Metro

SPREADING THE WEALTH

Peter Alter

Howard Niestein

Mark Lit

Michael Eizelman

8/ 4

2005

26

Andrew Echt

from page 25

79-year-old agency, with an $11 mil-
lion annual operating budget, has
been used to cuts in funding for sever-
al years.
"This is just another challenge for
us," Lit said. "We're very carefully
going through every line in the budg-
et. It's our goal to make cuts and to
make changes that won't affect the
quality of the membership."
• Southfield-based JVS received a
slight decrease in support funding
with a $1.06 million allocation, but
was given the go-ahead to set up its
own fund-raising mechanism for
three years.
"They could fund-raise across the
community and not just the Jewish
community," said Peter Alter,
Federation president. "They are able
to reach in a way that's unique, or just
about unique, among the agencies
across the community. Under other
circumstances, we knew that some
fund-raising would arguably take dol-
lars away from the Campaign, but, on
balance, we thought it was the smart
thing to do."
• The Jewish day schools received
the same allocation as last year, $2.09
million. Federation earmarked
$150,000 to seed a bonus program
that will match fund-raising dollar for
dollar and seeks funding partners to
grow this amount so that the schools
won't have to rely on higher commu-
nal allocations each year.
The day schools "have the smallest
constituency with the greatest need,"
Alter said. "If you were to look at the
budget and see who were the agencies
doing the most fund-raising historical-
ly, it would be the educational agen-
cies, including the campus Hillels and
the day schools."
• The supplemental afternoon
school scholarship fund decreased
$20,000 to $467,800, because of a
drop in total enrollment from 4,766
to 4,487 students, said Linda
Blumberg, Federation director of plan-
ning. "What will probably happen is
the cap for the scholarship will
increase because there are fewer kids,"
she said.
• Federation also raised the capital
needs reserve by 38 percent to
$545,000 for the upkeep and repair
of United Jewish Foundation of
Metropolitan Detroit-owned
properties.
"Traditionally, we allocated
$700,000 a year from the general fund
for capital needs — major mainte-
nance and repairs of buildings
throughout the community," said
Michael Eizelman. "Several years ago,

we cut that allocation dramatically.
We will need to do this [increase] on
an ongoing basis."
The money will go towards roof
replacements, paving, exterior work
and interior work such as replacing
the seating and stage of the Aaron
DeRoy Theatre at the West
Bloomfield JCC damaged by flooding.
Eizelman speculated that the
capital needs reserve would dry up
"within a couple of years" without
replenishment.

Up The Allocation Ladder

At the national level, Federation gave
$9.2 million to United Jewish
Communities — the umbrella for
North America's Jewish federations —
for Israel and Overseas programs.
Alter described why Federation
feels an obligation to support the
UJC: "There are close to 200 feder-
ated communities in America, of
which there are the big 19, and
then there is everybody else," Alter
said. "The Detroit Jewish commu-
nity is a leadership community and
perhaps brings more to the UJC
table. We provide our fair share to
provide for K'lal Yisroel. Everybody
benefits from that. It permits every
community to operate cohesively
and collectively in a way that I
think brings credit to the American
Jewish community."
The UJC is far from perfect, Alter
acknowledged. "I think Howard
Rieger, the UJC chairman, is on top
of the issues and wants to deal with
them. We are working with him to try
to deal with the areas that are lack-
ing."
Neistein cited some ways where the
UJC helps Detroit.
With "15 Federation missions and
exchanges with Israel scheduled for
next year, our office in Israel works
with UJC people in Israel in arranging
the logistics," Neistein said. "We are
also embarking on a population study
for the Detroit Jewish community,
and the UJC office is providing some
consultation in getting the
researchers."
He said UJC also helped provide
security assessment guidance and lob-
bied Congress on Medicaid.
Alter thanked community leaders
Evan Weiner and Dennis Bernard for
securing a $790,000 grant from
Michigan as part of the multicultural
line in the state budget. That amount
increased from $500,000 in 2004. It
will be spread among various agencies
that provide assistance to the commu-

nity at large.
"We are still learning how to work
with the state," Neistein said.
"They've been very supportive of the
kinds of things we're doing.
"Obviously, the conditions in the
state are very desperate relative to the
budget crisis," said Neistein, adding
that he was still confident that support
would continue.
"It is a challenge when you work
with agencies that depend on money
on a month-to-month basis," he said.

Wooing Donors

Federation's Andrew Echt, chief finan-
cial resource development officer, laid
out a campaign enhancement initia-
tive that will handle the major donors
— $10,000 and up — in a different,
holistic way, not just by taking a one-
year look with them.
"The common denominator is to
work with donors in much more of a
one-on-one, cultivated standpoint,
not just moving on and off the
Campaign highway," Echt said. "It's
an ongoing relationship. We have to
continue to educate them. We have to
educate their kids. We have to edu-
cate other family members in terms of
the total needs of this community and
the total opportunities they have to
meet the needs of this community.
That's the most critical piece. And
we'll begin implementing in the next
two to three weeks."
Alter remains optimistic in the near
term but realizes that expanding the
donor base is essential.
"We need to do better," he said.
"We especially need to do better
increasing our base. I think our
Fisher-level [mega] givers carry a dis-
proportionate share of the burden. It's
always kind of been that way. We'd
like to make it less so."
Optimism aside, Alter says
Federation will tinker with the
Campaign. "We're going to try to
make it even better, " he said.
"Everybody is on the right track.
Nothing could better reflect the com-
mitment to getting this done than by
doing it the right way."
To that end, he said, Lawrence
Jackier, the widely respected immedi-
ate past president of Federation, will
chair implementation of the
Campaign Enhancement Initiative
originally chaired by Robert Naftaly
and Linda Klein.
"Larry Jackier's appointment repre-
sents our community's unending com-
mitment to having the strongest possi-
ble Campaign," Alter said. E

