federation 2.0

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FEDERATION 2.0

REIMAGINING THE JEWISH FEDERATION OF GREATER ATLANTA

A White Paper on Challenges, Opportunities and Ideas Relating to the

Future of Federation in Atlanta

Seth A. Cohen

Atlanta, Georgia

30 Elul 5767

September, 2007

[email protected]


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I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Introduction

In 2006, The Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta completed a Community Study,assessing the geography, characteristics, opinions and interests of the approximately 120,000Jews in Atlanta. This study confirmed that Atlanta is indeed one of the fastest growing Jewishcommunities in North America and faces the same challenges that many other communities havewith respect to engaging, integrating and ultimately empowering its members to view themselvesas fully engaged members of the Jewish community.

But who are these people? Here are three examples:

Cari and Robert Horowitz have recently moved to Atlanta from Buffalo, New York. Bothare professionals in their mid-thirties. Cari works with a pharmaceutical company and Robertworks with a large private software firm in a senior management role. Despite having deepfamily connections and friends in Philadelphia, they moved here because Robert received a

promotion to Atlanta, where his companys headquarters is based. He is optimistic that if heworks hard he has a real chance at being in an even more economically rewarding position whenthe Company is sold in the next 5-10 years. Both Cari and Robert were active in the PhiladelphiaJewish community and annually made a $500 contribution to the Buffalo Federation (mostlybecause one of Caris friends was very involved in Federation). They would like to be engagedJewishly in Atlanta as well, and will endeavor to do so. In particular, Robert has an idea aboutcreating a new study group that brings young professionals together for both business and Jewishstudy (just like the one he helped develop in Buffalo). Cari and Robert live in an apartment inSandy Springs and plan to buy a home to raise their family.

Michael Fish is a 30-year-old attorney who lives and works in Midtown. He grew up in

Michigan, attended Emory for law school and decided to stay in Atlanta afterwards. On the fasttrack to partner, he expects to stay with his large law firm for the foreseeable future. Michael hasbeen engaged in the Jewish community in random ways, never getting too involved, but alwaysdoing enough to satisfy his Jewish interests (chief among them is finding a serious romanticrelationship). He feels like if there was more Jewish activity located in Midtown he might benefitfrom it, but other than talking about the issue with his Jewish friends, he feels he has no ability tomake that desire a reality. He also wishes that Jewish organizations in town were moreinterested in him as a Jew than just a potential donor. It seems like every time he is asked to getinvolved with something 3 months later he is asked to support that organizations annualcampaign. Equally, he just doesnt understand what Federation does in Atlanta.

Sandy Singer Martin is woman that lives in Dunwoody with her husband ChristopherMartin who is not Jewish but who has actively supported raising their children in the Jewishfaith. Their children are off at college in Michigan. Christopher grew up in Atlanta and is adoctor who is very focused on his profession, and Sandy now is the person in the family who ismost involved in volunteering. She is the First Vice President of her synagogue and is alsoactive on the Board of the MJCCA, both organizations that have made an impact on their familyand their children. Sandy and Christopher are becoming more generous with their money nowthat the children are older and they are generally giving to the synagogue and the MJCCA.


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While they get many solicitations from other organizations, they dont really know what thoseorganizations do or how they interact with the organizations she cares about. Also, given herroles at the synagogue and the MJCCA, she is already starting to feel some of the challenges ofcommunity leadership and her separateness as a member of an interfaith couple.

These four people have different Jewish lives each particular to their experiences andtheir aspirations. They are looking at their existing and potential Jewish experiences throughtheir own independent views, each in possession of a different part of the formula that couldmake their Jewish engagement in Atlanta meaningful. But each is also missing somethingdifferent that could complete that formula.

But they all also have two things in common. They are not donors to Federation. Andsecond, absent a strategic shift of the view of Federation, they will likely never become donors toFederation.

The Community as the Customer

This paper makes four fundamental propositions:

1. Our community is in transition and its current and future philanthropiclandscape is also in transition.

2. Our current community resources (including Federation) do not adequatelyprovide for key enrichment activities that will help strengthen our communitydevelopment efforts while our community is in transition.

3. Given this significant transition and need, Federation must undertake thedevelopment and ownership of community enrichment activities (i) that willfurther its mission of its community development and (ii) that Federation is ina unique position to deliver.

4. These community enrichment activities should be developed by a newdepartment within Federation: JOEL: Jewish Outreach, Engagement andLeadership, headed by a Chief Outreach Officer.

Each of these four propositions is grounded in one common principle that the Jewishcommunity of Atlanta, as a whole, is the customer of Federation. That is not to say that there arenot subsets of customers whose needs should be addressed differently in tailored ways. Thereare. Federation must maintain and improve its position as the leading community developmentorganization in Atlanta and should further develop resources, capabilities and strategies thatmake it more donor-centered. It must also focus on ways to continue to strengthen its communityplanning and partnership relationships. But it also must focus on those community members who

are not currently donors. Cari, Robert, Michael and Sandy are each customers of Federation.And Federation needs to be customer-centered with respect to some of their needs as well.

Our Community Our Challenge

Part II and Part III of this paper review in detail a summary of the state of our Jewishcommunity and Federation in 2007. In developing this assessment I have used anecdotalevidence to note that while our community is strong, it could be stronger. There are several


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indications that our community needs a more strategic emphasis on those activities that bringJews from all over our community together with organizations that help address their needs anddesires, as well as initiatives that convene leaders together to more powerfully develop andenrich our community. An assessment of our communitys philanthropic categories helps usunderstand that being solely donor-centered today (that is, only focusing Federations efforts on

current donors) will likely have diminishing return in the longview. Alternatively, when weassess the potential of our community members as a whole to become emerging andtransformational philanthropists (as defined later in this paper), we see that not focusing oncertain community enrichment activities creates a substantial missed opportunity forstrengthening our community.

In order to create a community that takes widespread ownership in its own financial andcommunal development, Federation needs to recognize that certain community enrichmentactivities are necessary. And given the importance of these activities, they cannot besubordinated to the current donor-centered activities focused on one subset of Federationscustomers they need to be given equivalent levels of importance in management and resourcedecisions. Also these enrichment activities cannot be dependent purely on the initiatives ofcommunity organizations or their chance collaborations. As discussed elsewhere in this paper,there are several reasons why organization tends to be focused on enriching their micro-communities rather than enriching the broader community as a whole. Accordingly there areseams and gaps in the way we strengthen our community. In many ways, each of Cari, Robert,Michael and Sandy fall into those gaps.

Federations Dual Role: Community Development and Community Enrichment

To be clear, this paper does not propose that Federation depart from its historic role ofraising and allocating funds to our community. Federation needs to maintain and strengthen itsrole in raising and allocating monies by continuing to develop and deliver excellent services to

philanthropists and community affiliates/partners. In this paper I refer to those historic areas ofstrategic importance as Areas of Community Development. Elsewhere in this paper I makesome observations of how each of those areas might align in a way that reinforces thecommunity as the customer. Nonetheless, those observations are dwarfed by a firm belief thatFederations efforts in the Areas of Community Development should be reinforced in the waysproposed by the donor-centered strategy and outcomes strategy of Federations Long-RangePlan.

However, this paper does propose that Federation develop a new strategic focus on areasin which its leadership is necessary to develop meaningful approaches of outreach, engagementand empowerment of community members who are emerging philanthropists. In this paper I

refer to these areas as Areas of Community Enrichment. While they are not specifically orientedto cultivated donors or increased philanthropic contributions from existing donors, they haveembedded in their approach a benefit that will have a longer-term impact:

When we enrich the lives of our community members they will, in turn, want to

enrich our Jewish community. And when they want to enrich their community, they will

look to Federations community development initiatives as a meaningful way to do so.


