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September 4, 2009
A community in need
Federation campaign sets an ambitious target.
CYNTHIA RAMSAY
Though the economy is showing signs of improvement, the fact that retail sales and housing prices are increasing is small consolation for many in the community. With this understanding at the forefront, the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver begins its 2009 campaign.
"The goal is to meet the growing needs in the community," campaign chair Judi Korbin told the Independent in a phone interview.
About the campaign's monetary target of $7.35 million, she explained, "We did increase our goal over what we achieved last year because the needs are greater and we felt, in order for us to be responsible, we had to at least make the effort to try to meet those growing needs."
Korbin was campaign chair last year and, in prior years, has been involved in other capacities. Her parents, Harold and Sophie Freeman, led by example.
"My family has been involved since the '40s," she said. Her father "took seven months off his law practice in '47/'48 to recruit those from Western Canada who wanted to go fight for Israel's independence and raised – they had to raise cash in those days – money to help support the fight for independence in Israel. And so my early childhood was an exposure to all of that. Both my mom and dad ran campaigns and were terribly involved in the community generally."
As Federation campaign chair, Korbin said, "The main responsibility is to inspire staff and the volunteers in terms of reaching the goals and reaching the community."
One of the most satisfying parts of the job, she said, "is the opportunity to work with both the volunteers and the professional staff who are committed, emotional and passionate about what they are doing and very caring. It's particularly a treat to see the younger people who are getting involved in maintaining community, which is what I think this is all about.... It's just very exciting to see that these young people are going to carry on community when the rest of us move on."
When asked to describe one of the more difficult aspects of chairing the campaign, Korbin said, "For me, the most challenging is to reach our community members who are able to give in a way that gives them the message of how important their contributions are and how individual giving moves to collective giving, where we can really support the needs in our local community, in Israel and overseas. It's getting our message out, so that people will know what we're all about and why we're trying to build community from the gift-giving side."
Korbin said there are three priorities for this year's campaign: providing the critical social safety nets that are more in demand as a result of people being out of work; supporting the increasing number of immigrants coming into the community; and enhancing the community's Jewish education, as well as keeping it accessible to all.
She stressed the communal focus of the decision-making process.
"Federation doesn't do the prioritizing alone," she said of where the funds raised are ultimately distributed. "We have a very professional allocations committee, but they work in collaboration with all the agencies that we serve," she said, adding that, "when I say it's a very professional committee, they're all volunteers, too. We have been able to capture a lot of professional people from the community to work in that committee. They work on the input they get from the various agencies with whom we collaborate and, in fact, what we did in Federation this year ... the Federation cut its own overhead by 15 percent in order to try to enable us to meet the growing needs that we've seen already in the community and I'm sure will continue to grow."
In addition to cutting its budget, Korbin said Federation is "encouraging face-to-face canvasses wherever possible. We're giving our canvassers huge amounts of information about what's really going on – facts and figures – and encouraging them to sit down with the donors so that there's a real appreciation of what's happening in the community, and again, that's just building community."
She expanded on this idea.
"Any gift an individual can make contributes to our collective giving," she said. "It allows each member of the community to be a part of community, which means much more than just writing a cheque. It means being part of a community that supports our colleagues in the local community, overseas and in Israel in a way that maintains our Jewish goals, priorities and our sense of community into the future."
Opening night of the Federation campaign is Thursday, Sept. 10, 7:30 p.m. It features author Rabbi Bradley Artson, speaking on Jewish Responses to Challenging Times. Tickets, which are $18 ($10 for students), can be purchased by visiting jewishvancouver.com or by calling 604-638-7281.
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