JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Obama: We need innovative nonprofits

By Jacob Berkman · July 1, 2009

it gets nonprofity around the seven minute mark.

the Prez:

If anyone is out there waiting for the government to solve all of their problems, they are going to be disappointed. Because ultimately the best solutions don’t come from the top down, from Washington, they come from the bottom up.

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Loose (Madoff) Change: 10 more to be charged, but not Ruth and should charities return the cash?

By Jacob Berkman · July 1, 2009

This is what's happening in the Me(adoff)dia today:

• The Fed plans on charging 10 of Bernard Madoff’s associates with crimes associated with Madoff, reports AP video (above).
• Bloomberg has some more about who might get charged.
• There is no way Madoff acted alone, says Barron’s.
• Despite what others may believe, the Feds have said that Ruth Madoff has done nothing wrong and won’t be charged, according to Gawker.
• The New York Times Dealbook asks if nonprofits should be asked to repay the money that they received from ill-gotten Madoff profits – or better yet, should they do it themselves on their own volition.
• The WSJ’s blog asks a more pragmatic question – who will buy Bernie’s houses?
• The Houston Chronicle asks why was Bernie Madoff treated so much more harshly than Bernie Ebbers?
• And yet another question from The Independent – where is all the money Madoff stole?
• Jay Ruderman of the Ruderman Family Foundation suggests how philanthropy could work in the post-Madoff world in an Op-ed for the Jerusalem Post.
• This is what $65 billion looks like if it were translated into time, from Tablet.

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Remembering when I had a thing for Mrs. Madoff …

By Ami Eden · July 1, 2009

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen reflects on his time at Far Rockaway High School with Bernie Madoff and the swindler's future wife:

I was in the Class of 1958, two years behind Bernie, but in the same class as his wife, Ruth. She was my friend, or so our yearbook strongly suggests, although my memory of our friendship no longer speaks to me. I remember her only as really cute, an object of desire across a classroom or another. But in the yearbook she wrote a long inscription. It seems I teased her. It seems I kidded her. She forgave me all that and ended by writing that I would "meet Bernie at the prom -- and I guarantee he will say hello."

Hello, Bernie. Goodbye, Bernie. ...

When I tell people about my relationship with Bernie and Ruth, they sometimes gasp. When I show them the yearbook, they hold it as if it's a poisonous snake. My yearbook is the closest most people will ever come to evil. Bernie is evil, which is what the judge said Monday in sentencing him to 150 years in jail. The yearbook has become like a Nazi artifact. It is compelling. It is repulsive. It is about evil.

Read the full story.

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UJC: Campaign pledges are down

By Jacob Berkman · June 30, 2009

The 2008-2009 fiscal year for the United Jewish Communities, the north American Jewish federation system, ended June 30. Here are some numbers:

• In 2008, the combined campaigns of all 144 Jewish federeations brought in $912 million.
• That is up slightly from the 2007 total of $911 million.
• The number of donors to the federations fell, but the size of each gift by someone who gave the previous year grew by 1.3 percent.
• The women’s campaign brought in $183 million of the total.
• Canadian federations brought in $100 million. The previous year Canadian federations brought in more than $140 million.

The campaign pledges so far for 2009-2010 are not good, as giving to the federations is down significantly:

• So far the federations have received $608 million in pledges.
• At the same time last year the federations had taken in $714 million.
• So far the federations have seen the size of the average gift drop by 4.3 percent.
• The UJC is projecting a 13 percent decrease in fund raising for this year, whereas at the same time last year giving was up 3.1 percent.

The numbers are a bit complicated, because each federation ends its campaign at a different time. Larger federations tend to use a fiscal year (July 1-June 30), while smaller federations use a calendar year.

Some federations this year are also keeping their campaign open another 30-60 days to offset losses from 2008, so the numbers are not yet complete.

“Obviously we are not surprised,” the UJC’s spokesman, Joe Berkofsky, told The Fundermentalist. “We expected there to be an economic impact, on the Jewish philanthropic landscape generally, and federations and other organizations are being impacted just like other nonprofits being impacted. That said, historically there is good data. There have been studies over time by Giving USA, The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University and The Chronicle of Philanthropy that say that while economic and financial insecurity affect giving, the Jewish federation system has suffered less during times of economic upheaval.”

Berkofsky said that during the economic downturn of 1990-1991, the federations were able to raise $600 million for Operation Exodus to bring Jews out of the former Soviet Union. And in 2001-2002, during the post 9/11 economic downturn, the federations raised $300 million for the first Israel Emergency Campaign to help Israel during the intifada.