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A New Approach: JOEL: Jewish Outreach, Engagement and Leadership

To facilitate this new strategic focus, this paper proposes a new department withinFederation, with its own set of initiatives, organizational structure, staff and a senior professionalofficer. JOEL: Jewish Outreach, Engagement and Leadership would be exclusively focused onthe community enrichment activities of Federation and would operate within a defined missionand with a purpose of developing actionable, measurable and achievable goals. The initial modelof JOEL would be to create a scalable community enrichment initiative that could respondflexibly to the enrichment needs of the community and be independent from the pressures ofusing enrichment activities to solely to secure charitable contributions. However, as JOELdevelops and becomes an integral part of the communitys view of Federation, the communityenrichment initiatives will create the benefit of developing a stronger, more strategically alignedrelationship between Federation and the broader community, and in particular the largest groupsof potential philanthropists the emerging and transformational philanthropists.

The three strategic areas of JOEL are community outreach and kesher, communityengagement and education, and community leadership development and empowerment. Withineach of these three areas there would be several initiatives that would further the communityenrichment goals of Federation. To assure long-term success, each initiative would require afeasibility analysis, a set of measurable performance goals and a scalable development plan, andalthough this paper touches on some of these elements for the various initiatives it discusses, acritical component of JOELs success would be a comprehensive implementation plan thataddresses these issues. In Part IV of this paper I address certain elements of the proposedinitiatives, along with a more detailed summary of their concepts. For purposes of illustration,though, lets return to the stories of Cari, Robert, Michael, Sandy and Christopher.

New Initiative: Atlanta Outreach and Kesher Outreach Madrahim(Counselors). Cari and Robert are new to Atlanta and are not yet engaged in the Jewish

community. In fact, their engagement in their prior community was relationship driven.One of the things they may benefit from in our community would be to be contacted byOutreach madrahim, or outreach coordinators, hired by Federation to engage new andexisting community members and help them find pathways to meaningful engagement inour community. The coordinators would be high-energy young adults, who are trained tomeet, assist, refer and follow-up with community members looking to become engaged inour community. While Cari and Robert may go to many social events and meet a fewengaged community members, it is too much to chance that one of those communitymembers will follow-up and make meaningful connections. The madrahim will makesure that they get welcomed and engaged, therefore enriching a new familys Jewishexperience in Atlanta.

New Initiative: Community Councils and Forums. Michael could also benefitfrom a meeting with an outreach counselor, particularly given he hasnt found aconsistent point of engagement in the Atlanta Jewish community. But Michael is alsopassionate about the Jewish needs of his own micro-community in Midtown, and wouldbenefit from a well-developed arena for him to pursue those passions. With JOEL,Federation would convene a number of community councils and forums that would becomprised of individual community members that would that would regularly meet to


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discuss and address micro-community needs, whether those micro-communities are basedon geography, demography or interest. In Michaels case, he may find himself taking aleadership role on this counsel working with Federation staff and other communitymembers to develop an action plan for addressing the needs of the community. Thiscouncil may also work together with the MJCCA to develop a series of local activities or

gatherings for singles. While some of these activities occur already, the council wouldprovide a centralized avenue for communication and engagement. And who knowsMichael may even meet a potential spouse at a meeting.

New Initiative: Chever: Community Study and Support (Scholar-in-Residence).Both Michael and Sandra have expressed some interest in being engaged Jewishly, andmay wish to explore this part of their lives more. And it is possible that they will findthemselves volunteering within organizations that create opportunities to do mitzvoth, butthey are still seeing an important context to those experiences. Chever: CommunityStudy and Support (scholar-in-residence) would help address those needs. In connectionwith Chever, a community professional (a professor, scholar, rabbi or academic) would

help facilitate cross-community learning experience that might give Michael and Sandraan avenue to explore the Jewish context of their community engagement. One program inparticular may be an academic and social exploration of historical interfaith relations the type of program that Sandra and Christopher might enjoy together along with othermembers of the community. Those programs might be done in connection with variouscommunity partners, such as JF&CS (if, for example. Michael is a PAL), the MJCCA orthe synagogue Sandy attends. This scholar-in-residence would assist Federation in manycustomer-facing ways, but each way would be tailored to address the needs of subsets ofcommunity customers.

New Initiative:Nitzan: A Community Resource for Developing Initiatives. Recallthat Robert wanted to develop a new study group for business professionals. Lets assumethat there isnt an exact group for him, or there isnt a group in Sandy Springs. Themadrahim referenced above might put Robert in touch with the staff person at a newFederation initiative called Nitzan (the Hebrew word for flower bud) to help develophis new idea. Nitzans purpose would be to serve as a resource for new initiatives in ourcommunity by helping create connections between social entrepreneurs and otherindividuals, organizations and funders. Right now in our community, individuals likeRobert may go from person to person trying to develop an idea, and lacking a clearresource they abandon their passion. With Nitzan, a knowledgeable professionalleveraging community resources could assist with the exploration of ideas small and big.In Roberts case, maybe his initiative is developed and the scholar-in-residence assists indevelopment of the curriculum so then it could be replicated all over the community.Indeed, while some benefits of community enrichment can be predicted, it is theunexpected that may be the most rewarding.

New Initiatives: Yachad: The Atlanta Jewish Leadership Council and Nehutai: Leadership Across Communities. Sandra is a community leader who understands andresponds to the need for volunteer engagement. And while she may be engaged inprojects that are relevant to her (and has probably received leadership experiences in the


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MJCCA and her synagogue), she could benefit from a broader leadership trainingexperience like the one that could be provided by Yachad: The Atlanta Jewish LeadershipCouncil. This initiative would help bring Sandra, along with other leaders across ourcommunity, for intensive leadership training and discussion, making Sandra feel moreconnected with her peers, and their organizations. They will have common experiences

and numerous forums to team together to learn and lead as a community. Leveraging thescholar-in-residence and outreach professionals, Sandra will learn innovative ways toreach out to members of her community and lead them, all while learning the importanceof those tasks in the context of Jewish experience. Sandra may also choose to participatein Nehutai, which would be a program that takes a cross-section of community leadersfrom Atlanta to meet with groups from across the country to learn ways that othercommunities address key challenges. One area may be a focus on outreach to interfaithcouples and perhaps Christopher will join Sandra on a group trip to Boston to see howthey have been so successful in capturing the opportunities of engagement with interfaithfamilies. Who knows, they may even go as a group to Buffalo to find out how Cari andRoberts friend leveraged personal connections for charitable giving.

Funding

An immediate question that is asked when considering an initiative as large as JOEL isthe question of feasibility. While some community enrichment activities are occurring inFederation now and the resources could be reallocated, core community development resourcesshould remain at current levels or increased as the donor-centered model successfully develops.But without question, more resources are needed. Later in this paper I reference several thoughtsrelated to funding individual initiatives. But there are some larger approaches than fundingdiscreet ideas on an individual basis. One, as a community we must accept that Federation canincur a more significant overhead allocation so long as it is meaningfully and measurablyserving in a community enrichment capacity. Two, Federation must revisit its historicalinternational and domestic allocation split. This split, which in comparison to other communitiesacross the nation is very generous to Federations oversees partners, needs to be modified to keepa higher percentage of dollars in Atlanta. While the benefit of that adjustment would impact localpartners (beneficially), it would also allow for Federation to fund some of its communityenrichment activities listed above. Three, Federation would need to engage its substantialphilanthropists in all categories to support the vision of Federations role in communityenrichment and support the funding of the initiatives in strategic ways. For example, the scholar-in-residence position may be endowed, the leadership training program may be subsidized, etc.Without a doubt, resources are needed. But those resources are there in many cases seeking avision to fund. And later, if their lives are enriched by Federation Cari, Robert, Michael,Sandra and Christopher will each do their part to support Federation and the initiatives that

impacted them.

Conclusion

Federation does not need to have too narrow a focus of whom it views as its customer.To the contrary, a broad customer view allows Federation to fulfill two critical roles that it mustaddress as the Atlanta community transforms into one of the most dynamic Jewish communitiesin the country. Federation must be an excellent community development organization. It must


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remain a sophisticated donor-centered and competent planning organization. But it must alsoview itself as a community enrichment organization, in action and in deed, not just by paying lipservice. If Federation wants to be an organization that will expand its community developmentresources, it needs to develop a coherent and substantial approach to community enrichmentactivities that will motivate greater numbers of emerging and transformational philanthropists to

help develop our community through Federation and its partners.

