Role for Jewish Federations Will Shrink, Report Predicts

Annual fund-raising campaigns by Jewish federations are likely to play a less and less significant role in Jewish philanthropy as donors increase their giving to other Jewish organizations and to non-Jewish causes, according to a new report.

Giving to the annual campaigns of Jewish federations has been flat in recent years, and the total number of donors to such campaigns has been declining, according to the report, by the Institute for Jewish and Community Research, in San Francisco.

But overall giving to Jewish organizations has been increasing, as Jewish entrepreneurs create more charities that aren’t part of the federation system, the report says.

In addition, it says, Jews — especially younger ones — are slightly more likely to donate to secular charities than to Jewish groups.

“American Jews have become an integral part of the philanthropic mainstream,” the report states, “donating large sums to a variety of institutions and organizations in the realms of education, health, human services, culture, politics, and others.”

Those organizations include groups from which Jews were once excluded because of anti-Semitism, the report says.

The report was written by Gary Tobin, the institute’s director. He based his conclusions on previously published studies of Jewish giving and data gathered through his work as a consultant to Jewish federations, foundations, and donors.

Gifts to Special Funds

While giving to Jewish federations’ annual campaigns has stagnated, federations’ total revenue has risen in recent years because donors have made more gifts to special campaigns, endowments, and other special funds than in the past, the report says.

The shift from unrestricted giving to the use of donor-advised funds, which allow contributors to recommend where their money should go, and other forms of restricted giving parallels the recent experiences of United Ways, community foundations, and other organizations, it says.

As more and more Jews become assimilated into American culture, Jewish charities are finding it increasingly difficult to communicate their needs to prospective donors, according to the report.

Past Jewish philanthropy was guided by what the report calls a “crisis mentality” stemming from anti-Semitism and other “hostile external forces” influencing Jews. But today a weakening sense of Jewish identity stemming from broad-scale social changes is causing Jewish donors to be less inclined to give to Jewish causes, the report says.

‘Weakening Jewish Identity’

“Concerns about maintaining a separate identity may not engender as much passion or financial support as past crises, because many Jews may not see weakening Jewish identity as a crisis at all,” the report says.

It adds: “Few Jews want to segregate themselves completely from American society, except for some ultra-Orthodox groups. It is difficult to sustain a sense of crisis when the vast majority of Jews do not want to live in entirely Jewish neighborhoods or go to entirely Jewish schools.”

Jewish religious organizations, schools, camps, and other nonprofit groups might be better served by promoting the positive effects of participation in their organizations, rather than focusing on participation as a method to fight “the imminent demise of American Jewry,” the report concludes.

Copies of the report, titled “The Transition of Communal Values and Behavior in Jewish Philanthropy,” are available online at http://www.usc.edu/schools/sppd/philanthropy/
forum/papers/papers.html.