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February 27, 2009
Campaign nets $7.2 million
Economy makes it more difficult this year to reach goal.
RON FRIEDMAN
The Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver's 2008 annual campaign has closed with an overall result of $7.2 million. While this amount falls short of the campaign's $8 million target, Federation has committed to maintaining its funding allocations to partner agencies.
The number of individual pledges this year was down to 3,574 from 3,702 in the 2007 campaign, with the average donation size remaining at roughly $2,000 per gift. "Since some of the pledges are donated by couples or whole families, this probably represents about 4,500 members of the community," said Mark Gurvis, chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver.
Gurvis, who has been the leader of Federation since 2002, blamed the decrease in pledges on the tough economic times. He said that the campaign was holding steady throughout the late summer and early fall, even after the first big stock market crash in the beginning of September, at which point, there was an increase of 15 per cent over the previous year's campaign. But when October came around, people began reexamining their commitments. "In October and November, we definitely saw a flattening of the campaign, in terms of the gifts coming in. And then, as we closed things out, there were just a number of people whose business lives had been dramatically affected or older people who were living off investments who could not sustain their rate of giving."
Gurvis said that he hasn't seen the final results of the campaigns that took place in other Canadian cities, but that Vancouver's situation is similar to that of many across the continent. "We're down four per cent over the previous year's campaign. If you look at the Jewish federations across North America, you'll see there are a few that might have held steady from the previous year, but many – most – are down. Some, like us, are in the three or four per cent range, [but] there are some federations that are down 20-25 per cent in their campaigns," added Gurvis.
In response to the decrease in funds, Gurvis said that Federation will be leading the way in thinking about increasing efficiency. "Federation has taken a proactive approach by reducing its own expenses first. We have reduced and restructured our staffing complement, frozen salaries and cut other operating expenses across all departments. These changes have resulted in immediate savings this year, and will have a bigger impact on next year's budget.... We are exploring additional budget reductions for next year," said Gurvis.
By early October, said Gurvis, Federation was already approaching local institutions and letting them know about their reduction efforts. "As we communicated with the community in the last few weeks about the results of the campaign, we've also communicated very directly with our agencies that the campaign was down this year, that we were using reserves to meet our allocations obligations to them, so that they would not have an impact from the downturn this year, but that we expected next year to be adjusting our allocations base down to a more conservative level."
"By maintaining agency allocation commitments this year, the evolving needs of the community will continue to be met. This includes the needs of our most vulnerable community members, who are likely to be more deeply affected by the current economic situation," said the chairman of Federation's board, Garry Zlotnik.
When asked how prepared Jewish community organizations are to face the economic downturn, Gurvis replied that the situation is varied, with some agencies being very proactive and others that are slower to realize the realities of the times. He also said that even though organizations had yet to see an increase in demand for services in the fall, "our prediction was that we would start to see that after the first of the year ... and we did." Gurvis also said they were beginning to see increased demands for subsidies and scholarships.
Gurvis said that Federation was just getting started looking at its process of budgeting and allocation for next year. "Our campaign is a fall campaign, but it covers a budget period that begins in September, so there is a challenge in that we are raising the money during the period for which it is being allocated. It means you're halfway into your service year before you really know where you are going to end up," he said. "Going into next year, we have to budget on a much more conservative base, even though from a campaign perspective we are going to go out and try to raise more than we did this year and hopefully restore what we lost and do even better."
Gurvis said that instead of making wide, across-the-board cuts in funding, he expected Federation to sit down with their partner agencies and look at what the priorities are in the new economic environment. "In general, we have a very strong priority in our allocations around serving vulnerable populations and a focus on Jewish education and identity-building programs," said Gurvis. "Those are still going to be our priorities, but in an environment like this, where you have a lot more people in the community in pain because of the economy, I'm sure that there is going to be a focus on increased needs in that area at a time when we have less resources to work with."
When asked what feelings were like around the office following the campaign, Gurvis replied, "Our Federation leadership, our campaign leadership, looking at the environment within which we were operating, feel quite good about the results that we've produced and the fact that, in light of very severe economic losses, we still managed to produce $7.2 million to meet community needs."
"Starting in 2002, the campaign experienced six consecutive years of growth, which means that the Jewish Federation and its partner agencies have been able to maximize the resources available to the community here, in Israel and overseas year after year. This year, our community came together once again and provided what we believe is a strong result for the 2008 annual campaign, especially in the context of the current economic climate," said Judi Korbin, the campaign's chair.
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