The Atlanta Jewish community is a community in transformation and is one that

requires an equally important transformation of Federation. Our community will continue

to change. Will Federation?


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II. ATLANTA: A JEWISH COMMUNITY IN TRANSITION

Overview

Atlanta is one of the fastest growing Jewish communities in the United States, doublingits population in the past 10 years and anticipated to double the present Jewish population withinthe next 20 years. The impact from this population growth with respect to community planningis enormous. Fundamental assumptions about how we educate our children, engage Jewishfamilies and care for our seniors and most needy will require critical reexamination andredevelopment. But the implications of this population growth will not only be programmaticand service-oriented. They will also have a fundamental impact on the way the communitydevelops its identity, its ability to respond to crisis and its ability to enrich the individual lives ofits participants. Although growth is often viewed in the context of creating opportunities, rapidgrowth also presents a set of challenges that, left unmet, can neutralize or even possibly reversethe benefits of growth. In 2007, Atlanta faces both those opportunities and challenges.

Change, by its nature, creates the need for response, and response, by its nature, requires

leadership. On a communal level, and in particular on the Jewish communal level, leadership isa complex, multi-faced challenge. Who assumes leadership responsibilities and how thoseresponsibilities are assumed have a significant impact on the nature and the rate of response tothe change that is occurring. In a community composed of multiple micro-communities, theassumption and implementation of communal leadership is particularly difficult. Such effort atleadership presents the inherent risk of trying to be all things to all people, while ending up witha reputation for only a few things to a few people. When leadership is assumed by anorganization, it is assumed to be representative only of a small cadre of organizational leaders,bureaucratic, inherently inefficient and insufficiently visionary. These challenges are evengreater with respect to a community in transition. To address these challenges groups ofvisionary volunteer leadership need to work in concert with excellent professional leadership to

create communal confidence in the direction, tactics and goals of the communitys approach tochange.

General Assessment of Current Communal Organization Leadership

Like many communities, Atlanta has a multi-faceted communal organizationalenvironment consisting of (i) legacy community institutions (Federation, welfare agencies,JCC, schools, long-standing congregations and religious groups), (ii) national advocacyorganization with varying levels of local leadership involvement and national participation(ADL, AIPAC, AJC, JNF, ORT), (iii) emerging organizations and micro-communities (JAC,ASK, DoJewish) and (iv) small grass-roots initiatives lead by cadres of dynamic leaders focused

on specific issues or community activities.

Although these organizations generally cover the landscape of issues and interests of theJewish community as a whole, there nonetheless are several aspects of this organizationallandscape that deserve further examination. The following observations can be made withrespect to our Atlantas Jewish communal organizations:


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1. Leadership of existing communal organizations is generally concentrated among adisproportionately small group of individuals. As a whole, the leadership of local major Jewishorganizations remains concentrated in a group of individuals that is disproportionably smallgiven the size and the rate of growth of the Atlanta Jewish community. In part, some of this isthe result of strong continuity in communal involvement that has been fostered by families and

community members who have multi-generational ties to Atlanta, which should absolutely beencouraged. However, some of this concentration is due to the ease in which establishedleadership can be recruited to new leadership positions as opposed to the challenge of identifyingand cultivating newly engaged leadership. 1

2. Organizations and their leadership, despite attempts to be otherwise, are generallysiloed within smaller subsets of the community as a whole. Although each organization andmicro-community interacts with one another on a as-needed basis, there still remains a culture ofthe silo mentality, where organizations act and react in response to leadership (actual orperceived) and financial sponsorship scarcity.

3.Notwithstanding numerous leadership institutes, there currently exist no meaningfullocal Jewish leadership development initiative that focuses on developing community leaders.While each independent community organization invests substantial time and energy inidentifying, recruiting and developing leaders, the existing forums for leadership training do notinclude a substantial investment in the development of communal leaders; rather, eachorganization focuses primarily on education relating to the particular organizations activitiesand needs and not real leadership skills.

4. Leadership of community organizations, particularly the larger, more establishedorganizations, have a disproportionate number of leaders based on philanthropic status. Thecomposition of executive lay leadership in these organizations are not always merit-based ordemographically distributed, but tend to have a high percentage of large financial supporters (the

givers) rather than the thought-leaders or grass-roots leadership (the minders, finders andgrinders).

5. Despite the number of Jewish organizations in our community, gaps in services and focus still exist. Even with the wide diversity of interests that are covered by existingorganizations, there are still gaps in communal infrastructure that allow for opportunities tofoster creativity, grassroots leadership and engagement activity, and entrepreneurship. Manytimes when individuals or groups of individuals identify these opportunities, finding the rightorganizational sponsor becomes a challenge itself, oftentimes limiting the enthusiasm orengagement that instigated the pursuit of such opportunities.

1 An entirely separate paper could be written about the current nature of the Atlanta Jewishcommunitys leadership and one approach would be to evaluate its framework of polity withinthe principles articulated by Daniel Elazar. Utilizing those principles, an argument can be madethat Atlantas Federation leadership model is a hybrid of associationalism and selectiverepublicanism, although it aspires to present itself as a form of confederal brit arevut (covenantof mutual responsibility).


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6. There is a need for focus on Jewish context with respect to community work andengagement by our organizations and community leadership. Even though a vast majority of thework of each organization is done within the penumbra of Jewish context, there remains a greatdisparity between the Jewish basis for communal investment and leadership and the wayleadership often understands the Jewishness of its work within the framework of the organization

or its mission.

Without a doubt, the organizational leadership in Atlanta is maturing, with organizationsfocused, at least in part, on all material needs of the Jewish community. However, it is clear thatour community organizations, and their leadership, can significantly improve the manners inwhich they demonstrate their interdependence and, in turn, the way they created an integratedframework for community engagement and enrichment.

General Assessment of Current Individual and Philanthropic Leadership

The 2006 Community Study provides ample data regarding the current state of theAtlanta Jewish community from a demographic perspective, and the assessments related to that

data are outside the scope of this paper. However, certain general observations about thecommunitys individual and philanthropic leadership can be noted.

Established Community and Newcomers

First and foremost is the recognition that there is a pronounced (sometimes spoken andsometimes unspoken) delineation between the established community members and theemerging Atlanta community members (or newcomers). In a city undergoing dramaticdemographic change it is to be expected, but in Atlanta it presents both benefits and challenges.One substantial benefit is that by having a bedrock of multigenerational families that haveconsistently provided leadership to the community, there is no immediate concern that leadership

needs will be unmet. Those who have grown up in Atlanta or who have maintained strongfamily, business or other relationships will, in due time, find ways to transform their Jewishcommunal experiences into a level of engagement in the community. They will also leveragetheir financial interests to support needs that are consistent with their personal passions. We arefortunate to have these multi-generational families in our community because they are a vital linkwith our past and an important component of our future.

The challenge lies in the fact that as Jewish Atlanta grows in size, the establishedcontingent becomes (statistically) a smaller part of the overall make-up of the community; itnonetheless continues to appear (from a macro-leadership perspective) a dominant part of thecommunity. On closer examination this appearance doesnt hold true in many cases (although in

some cases it clearly does), but community perception is often communal reality.Newcomers may feel unengaged because they are not part of the usual crowd and oftentimeshave no really pathway into meaningful organizational engagement. Because the effort to recruitand develop the unengaged newcomers is more inefficient than calling upon the reliable existingleadership, the cycle repeats itself further cross-organizational leadership exchanges allow foran insular leadership group that perpetuates its continued leadership while newcomers areincreasingly frustrated and alienated in the lack of pathways to engagement.


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But who are these newcomers? Again, the Community Study more than amply reviewsthis data, but anecdotally they are the individuals of varying ages who have come to Atlanta foreconomic reasons, for marriage, for family, for education, and for social or other reasons. Inmany cases they have lived in Atlanta for many years but are only recently emerging as engagedcommunity members, but in other cases they are truly newcomers, arriving from another

community and looking to wrap themselves with in the fabric of the Atlanta Jewish community.Some have more passion about community engagement than others, and would identifythemselves in varying degrees of Jewishness, but oftentimes they refer to themselves as theothers and not as community insiders. These individuals often have strong passions and, inmany cases, leadership skills, but are often on the periphery of the community than deeplyimbedded in it.

