Money Woes
Recession's ripples felt by
nonprofits across the country.
Jacob Berkman
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
New York
D
espite some optimistic
reports that the recession
might be nearing an end, the
philanthropic and nonprofit worlds
He iust now starting to come to grips
with what the past year of plummeting
fundraising has wrought.
1,Vili le the Jewish community has seen
its major national organizations and
smaller local agencies lay of hundreds
of employees over the past year in efforts
to make quick budget cuts, most of them
were done before the real carnage of the
recession was even realized.
Recent reports by the Fou_ndation
Center, which keeps tabs on more than
2,000 private foundations, and Charity
Navigator, an online watchdog group, have
esthmated that foundations have seen on
average a 30 percent dip in their assets
over the past year and are cuffing their
giving across the board. As a result, non-
profits are in full cutback mode.
It will be months or years u_ntil the full
effect that the recession has had on the
Jewish landscape becomes clear. But a
quick scan last week of Jewish newspa-
pers from across the county provides a
glimpse of the damage:
• The 92nd Street Y on Manhattan's
Upper East Side is going ahead with
plans to shutter its 30,000-volume
Buttenweiser Library in favor of a
smaller, lower-cost, high-tech resource
center. The move apparently will save
the Y 5375,000 per year, according to an
e-mail from the organization's executive
director, Sol Adler.
The closure has caused an outrage,
especially among the Y's older patrons,
with critics last week collecting 340 signa-
tures for a petition against the move. But
the Y shows no signs of backing down.
• The Washington, D.C., JCC is set
to lose 60 percent of a S250,000 grant
that it received from the Neighborhood
Investment Fund for a variety of arts
ventures. The cuts come as Washington,
D.C., wrestles with a 5666 million bud-
get deficit.
And the JCC could lose even more
funding for its senior citizens' pro-
grams. The center already lost a 560,000
grant from the Iona Senior Services, a
Washington-based elderly advocacy
organization that paid for the center's
senior kosher lunch program.
"There still probably will be addi-
tional cuts," said Mark Spira. the JCL's
chief development officer. "There may
be no grants [at all] this year, and we
need to plan for that eventualitv:
• The Jewish community in
Milwaukee has been hit by a double
\s-hammv, as the Milwaukee Jewish
Federation has seen a decrease in dona-
tions and the area's largest Jewish foun-
dation, the Helen Bader Foundation,
has said it will significantly cut its
funding of Jewish proiects. The foun-
dation, which is set to spend all of its
money by 2019, will continue to fund
an endowment for Jewish day schools
in Milwaukee and give 5500,000 per
Year to the scholarship fund it started.
To meet those cornmitments, how-
ever, it will stop grants to other local
Jewish proiects and will close its Jewish
Life and Learning program area. Ln
addition, the foundation will stop fund-
ing its Israel-based Early Childhood
Development grants and close its Israel
office at the end of 2009.
The Bader Foundation, which has
given 528 million over the past 17
years to Jewish causes, will honor the
multi-year grants that it has already
announced, including 35 million com-
mitted to causes in Israel over the next
10 years.
• The Jewish Federation of Greater
Phoenix took in 13 percent less in 2008
than it did in 2007, raising S5.2 million
for its annual campaign. The campaign
shortfall has led to budget cuts, as the
federation will allocate 53.8 million to
the Jewish community — including
51.9 million to local projects and S1.6
to the federation system's overseas part-
ners, the Jewish Agency for Israel and
the American Jewish Joint Distribution
Committee.
The allocation to the area's JFCS
Center for Senior Enrichment was
reduced from S136,773 last year to
S33,589 this year. The federation cut
its allocation for overseas proiects run
by the Jewish Agency for Israel and the
American Jewish Joint Distribution
Committee from S1.97 million last year
to 51.59 million this year.
This article was adapted from JTA's philan-
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