundation.

JI: How much of the funds raised in the campaign go to CIJA?

MG: In 2011, following an extensive consultation process, changes were made to the national advocacy structure that resulted in the creation of one unified organization with responsibility for advocating on behalf of the Jewish community on issues related to Canada’s relationship to Israel, domestic concerns such as hate crimes and antisemitism, and social policy issues. The change came about for a number of reasons, including the need for an integrated response, the need to create a more efficient and cost effective organization, and the need to reduce the duplication of services and resources that had resulted from operating three separate organizations (CJC, CIC and CIJA). The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs resulted from these amalgamations.

Federation annual campaign dollars are allocated toward three key areas: local partner agencies, Israel and overseas communities in need, and national organizations that serve Canadian Jewish communities, including ours. All of the federations across Canada contribute to the funding of national organizations, such as Jewish Federations of Canada-UIA, the national umbrella body of local federations; Canada-Israel Experience, which organizes Birthright trips for young adults; Jewish Immigrant Aid Society, which champions the causes of new immigrants and refugees; and Federation’s advocacy partner, CIJA.

Approximately $421,200 or 5.15 percent of our campaign dollars goes to support national advocacy. This allocation has remained constant since 2009. CIJA’s current operating budget is $8 million. About 80 percent of our national contribution goes toward the operation of the B.C. regional office and support of advocacy activities on three B.C. university campuses.

We are aware that there are some concerns about the merger and, in particular, fears that domestic advocacy issues and social action concerns will get lost due to a perceived over-emphasis on Israel advocacy. We agree that this is a valid concern, and that is why our Federation is directly involved in selecting community members to sit on the Local Partnership Council (LPC), which represents diverse community perspectives, and we will work with our representatives to carry these perspectives to the national table. While the new structure is still in its early stages, there have been some very positive examples of how local input can both contribute to the national agenda and meet the national objectives through uniquely local strategies.

A case in point is how CIJA locally and nationally responded to the anti-Israel resolutions passed at the recent United Church of Canada conference. Jewish-Christian dialogue has been an important piece of work carried out by Canadian Jewish Congress. In 2008, when the United Church of Canada brought forth anti-Israel resolutions, CJC played a leadership role with support from CIC and CIJA in getting these resolutions defeated. This year, CIJA took on the leadership role at the national level with input and support from the regional offices. Each community defined its own approach based on local resources and relationships with the United Church. Following the passage of the anti-Israel resolutions, the national office presented their proposed response to the LPCs to discuss and give feedback. The LPCs met to discuss how best to respond, and our Pacific Region LPC presented an alternative strategy to the one presented by the national office. This locally determined strategy now guides our region’s relationship with the United Church.

JI: How much of the funds raised go to administration and/or salaries? (You gave the figure of 12.5 percent in one of your weekly messages, while the CRA’s website gives a figure of 19 percent.)

MG: The 12.5 percent expense figure relates to our operating budget, and specifically to the Federation annual campaign. Each year, we budget a net expense level for operating the campaign that takes into account our direct staffing costs, our event and marketing costs, and an appropriate share of the total overhead costs of the Federation operation. We use a net expense figure because there is other revenue that we generate to support the campaign, such as sponsorship and event ticket revenue. By using the net figure, we can more clearly share how much of the annual campaign contributions is spent on raising the funds.

There are several challenges with interpreting the data from the CRA site, which is drawn from information taken from our annual charity return (Form T3010):

1) Our audited financial statements are based on aggregated figures for the entire Jewish Federation operation, including the Jewish Community Foundation, and not just the operation of the Federation annual campaign.

2) While our audited financial statements provide separate columns for the operation of Jewish Federation and the Jewish Community Foundation, on the CRA charity return, these are aggregated. Thus, the expense ratios calculated and presented by CRA are not based only on the annual campaign revenue and expenses. Therefore, the 19 percent fundraising cost reported on the CRA site is calculated on gross expenses for the annual campaign, the expenses for our foundation, and commission expenses or other fees we might be incurring and include as gross expenses on our financial statements and, ultimately, our charity return.

3) The CRA charity return uses only receipted revenue for its presentations and calculations of donation revenue. Therefore, pledges and contributions that come from other charitable entities, such as foundations or United Way, which we include in our reported fundraising totals and on our audited financial statements, are not included as donation revenue on the CRA return.

In recent years, we have been working with some of our major donors on gifts via flow-through shares, and donors are using these contributions to cover their annual campaign pledges, special projects they are funding through Federation and/or contributions to other community organizations. Our willingness to facilitate these contributions is a service that we can uniquely provide to both donors and other organizations in the community. They are complex gift vehicles, and other organizations would, frankly, be hard-pressed to handle them. These transactions have high commissions attached to them, but our commission costs are 100 percent covered by offsetting revenue in the transaction. Nonetheless, they have the impact of increasing our gross expenses as reflected on our financial statements, and, therefore, on the CRA charity return.

JI: Is there anything else to add?

MG: Information about the annual campaign wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the hundreds of volunteers who dedicate their time and talents to making it a success each year. More than 350 community members volunteer as canvassers, and they are at the heart of our campaign and its efficiency. When we consider our responsibility as Jews to care for one another, the importance of the canvasser becomes clear. A very large part of our campaign happens when one Jew has a conversation with a fellow Jew about how to take care for other Jews in our community.

Dozens more volunteers share their skills and expertise to make the campaign a success, whether it is volunteering as a committee member, chairing an event or using their professional know-how in a leadership position. These volunteers are not just central to Federation or the annual campaign, they are at the very core of what makes our community great.

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