Four Categories of Philanthropists

From a philanthropic perspective, the community is similarly diverse, but can generallybe sorted into a few distinct categories. Foremost would be the relatively small category of localmega-donors, a class that would include Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank, among others. Thesephilanthropists have a very substantial local presence, but also have broader national orinternational interests. They are forces of creativity and efficiency within our community, butalso have the somewhat negative impact of being seen as the gold at the end of the rainbowand the funders of first and last resort. While there is no question that the support of thesemega-donors is substantially enabling, it also sometimes serves as a crutch for the innovativeexpansion of other philanthropist classes.

The second primary philanthropist category is what could be called the legacyphilanthropists. The philanthropists are also part of multi-generation philanthropic families of alllevels (major, intermediate or emerging) and generally have some organizational leanings but aregenerally supportive Federation donors as well. The philanthropists are generally following in

the footsteps of parents or other relatives who have been financially generous to the communityand therefore are at least marginally aware of philanthropic choices and strategies. That is not tosay that the legacy philanthropists are not innovative. In many respects they are breaking withthe historical patterns of philanthropy. However, there is a general communal understanding (orexpectation) that these philanthropists will emerge over time if they have not already done so andit is not really a matter of if, but rather when and how.

The third primary philanthropic category is the transformational philanthropistgrouping who have become communally philanthropic because of some personal transformation,whether economic, family-related or socially-related. Many members of this class are theindividuals who have recognized wealth from their business experiences and successes,

individuals who have benefited from some communal serve personally or through family, orthose whose social or peer group introduced them to philanthropic activity. Thesephilanthropists are often sophisticated managers of their philanthropic investments, are resultoriented and act with modern, business-rule and generationally-sensitive strategies and tactics.Oftentimes they are aware of the philanthropic alternatives but are not comfortable with theframework in which those alternatives are presented or the manners in which the donors areengaged. Constituting a significant portion of the potential in communal philanthropicexpansion, this group is of vital importance as well.


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Lastly, although no less important than the other categories, is the emerging and time-based philanthropic category. This group is often the smallest financial subset but is thenumerically most significant. They make philanthropic gifts that are meaningful on a personaland communal level but may be made in tens or hundreds of dollars, not in thousands ormillions. They are generally distributed across organizations and congregations based on

personal interests, and they view their donation of time as much as a philanthropic investment astheir investment of money (a fact which is true among all classes; however, at this level the timeinvestment often outweighs financial investment). These individuals number in the thousandsand are potential members of other philanthropic classes if properly engaged, educated andempowered with respect to the Atlanta Jewish community. However, because this groupconstitutes the 80% that often makes up the 20% of aggregate communal giving, the strategiesfor engaging this philanthropic class are often sporadic, decentralized and less intensive.

Diagram 1 and 2 below illustrate two ways to view the categories of philanthropists interms of philanthropic concentration and philanthropic potential.

2As discussed in other sections

in this paper, depending on the nature of the analysis (near-view vs. longview), very differentobservations can be made with respect to the emphasis that Federation should placed on thedifferent categories of philanthropists and the approaches that should be taken.

View of Philanthropic Concentration (Near-View)

Percentage ofCommunity

DevelopmentContributions

(+) %

(-) %

Number of Individuals(-) (+)

Legacy Philanthropists

Transformational Philanthropists

Emerging Philanthropists/Unengaged

Mega-Philanthropists

Diagram 1

View of Philanthropic Potential (Long-View)

Percentage ofPhilanthropic

Dollars that areDesignated to

Federation

(+) %

(-) %

Number of Individuals(-) (+)

Emerging Philanthropists

LegacyPhilanthropists

Mega-

Philanthropists

Potential Unengaged Philanthropists

Diagram 2

2 Diagrams incorporated in this paper are also included in Appendix I in larger scale.


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In summary, the categories of Jewish philanthropists in Atlanta appear to be consistentwith other communities. However, given the rapid growth of our community, the top two tiersare remaining constant while the other two tiers are expanding rapidly. This demographicrebalancing of the historic Atlanta Jewish philanthropic model presents a set of challenges in andof itself in strategizing the potential for broad communal development of infrastructure. It also

points to the need for a different way of viewing the synthesis of new leadership and emergingphilanthropy into our community.

But before we can reimagine different ways for Federation to engage of members of

our community, a critical assessment of its current approach is necessary.


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III. FEDERATION: VERSION 1.0 - A CURRENT ASSESSMENT

Overview

In order to reimagine the future of Federation in Atlanta, there must be some assessmentof its current state, as well as its likely future. As in other parts of this paper, I do not assert thatthe assessment expressed below is the only valid assessment. In fact, if there is one universaltruth about Federation in Atlanta or elsewhere is that everyone has their opinion of whatFederation has done right, done wrong, should always do or should never do. Individualassessments of the past very often have a basis in what their individual experiences have been,and their vision for the present and the future depends on their individual needs, wants, and levelof personal and financial investment. As in the cycles of all organizations, leadership evolves,strategies are attempted and evaluated and performances are measured with equal amounts ofpraise or criticism. That said, I will acknowledge that the assessment below is borne out of myexperience which, by all measures has been limited in the larger history of Federation in Atlantaand therefore may be limited in perspective, although no less valid.

Federation is at a crossroads of substantial proportion, and significantly as a result of thecurrent intersection of its performance with respect to its Long Range Strategic Plan and thecontinued development of the trends observed in the first part of this paper. There are significantportions of Federations work in the community that have been of notable success and there arealso significant elements of its role in community affairs that has been subject to criticism, muchof which is valid and some of which is not. The remainder of this section serially addresses thefollowing observations:

1. a general observation of what Federation has done well;

2. a general assessment of the most common criticisms of Federation;

3. a brief critical assessment of the current state of Federations Long-Range Plan;and

4. a general assessment of the current state of Federation and what the future ofFederation may look like without a substantial reimagination and realignment ofits role in the community.

What is going right?

In short, there is much that is going well with Federation. As will be noted below,Federation engaged in a substantial community conversation when developing its Long-Range

Plan, and this community conversation yielded three significant developments that have come tofruition.

1. Increased Focus on Process. The Long-Range Plan yielded a new focus on planningand allocations that has developed an internal focus on result-oriented processes. Not withoutits share of false starts or errant initiatives, the increased focus on process has strengthened theorganization with respect to the efforts of its professional and lay leadership.


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2. Increased Focus on Administrative Excellence. Federation has initiated andmaintained a vigilant focus on being administratively excellent. Again, although opinions mayvary in any particular case, Federation staff is rising to a level necessary to meet the demands ofa shifting community landscape. In the cases where they are not responding, it is not the resultof their capability, but rather the absence of overarching strategic vision. Nonetheless, this

community has assembled in its Federation a staff of incredibly capable and passionateindividuals, many of whom are desired by other communities.

3. Increased Focus on New Volunteers. Third, by trying new strategies, Federationbrought in some new volunteers in several areas, many of whom have remained invested inFederation even when those strategies were discarded. This infusion of intellectual capital andvolunteer strength, although far more limited than it needs to be, is continuing to serveFederation in reaching out to new communities that have long been underrepresented atFederation.

4. Other Successes. There have also been many individual successes over the pastseveral years. Federation has maintained and incrementally grown an annual communitycampaign despite an increasingly complex philanthropic environment. Endowment has seen anincrease in assets in excess of any time in its history and the Legacy Campaign is a majorinitiative to continue this success. Federation led our communitys overwhelming response tothe needs created by the Second Lebanon War, and also assisted in the strategic support of thestrengthening of the Marcus Jewish Community Center. Federation continues to be a leader inthe development of NORCS in Georgia, helping leverage government dollars to support multiplecommunities NORCs. It celebrated a centennial of Federations history by supporting a series ofcommunity celebrations at the very same time it was creating task forces and outcomecommittees to plan for its next 100 years. There is much that Federation has done well.

What is the problem?

