Allocations
ALLOCATIONS WHREDOESITGO? .. .The best estimate of total expenditures by Jewish communal agencies—including hospitals, synagogues, and all other is generated by S.P. Goldberg of the CJF.....
...national agencies present their budgets to the LCBL...
...Some community center programs clearly have educational content...
...In other communities, one would encounter a different reflection of communal priorities...
...Analysis of local budgets is very difficult, since it's hard to know where to count certain items...
...An Example: While each community is unique, here's the way one divides the pie: Boston raised $13,128 million in its 1976 campaign, and received $151 thousand from "other sources," and $550 thousand from the local United Fund—a grand total of $13,829 million...
...urgencies, values, traditions, the need to maintain community consensus and to preserve the success of the annual campaign all help determine how a particular community chooses among competing priorities...
...Is a grant of $20 thousand for local Hillel foundations a grant for Jewish education, for group services, or what...
...Israel, hence also UJA, are major national unifiers...
...CJF provides guidelines and ease in the exchange of information among the local communities...
...the minimum estimate of the total raised outside Federation/UJA campaigns, and not including capital fund drives or synagogue contributions is $150 million per year...
...spending patterns differ widely from community to community, because not every community sponsors a full range of services, and because United Fund participation varies a great deal...
...Goldberg estimates that we have now reached an annual level of $2.8 billion (which includes about $1 billion spent by hospitals, most of which, of course, does not come from campaigns, but from fees, insurers, etc...
...agencies such as the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League, which spend about $9 million a year each ($9.5 for AJC, $8.0 for ADL) depend on local allocations for about one-sixth of their total budget...
...the surprising problem of substantial immigration of Soviet Jews to this country caused some initial dislocation...
...but each Jewish Federation remains autonomous, and each community unique, a mix of its own special characteristics...
...priorities are made necessary by the fact that needs always outstrip resources...
...especially in New York City, where the Joint Campaign has a more limited scope than elsewhere, national agencies tend to run separate campaigns...
...the great hospital debate continues...
...local agencies are usually subject to strict budgetary and even programmatic control, and the larger the proportion of their budget provided by Federation, the greater that control...
...as it became clear that the number would rise, it was decided to treat the cost as part of the overseas allocation, on the theory that if they had chosen to go to Israel instead, the needed money would have been channelled to Israel through UJA...
...The only insurance—all that any voluntary group can ask for—is that a small number of devoted people have had a crack at implementing their vision of the best interests of the community...
...rocking the allocations boat too hard could lead to swamping the campaign boat, hurting all beneficiaries, including Israel...
...804 thousand was allocated to Jewish education...
...local agencies were allocated $3,712 million...
...each local Federation allocates some of its receipts to overseas agencies, some to national agencies, and the balance to local agencies and to operations...
...recommendations on Federation support of national agencies are made by LCBC to the larger federations, which usually accept them...
...a standard complaint is that hospitals receive too large a share of local allocations...
...Knowing how much a community spends on Jewish education, therefore, is not knowing, it is estimating...
...some national organizations are not included in any Federation campaigns, either because they feel they can do better mounting independent campaigns or because their purposes are not deemed central to Federation purposes...
...others, of course, do not...
...the vast bulk of the moneys (95 percent) collected in annual community campaigns are raised by the local Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds...
...1 million went to family and children's agencies...
...UJA received $7,903 million...
...another 40 percent (approximately) comes from separate campaigns they run in New York City and Chicago, where they do not receive Federation subvention...
...increased consultation on other priorities now takes place at the national level, especially as a national leadership group meets at various conventions and missions...
...other overseas and national agencies received $465 thousand...
...No one walks away completely satisfied, nor is there any way of insuring that the best interests of the community have been served...
...the balance (minus shrinkage for uncollected pledges) was spent by the Federation itself...
...Each summary figure represents hundreds of hours of time invested by interested members of the community who participate in the allocations process...
...it is difficult to estimate what the total philanthropic contribution is, because so many different organizations raise funds...
...for most purposes, Jewish life—including philanthropic life—is lived at the local level...
...The figure is usually between 55 and 65 percent of the total raised...
...And that beats sitting around and griping about how bad things are, by a mile...
...the "pro-hospital" forces reply that the 26 Jewish hospitals have in fact been receiving a smaller and smaller share of total local allocations for the last fifteen years, that Jewish hospitals are almost invariably centers of medical excellence, and it's the few extra dollars Federation provides that makes that excellence possible, that the Jewish community reaps good will from its involvement with hospitals that serve the general community, and that, increasingly, Federation dollars are being used to support services of special interest to the Jewish community, such as outreach programs for the Jewish elderly...
...typically, overseas agencies (including UJA) receive about 55 percent of the total (sometimes more), national agencies receive from one percent to five percent, and the balance is spent locally...
...There's bargaining, there's politics—often in the best sense—there's painful winnowing and choosing...
...Hadassah, Brandeis University, the Reform Jewish Appeal, the Israeli universities, Histadrut, Jewish National Fund, the rabbinical seminaries...
...hence, in most communities, any costs associated with Russian settlement, above a certain fixed minimum, are reimbursed by UJA...
...1.1 million to the community centers...
...In 600 non-federated communities, UJA raises funds directly...
...Scanning a community budget offers some insight into the ways of that community, but the heart of the process—and process is what it's all about—is buried deep within the summary statistics...
...The "other overseas and national" category includes an assortment of items: $65 thousand to Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, $44 thousand to the National Jewish Welfare Board, $3 thousand to the North American Jewish Students Appeal, $58.5 each to the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League, $27 thousand to the National Jewish Community Relations Council, and many others (the Jewish Labor Committee, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, the Synagogue Council of America, etc...
...Hadassah is included by about one-third of all Federations, neither seeking nor receiving allocations in the remainder...
...those who take this view argue that the original need for Jewish hospitals, as places of employment for Jewish doctors and places where Jewish patients could feel comfortable, has long since passed .. .and add that the amount Federations provide to hospitals, while a very small part of the total hospital budget, is a very large part of what Federation has available to spend...
...In Boston, of the $3.7 million allocated to local agencies, $570 thousand went to health...
...hence shifts in allocations tend to be incremental rather than dramatic...
...Each community decides how much of its total collection shall be allocated to UJA...
Vol. 2 • June 1977 • No. 8