Despite the successes outlined above, there are several issues that persist with respect toFederations engagement in our community. First and foremost, for a community the size ofAtlanta, Federations market presence and overall relevance remains limited. The CommunityStudy highlights this fact and the donor rolls of Federation reflect its obvious result. As ourcommunity has grown, Federations overall campaign performance has not kept pace on a percapita basis. Campaign has continued to grow based on the increased generosity of a few ratherthan the increased engagement of many. This limited growth has resulted in scarcity within theallocations process and has spawned the further development of a competitive landscape ofJewish philanthropic initiatives by affiliates of Federation. This in turn has created a persistentculture of skepticism with respect to the nature of the Federation/affiliate partnership and, on

occasion, even strained relationships of Federation and affiliates with respect to particularmatters of partnership. In sum, while Federation has done a great deal, it has not done enough.It has not been visionary enough. It has not been sufficiently effective. And the results havecreated system strain and reputation issues.

As noted in the above survey of the general community, Federation lay leadership hasalso only moderately reflected the changing landscape of our community. While Federation hasengaged volunteers from all parts of our community to participate in various leadership roles, it


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has nonetheless persisted to have a relatively concentrated leadership core at the very top. Thisleadership core is generous in both time and financial resources and acts only in the best interestsof the organization. However, as a result of its limited representative nature, Federation suffersfrom two criticisms. One, because it is not representative of all quarters of the community, it issubject to criticism that it is out of touch with the rest of the community. Second, because

much of Federation reaches the highest levels of leadership based on a number of years ofpersonal investment in the organization and its initiatives, the leadership is often focused onrefining past performance (with which they have personal experience), at the expense ofimplementing novel or non-traditional approaches. As noted above, community perception iscommunal reality, and whether the leadership of Federation actually affirms these perceptions isnot as relevant as the fact that there is broad community adoption of these perceptions.

In connection with these perceptions of Federation leadership, there is also a generalcommunity observation that Federations governance approach does not foster creative dialogueamong various stakeholders. Rather, it is broadly rebuked as a top down model as opposed toa ground up model. Federations current governance model reflects this perception discussions often start at the top with the officers, are further vetted at the executive committeelevel and then nominally discussed and ratified at the Board of Trustees level. Rather than usingthe Federation governance model to engage leadership in meaningful community dialogue andbroad consensus building, the Federation governance model has been reduced to a process bywhich actions are taken and recognitions are acknowledged but where substantive debate andcritical analysis are often lacking. Further, there is not the ability for true refinement ofcommunity input in the Federation governance process often the broadest base of governancehas the least ability to influence the articulated course of action. In certain cases there arerationales that justify this governance model, for example where urgent action is needed or thereis a necessity for executive leadership action regarding staff or budget matters. However, thegeneral criticism of the Federation governance model is pervasive and, in many cases, fair.

There is another pervasive criticism of Federation, which is that while it states it wantsto be a community convener, its action often seem to indicate it wants to be a convener ofcommunity dollars, not community itself. A similar criticism is that it doesnt care as muchabout the transformational and emerging donors as much as it cares about the mega-donors andlegacy donors, and that if you are not in those categories Federation doesnt want to conveneyou. Another similar perception is that Federation is not a humble organization; it can be anarrogant and heavy handed with its partners. Others argue that Federation lacks vision, has thewrong vision, or cant meaningfully articulate and brand its vision. I suggest that all of thesecriticisms are valid in part, and oftentimes that part is in the eye of the beholder. Federationsuffers from the expectation that it should be all things to all people. While this may be anunreasonable expectation, it is fair to note that Federation needs to be a few more things to more

people. It is what our community expects, and what Federation is failing to deliver.

But what about the Long-Range Plan?

The Long-Range Plan, borne equally as the result of necessity and the vision ofFederation leadership, has yielded mixed returns. One strategy would appear to be well on thepath to success, the second strategy appears to be substantially farther away from achieving itsgoals, and the third strategy has been abandoned. Much debate has been had about the efficacy


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of the Long-Range Plan, and I will not rehash or overly analyze those discussions. Below,however, I lay out some key observations regarding the state of each of the three primarystrategies in the long-range plan.

With respect to the strategy relating to the development of an outcomes-based allocationsprocess, Federation is substantially on the way to achieving its goal. Structurally, the allocationsvolunteer organization has been transformed to an outcomes-based model and the process usedby the organization has been similarly changed. The core allocation model has beentransformed into an affiliate model and in the May 2007 allocation meetings the newly-formedallocations committee allocated money based on affiliate grants and outcome focus. From astructural and process perspective, the strategy is on track. That is not to say, however, that all ofthe work is complete. The process by which the outcome teams have operated requires furtherrefinement, and continued close dialogue with affiliates and outcomes partners is necessary tofurther develop the process. Only partial outcome budgets have been funded, and there is a needto further develop a process by which multiple financial revenue sources are attracted to fundoutcomes on the basis of a campaign allocations or specifically tailored donor grants.

With respect to the donor-centered financial resource development strategy, it is obviousthat Federation has not achieved its stated goals and it will require additional effort to achievethose goals in the next few years. There are several observations to be made with respect to thestate of this strategy. First, a critical component of the strategy was to continue to have strongcampaign and endowment leadership involved in achieving continued resource developmentsuccess at least at the then-current levels. Federation was successful in this tactic. The past fewcampaigns and the endowment progress are evidence that in a complex philanthropicenvironment, skillful leadership and sheer determination can help generate and maintainfinancial resources necessary to build community.

But simply maintaining and moderately growing the campaign and endowment funds

were not the strategic goal. Substantially growing the campaign and endowment funds were, andthat was not the sole responsibility of the campaign/endowment volunteers and chairs. It was theresponsibility of the entire organization, and this responsibility has not yet been fully met. Asubstantial reason for this unmet responsibility is that Federation had a delayed understandingand deployment of donor-centered strategies. Federation simply did not redeploy itself as swiftlyand as meaningfully as was necessary reach this ambitious goal. Moreover, Federation did nottruly engage the community in a redefining donor-centered way in the past several years. Eventoday there is not a clear community understanding of what a donor-centered Federation is orshould be doing to engage donors meaningfully.

Some argument can be made that the limited success of the resource development

strategy is sequential in nature Federation simply should have put the outcomes model in placebefore truly launching the donor-centered strategy. While it is subject to discussion, I submitthat it was not sequencing, but rather a lack of dual progress that has limited the success of theresource development strategy. Over the past three years the outcomes transformation wasdeveloping and the opportunity to co-develop the donor-centered model failed to be realized.This does not invalidate the goal itself or the related efforts, but it is clear that a more intensefocus on the donor-centered strategy is necessary to achieve the stated goals.


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Lastly, while it held the most promise, the Greater Atlanta strategy can clearly berecognized as an abandoned strategy. There are several observations about the Greater Atlantastrategy that must be made. First and foremost, it is clear that even in its development stages theGreater Atlanta strategy suffered from a lack of clarity. It meant many things to many peopleand Federation never coalesced a clear vision of what the Greater Atlanta strategy was and was

not to be. In implementation this shortcoming became even more obvious as Federation staffhad no clear vision to follow and tactically implement. Second, while the outcomes andfinancial resource development strategies had objective criteria for measurement, similarevaluative criteria were not established for the Greater Atlanta strategy. In essence, there was noclear vision of what success would look like and when it could be expected to be achieved. As aresult, without an alternative measurement, the leading indicator (albeit the wrong one) was theshort-term impact on financial resource development. This created organizational impatiencewith the results of the Greater Atlanta strategy and, when combined with the unrealized gains inthe financial resource development strategy, a case was made and implemented with respect toabandoning the Greater Atlanta strategy.

The last and perhaps most direct observation of the Greater Atlanta strategy is thatFederation leadership has never fully held itself accountable for the abandonment of the strategy.It has also never fully deconstructed and evaluated the planning, execution and expiration of thestrategy and identified the critical lessons learned. Without this evaluation and a full communitydiscussion of its findings, it appears to the broader community that Federation has neither thestomach nor the capability to be engaged in outreach and empowerment of broader JewishAtlanta. Of the three core strategies, the Greater Atlanta strategy is the one whose loss ofpromise is the most apparent.

Whats next?

As part of the Long-Range Plan, Federation identified three areas of strategic focus:

transforming into a donor-centered organization; transforming into an outcomes-basedcommunity planning organization and engaging Jews in greater Atlanta. Three years later, itsvision of strategic change has created organizational transformation, but not necessarily atransformation in the way community views Federation. Embedded in the plan were seeds thatcould transform that vision, but those seeds have not sufficiently been tended to and they are notbearing the promise contained within them.

So then what is the future of Federation in Atlanta? Even taking into account thechallenges outlined above, Federation will not fail in its core mission, nor will it suffer fromsubstantial limitations in its current operations. It will raise and allocate money, it will serve toconnect donors (albeit a relatively small set of donors with their philanthropic passions), it will

engage a certain amount of leadership in community affairs, and it will serve as a communityresource for a variety of community initiatives.

However, by staying on its current trajectory, Federation will become irrelevant to moreand more of the members of our community. As more and more members of the communityseek a centralized resource for community engagement, education and empowerment, they willfind a Federation that cannot fill that need. By not being able to fill that need, Federation willthen be less able to legitimately and meaningfully engage those same individuals in community


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philanthropy and will become less legitimate in convening its partners for community planning.As this community dynamic develops, it would be less and less possible for Federationleadership to reengage the community on a basis of mutual benefit. Agencies, schools andcommunity organizations will attempt to fill the void that Federation has failed to fill and, inturn, agencies/schools will directly engage donors on an even more substantial basis. This

engagement of community members will accordingly lead to even more intensive donordevelopment initiatives. Budgets will become less and less reliant on Federation affiliate grants.Therefore the convening allocations process of Federation will become less and less relevant,reducing the efficacy of those efforts. Community leadership will continue to be more and morefragmented, as there is less of a forum for them to come together. Mega-donors andtransformational philanthropists will increasingly usurp Federations historic role as acommunity convener. Atlantas historic support of international needs will also suffer as therecontinues to be greater pressure to allocate a higher and higher percentage of community dollarsto local needs in order to keep local organizations engaged with Federation. All of this wouldcontinue while the Jewish community of Atlanta grows at historic rates.

But it doesnt need to be this way.


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IV. FEDERATION 2.0: REIMAGINING THE FUTURE OF THE JEWISHFEDERATION OF GREATER ATLANTA

Overview

Throughout Jewish history, changing circumstances have required Jews to adapt spiritually, socially, economically and geographically. The dynamic of Jewish change hasprompted an almost endless variety of community formation and reformulation. Jews haveredefined their community in response to inspiration and necessity and have created new Jewishparadigms in order to answer to unthinkable despair and unrelenting modernity. Thebeneficence of the organizations and the quality of the leaders at these points of Jewishtransformation may be subject to much debate, but the one thing that can be universally agreedupon is that Jewish life is a life lived on the delicate balancing point of tradition and change ofthe dynamic intersection of its past and its future.

Federation in Atlanta is no different changing times require its reimagination.

No organization is immune to change, and no Jewish organization should be immutablein its development. Federation is no exception to this rule, and in the past several years it hasdemonstrated that it is willing to take important steps in developing and acting in a strategictransformational manner. But the transformation it has gone through is only a start.Reimagination of Federation is necessary for it to fulfill both the promise of its enterprise as wellas the fulfillment of its mission. And then after its reimagination, it needs to be strategicallyreorganized to transform the vision of a strong greater Atlanta into a reality. The reimaginationwill require a broader vision of Federations role in our community than has been maintainedbefore, and it will require the deployment focus and resources that have not been previouslydeployed. Most of all, it will require Federation to come face to face with the question that it hasinadequately resolved over the past several years:

Who is Federations customer? An answer - the community.

There are three general responses to the question of who are the customers of Federation:(i) the donors (and some argue only a very small subsection of donors), (ii) the agencies andschools that comprise the group of affiliates of Federation and (iii) the community.

The first two answers, by their nature, are exclusionary and therefore are counter to thenature of an organization that perceives itself (and is perceived by many in the community) as acentral communal organization. If the sole customer of Federation is its current donor base (or asmaller subset of donors) then all of its focus needs to be placed on serving the needs of thosecustomers, regardless of the needs of the affiliates of Federation or the community as a whole.Such a narrow focus not only fails to serve the broader community as a whole, but it fails toserve the supposed customer as well. There is an adage that the customer is always right. But incommunity philanthropy there is a slight variance to that rule the customers interests andpassions are always right. Different from the standard rule, being donor-centered (customer-focused) in community philanthropy means helping channel the donors passions and interests tosupport those causes or initiatives that speak to the donor. If Federation has such a narrowlyfocused view of its customer and doesnt view its affiliates and the broader community as other


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subsets of its customer base, Federation cant serve the donor (its purported customer) well.That donors passion may not be plugged into the greatest affiliate or community need that alignswith their passion because Federation, by failing to tend to its other customer subsets, doesntknow what that greatest need is. Or doesnt have the communal legitimacy to make thoseconnections in a meaningful way Without a doubt, the donor/community philanthropist is an

important subset of Federations customer base, but it is not its exclusive customer group.

Similarly, the affiliates are not the sole customers of Federation. Without question, theearly genesis of the federated model was the view that affiliates (or, in the corollary term,beneficiaries) were the primary customers of Federation, and that the purpose of the CommunityCampaign was truly to satisfy the needs of the affiliates in aiding the needs of the community,whether those needs were educational, social or the communitys social welfare. In viewing theaffiliates/beneficiaries as the customers, it would be Federations role to assess and understandwhat those affiliates need in order to best serve the broader needs of the community andcommunicate those needs to the donor base and community as a whole. However, as thedonor/philanthropist community became more sophisticated, there became a more dialectictension between the donor/community and the affiliates and beneficiaries, and Federationbecame the intermediary in this dialogue. When the affiliates/beneficiaries feel that theircustomer needs are not being met (in essence they view Federation as a value-added reseller ofthe affiliate/beneficiary product) they have gone directly to the donor/community to meet thoseneeds. In a great number of cases, the reason why those needs arent being met is because anaffiliate/beneficiary focused customer strategy has failed to leverage the synergies of the othercustomer group the donors/philanthropists and the broader community. In essence, thelimitation of viewing the affiliate/beneficiary grouping as Federations sole customer is theinverse of viewing the donor as the sole customer.

There is a third answer the community as a whole is Federations customer. In manyways it is the most obvious, and also the most difficult answer. It is inclusive it allows for the

donor/philanthropist grouping as well as the affiliate/beneficiary grouping to each be subsets ofcustomers. But it also allows the broader community as a whole to be viewed by Federation ascustomers all 120,000 Jews and growing, the organizations, synagogues and temples in ourcommunity as well as all the various combinations of individuals and organizations that the mindcan imagine. By taking a holistic view of the community as Federations customer there is nogrouping that is excluded and no customer need that can go unexamined. When the communityis viewed as the customer it doesnt mean that there is no focus. Instead, it means there is aneed for multiple foci tailored to various customer groupings, and that the community as a wholeis viewed as the paramount customer category. It leads to the analysis that Federation mustoperate on multiple levels of inclusiveness focusing on customer needs that may requirebalancing while still needing to be fulfilled. When the community is the customer, Federation

needs to, at all levels, reflect the needs, the desires, and the dreams of its community. It needs tofind the means to engage, educate and empower the community to realize the achievement ofthose dreams. When the community is the customer, the desires of the community dontoutweigh the needs of just one person, nor do the desires of just one person outweigh the needsof the community. When the community is the customer, Federation needs to be more than just agroup of philanthropic advisors (when the donor is the sole customer) or a fundraisingorigination (when the affiliates/beneficiaries are the sole customer). Federation needs to be acommunity-building organization.


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The community is the customer. And when the community is the customer,

Federation needs to act differently.

Diagram 3 below illustrates the conceptual framework of what this multi-focusedcustomer approach would look like.

JFGA Customer Focus(Reimagined)

Fina

ncialR

esou

rce

Develo

pment

(Don

orasCu

stom

er)

CommunityPlanningPartnership

(CommunityPartnersas

Customers)

JOEL (Jewish Outreach, Engagement & Leadership)

(Emerging Philanthropists as Customers)

Key:

=

Areas ofCustomerSynergy

Areas of Focus:

Campaign

Endowment

Donor-focusedActivity

Areas of Focus:

Outreach

Community Education

Leadership

Development

Areas of Focus:

Planning/Outcomes

Affiliated Relations

GovernmentRelations

CommunityCommunityasas

CustomerCustomer

Diagram 3

In the reimagined Federation where the community is the customer, Federation needs tohave a different perspective. To reinforce that different perspective it needs to be positioned intoa new model. Within that new model, the Atlanta Federation needs to also embark on a newseries of initiatives within the context of a new model. For the balance of this paper, I will layout the new model and with it a set of new initiatives that, while not entirely novel, are new tothis community.

A Two Part Model: Part I - Areas of Community Development

As noted above, perhaps of one the greatest challenges of Federation in recent years hasbeen its lack of clarity of whom it views at its primary customers. There has been an almostreflexive view that Federation needs to choose its loyalty whether to largedonor/philanthropists, emerging or unidentified donor/philanthropists, affiliates or the broaderJewish community as a whole. And by the nature of this choice there are necessarily approachesthat cannot be pursued. The argument is made that Federation cant have too broad a focus or itwont be able to do anything well. An additional argument is made that even if Federation coulddo everything well, then its philanthropic supporters would not support the increased overheadand cost necessary for it to pursue such multi-tiered approaches. I believe these arguments arefalse Federation can pursue a holistic customer service model by utilizing multiple approaches

to a segmented customer base. It can do it well. If the vision is big enough, the initiatives areimpressionable and measurable, and the delivery of those initiatives is excellent, then thefinancial supporters of Federation will support this approach.

But this approach requires the segmentation of Federations customers within a newoverarching model. I propose segmenting Federation into two distinct areas, albeit areas with joint management and coordinated operation. However, there are limits to where theirinterdependence is a key metric in measuring their success. In this model, as illustrated by


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Areas of Community Development

Financial ResourceDevelopment

(Chief Development Officer)

Campaign

Endowment

Other

Diagram 4 below, I propose dividing Federations external facing operations into two categories:Areas of Community Development andAreas of Community Enrichment.

Proposed Structure of Federation 2.0 Strategic VisionReimagined Organizational Structure

Areas o f Community Development Areas o f Community Enr ichment

Financial Resource

Development

(Chief Development Officer)

Community Planning and

Partnership

(Chief Planning Officer)

JOEL: Jewish Outreach,

Engagement and Leadership

(Chief Outreach Officer)

PlanningOutcomes

Campaign

EndowmentAffiliate

Relations

OtherGovernment

Relations/Ad Hoc

Community

Outreach

Community

Engagement andEducation

CommunityLeadership

Development andEmpowerment

Diagram 4

TheAreas of Community Development are those areas in which Federations continuedperformance are strategically important to the development of the community. In short, ifFederation did not exist, a high-performing community that sought to harness the efficientphilanthropic power of community fundraising and allocation would need to create anorganization like Federation to perform the task of coordinated community development. Withinthese areas are the two foundational aspects of Federation: financial resource development andcommunity planning and partnerships. These two activities are the core of what Federation doestoday and what it needs to do tomorrow. The designation of these areas as being of strategicimportance reinforces their significance, but it does not shield them from the need for critical and

strategic reevaluation.

Area of Community Development Financial Resource Development

As noted in the community assessment above, much work needs to be done to trulytransform Federations fundraising initiatives into a donor-centered operation. But in this area ofFederations operations, the donor/philanthropist truly is the customer and should be treated assuch. Resources should be allocated to donors on a basis of strategic need, with the appropriate


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emphasis on the development and further cultivation of philanthropists who are committed toJewish philanthropy. Donor development initiatives based on segmented customer approachesshould be the norm, and there should be wholesale initiatives to broaden the donor basis at alllevels. Three adjustments to Financial Resource Development can further enhance the donor-centered approach, while also developing community in a way that support other organizational

customer groups.

1. Development of a one ask strategy. Rather than approaching communityphilanthropists on a stand-alone basis, Federation needs to work with affiliate anddonors to develop a one ask strategy, where Federation, along withdevelopment representatives from affiliates/beneficiaries, engages the donor in adialogue in which there is not peer competition, but peer collaboration. Thisstrategy is one where donor development professionals operate on the basis ofmutual trust and communal coordination so that the large donors of thecommunity are not forced to pick and choose, but rather are provided acomprehensive opportunity to support Jewish Atlanta in ways that resonate withtheir passions. Many donors believe in the federated model, but even those thatdo often want to more deeply support certain areas of emphasis. A donor-centered approach that emphasizes the one ask strategy is still focusing on thedonor as the customer, but is recognizing the synergies of service to another partof its customer base, its affiliates/beneficiaries. Although the Legacy Campaignof Federation is a move in the right direction, this community has suffered from alack of progress towards a broad one ask strategy. It is time to make thatprogress a priority.

2. Reinforcing local focus while emphasizing global need. Our community needsgreater local investment in all areas. And it is important that Federations donor-centered strategy reinforces this need. Federation needs to dramatically

demonstrate how our community support will impact community services.Marketing materials and donor-facing messaging needs to be coordinated toreinforce this local emphasis. Additionally, as will be noted below, ourcommunity needs to revisit the percentages of community dollars that areallocated locally and internationally and make adjustments that reinforce the localemphasis. However, this does not mean that a donor-centered strategy shouldforgo emphasizing global Jewish need. Targeted international missions andfocused donor development would be utilized to create awareness of how dollarsraised locally make an impact internationally. An ultimate development of thisapproach is that Federation may need to revisit a strategy of allowingphilanthropists of all levels to allocate a portion of their gifts to domestic

initiatives or to international initiatives based on the outcome model. When thisinitiative was last tried, Federation did not have the outcomes allocations model.Now it does. It is time to revisit that experiment in light of new developmentsand the overall strategic goals of Federation.

3. Create Philanthropy Forums. Quite simply, Federation needs to continue toexpand the ways it communicates to its constituents at all levels andphilanthropist groupings. Within the Financial Resource Development area


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Areas of Community Development

Community Planning andPartnership

(Chief Planning Officer)

PlanningOutcomes

AffiliateRelations

Government

Relations/Ad Hoc

(where the donors are the customers), it needs to create an ongoing dialogue withits customers and prospective customers. And it needs to go where they are allyear, and not just during campaign. I propose that throughout the year, in differentparts of our community, Federation should hold philanthropy forums. Individualphilanthropists of all four categories should be engaged in a conversation about

our community needs and issues they believe should be addressed. Communitymembers should be frequently asked their opinions on ongoing issues of concernand given forums to talk openly about their needs. Like open mic nights invarious communities, these philanthropy forums will more regularly putFederation in touch with its customer base. And instead of simply asking forcharitable support, these dialogues will ask the questions, and yield the answersthat may end up giving the community much, much more.

In summary, in assuming a lead role in communal financial resource development,Federation needs to fulfill its strategically-important role of creating true communitydevelopment. However, to do so Federation needs to:

1. adopt new approaches to engaging its customers;

2. speak to community philanthropists in partnership with agencies and affiliates,rather than in competition with them;

3. tailor the donor-centered experience based on the passions of the donors, but alsowith a strategic realignment of its domestic and international emphasis; and

4. continue to create enhanced donor-centered dialogue in the community.

Area of Community Development Community Planning and Partnership

Another core Area of Community Development of Federation is its planning andallocations functions. Similar to the functions of Financial Resource Development, Federationneeds to continue to develop and refine its outcomes strategy and its implementation ofcommunity planning. Foremost, Community Planning and Partnership (CP&P) needs to developa more customer-facing strategy, recognizing that its core customers are a hybrid of thecommunity as a whole and the affiliates/beneficiaries and other outcome partners. Community


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philanthropists, while fundamental customers of the organization as a whole, are not the primarycustomer focus of the CP&P staff. As noted earlier in this paper, a key future role of CP&Pshould be to continue to refine and improve its outcome development process. This process willrequire continued vigilance in engaging partners, communicating with affiliates about needs, andleveraging efficiencies. But it will also require additional initiatives.

1. Externally Facilitated Community Planning and Team-Building Retreat. Theoutcomes process, as well as the significant growth of our community, has putsubstantial strain on the professional staff of all community organizations todeliver more higher quality services effectively impacting even more people in aneven more competitive resource development environment. This naturally hasresulted in increased opportunities for collaboration, but also for conflict. In theplanning area this is also true. We have incredibly talented professionalleadership and volunteers across all organizations, but they have often struggledto see the commonalities of their visions among the conflicting need forresources. Through CP&P, Federation is frequently the convening party ofcommunity partners which is its role but oftentimes by being the conveningparty, Federation doesnt allow for itself to be facilitated as well. Foundationsand mega-philanthropists, sensing the challenge created by incomplete orinefficient facilitation, oftentimes steps in to fill the void. These foundations andmega-philanthropists often are narrowly focused in their interests however, andthe narrow focus may exclude some community partners who should be part ofthe discussions. To address this issue, Federation, along with communityphilanthropists, should facilitate the development of a multi-day planning retreat,where community professionals and leaders convene to develop team-basedprofessional vision and partnership strategies. The goal of the retreat is not toidentify and develop community outcomes, but rather to build those keyrelationships that will empower more productive community planning in thefuture. And in that important team-building environment, Federation should sit atthe table, not at the head of the table.

2. Revaluation of The Split. Federations allocation of money from theCommunity Campaign has historically been split on a basis of approximately 59%of allocable dollars being distributed locally and 41% being allocatedinternationally. By almost all measures this has been a generous internationalallocation and exceeds the percentage allocation of almost all major Jewishcommunities in America. Given the growth of our community locally, and theincreasing financial resource need to service that community, it is time toreevaluate that split and make adjustments which, while respecting out overseas

commitments, would provide the community more dollars to address local needs.The revisiting of the split should be through a thoughtful process thatadequately benchmarks against other communities, but also recognizes theuniqueness of our own community. We should revisit, and appropriately adjust,the allocation split in the next 12 months, and do so in coordination with FinancialResource Developments refocus on local needs.


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Areas of Community Enrichment

JOEL: Jewish Outreach,Engagement and Leadership

(Chief Outreach Officer)

CommunityOutreach

CommunityEngagement and

Education

CommunityLeadership

Development and

Empowerment

3. Creation of Community Councils. In connection with certain initiatives outlinedbelow, CP&P should establish and maintain a number of community councilsthat are made up of individuals with common, geographic, demographic orpersonal interest areas. The community councils should be convened on a regularbasis to assess the needs of their respective communities, while also allowing for

a forum for Federation to gauge their feedback on certain community issues orinitiatives. These councils would be a grass roots way of engaging thecommunity in a planning dialogue and informing community leadership aboutneeds and opportunities. Along with the philanthropy forums discussed above,the community councils will allow for a broad and distributed means ofconnecting the community with the areas of community development on whichFederation is focused. They would also create significant and constant feedbackloops with respect to the success or limitations of Federations foci. Examples ofcommunity councils would be North Metro, East Cobb, Senior Council, Teen andYoung Adult Council, Parents of Day School Students and an Arts Council. Asdiscussed below, these councils would not only be ways to expand planning and

partnership initiatives, but would also be a part of an overall re-visioning ofFederation governance.

As with Financial Resource Development, CP&P is a strategically important area ofcommunity development for Federation and it needs to be improved if Federation is to continueto serve a valuable role in planning for Jewish Atlantas future. To do that Federation must takea customer-centric view of the community and in doing so, create deeper bonds of mutual trustand interdependence with community partners. By helping develop stronger community forumsfor the development of these bonds, Federation would strengthen its community partnerships(and reputation). By revisiting the allocations split Federation would be recognizing thechanging dynamics of its community, and by creating community councils Federation would beharnessing the insights, energy and ability of that community as well. Each of these steps isoverdue and necessary in moving our communitys planning and partnership progress forward.

A Two Part Model: Part II - Areas of Community Enrichment

The Areas of Community Development as described above are essentially the currentfocus of Federation. Federation also has engaged in various other initiatives: it has maintained

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the Community Relations Committee; it has explored initiatives in community leadership(although these leadership initiatives are largely focused on the philanthropic aspects ofleadership rather than leadership skills relating to organizational management and change); it hasconvened various groups of professionals and interest groups for selected educational events; andit has facilitated large community events; and it has convened large Jewish community events.

Each of these initiatives, though, has often been subject to the debate of the questions is thispart of Federations mission? or is this initiative a distraction from Federations key focus onfundraising? In many cases Federation leadership has answered those questions no and yesrespectively.

I propose that Federation has a second and equally important aspect of its mission

community enrichment. Federation is not simply a fundraising organization it is an

organization that has a fundamental role in community enrichment and outreach.

On this basis, Federation should be structured to create a significant emphasis oncommunity enrichment activities. And as detailed below, this structure should include theincorporation of substantial new initiatives, structural governance changes and professionalstaffing changes to demonstrate this emphasis. Federation is currently not equipped to operateas a community enrichment organization and as an organization that addresses the needs set forthin Part I of this paper, nor is it structured to remedy its own limitations as set forth in Part II ofthis paper. For it to remain relevant in the developing landscape of Jewish Atlanta, and for it tobe able to fulfill its mission relating to community development, it needs to transform itself intoan organization that can respond to and proactively address a limited set of needs of itscustomers the community.

Accordingly, Federation needs to have a part of its organization that is entirelycommunity-centered without respect to donor/philanthropist status or affiliate/communitypartner affiliation. This part of the organization needs to operate, in many respects, independent

of the resource development and community planning operations of Federation, with separatestrategies and measurements of success. TheseAreas of Community Enrichmentcan be groupedinto three categories each area relating to a need or needs addressed above.

One of the foundational aspects of the Areas of Community Enrichment is to focus onoutreach and engagement of the large percentage of Atlanta Jews that are not engaged incommunity. Federation is not suited to do this now, and the abandonment of its Greater Atlantastrategy of its Long-Range Plan demonstrated that lack of commitment in this areas. But whenoutreach and engagement is separated from a purely donor-centered strategy, there is potential tocreate new opportunities for success as well as independent metrics for measuring that success.Outreach should not be measured by whether an individual or family gives to Federation; it

should be measured by the number of ways or the meaningfulness of ways that person or familyis involved in the community. In the current model at Federation, the ultimate goal ofengagement is to develop a donor relationship. And quite honestly, Federation is not currentlypatient enough (philosophically and economically) to be focused on outreach without immediateor short-term donor development successes.

Separating community outreach into a separate part of Federation is fundamental tofixing this issue. The measurement of success for outreach should not be tied to the performance


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of the cards, but rather other objective criteria. Numbers relating to attendance, affiliation,community participation and engagement can be measured. Ultimately a communitysphilanthropic investment helps reflect the success of community outreach. But not in the shortterm. Federation needs to be in the outreach business for the longview of our communityssuccess not simply the short-term impact on its current campaign.

The importance of community enrichment and outreach is substantial enough that

it requires a new beginning with respect to Federations initiatives in this area. This new

beginning means not only a change in mindset, but also a change in structure.

Project JOEL An Overview

I propose restructuring Federation to create a new organizational center within Federationto parallel Federations Center for Jewish Philanthropy which, for the purposes of this paper, Iwill refer to as Project JOEL: Jewish Outreach, Engagement and Leadership.3 ProjectJOEL, as it is transformed into an organization component of Federation, will require thedevelopment of an appropriate professional and volunteer leadership structure. A separate

executive level position will need to be created to lead the organizations multiple initiatives incommunity outreach and enrichment, and this position will report to Federations CEO on equallevel with a Chief Development Officer and the Chief Planning Officer. Therefore, at theexecutive level of Federation, all three aspects of Federations customer base will be representedin high-level management: donor/philanthropists, affiliates/community partners and the broadercommunity as a whole. Similarly, Federation lay leadership will be restructured in parallelformats, with equal focus on the three areas of pe

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