“We have historic data to show that trend-wise we have reason to be optimistic,” Berkofsky said. “We are generally taking an approach that the philanthropic landscape is changing, and organizations have to rethink their core business and fund raising strategies. Federations will look to be more efficient, collaborate more closely, share cost and resources and be more strategic in the way they plan and deliver services.”

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Madoff gets 150 years (update)

By Jacob Berkman · June 29, 2009

Bernard Madoff has been sentenced to 150 years in jail, the maximum sentence allowed for his crimes.

U.S. Judge Denny Chin gave sentence to Madoff, who had confessed to bilking investors in his Ponzi scheme from up to $65 billion, this morning at around 11:30.

He called Madoff’s crimes “staggering,” according to the Washington Post.

The 150 year sentence is what prosecutors in the case had been asking for, while Madoff’s lawyers had asked for leniency and a 12-year sentence for the 71 year old Madoff.

Chin noted that not one of Madoff’s friends or family members asked for leniency for Madoff and that Madoff had not fully cooperated in the investigation into his crime, according to the Post.

Before the sentencing, nine of Madoff's victims addressed the court. Here is some of the account from Bloomberg news.

Madoff “discarded me like road kill,” said Mirian Siegman, of Stamford, Connecticut, today at the hearing in Manhattan. She now relies on food stamps, collecting recyclable bottles and digging through Dumpsters.

Nine victims told their stories to U.S. District Judge Denny Chin, who will sentence Madoff today. Madoff’s lawyer has recommended a sentence of 12 years, while prosecutors urge 150. The federal probation service recommended 50 years, twice the penalty for the convicted chief executives of Enron Corp. and WorldCom Inc.

Madoff “shattered my dreams” when he lost her mother’s inheritance, said Sharon Lissauer, a model who lives in Manhattan. Victim Sheryl Weinstein, of Manhattan, said she was a longtime friend of the money manager, calling him “a beast” for losing her investment.

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WaPost’s The Ticker blog: Madoff says he thought he could get out of it

By Jacob Berkman · June 29, 2009

From the Washington Post's Ticker blog, which is live posting from the Madoff trial:

The sentencing hearing of confessed multi-billlion-dollar Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff is underway now in Manhattan.

Madoff is now making his statement to the court and began by saying: "I cannot offer you an excuse for my behavior," CNBC is reporting.

He said, "I thought I could get out of it. The harder I tried to get out of it, the deeper the hole. I could not accept for once in my life I had failed. I was responsible for a great deal of suffering and pain. I am in torment....This is a horrible guilt to live with."

Then Madoff, who had had his back to nine of his victims in the court, turned to them and said, "I am sorry. I know that doesn't help you."

He said: "How can you excuse deceiving a wife of 50 years?...How do you excuse deceiving investors and 200 employees" and lying to his sons.

"I made a terrible mistake," Madoff said, adding that he "left a legacy of shame to my family and my grandchidren."

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The day you’ve been waiting for: The Madoff sentencing

By Jacob Berkman · June 29, 2009

Here's the news story from the NY Times.

Looks like prosecutors set the over/under for jail term at 150 years.

And from the AP via the Boston Globe Madoff will get one last perk before heading to the slammer presumably fo good:

NEW YORK - Bernard Madoff will get one last creature comfort before he is sentenced today, probably to spend the rest of his days in prison. The judge has given him permission to don his own clothes for the hearing.

Jack Cutter is wearing something special, too, these days: a butcher’s smock. The 80-year-old from Longmont, Colo., had to go back to work after he lost his retirement savings in Madoff’s swindle. He used to be a petroleum engineer. Now he spends his weekdays at a Safeway supermarket. The gig pays $8.64 per hour.

“It’s a tough job,’’ he said. “Eight hours on my feet.’’ Madoff’s fraud wiped out thousands of people around the globe. Not all were millionaires. Teachers, farmers, mechanics, and other middle-class folk are among the victims. Many had been enjoying retirement. Now, with nest eggs gone, they are struggling to pay the bills.

Reuters has live coverage.

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Adapting to the recession: Nextbook

By Jacob Berkman · June 29, 2009

On the surface, the Jewish media world got a flashy newish addition in early June when Nextbook.org’s online literary publication relaunched as the beefed-up online magazine Tablet. But look a little deeper and the nonprofit world may have gotten a lesson in how an organization can cut costs and better serve its mission in these difficult economic times.

The organization Nextbook was founded in 2003 by Mem Bernstein’s Keren Keshet Foundation to promote Jewish literacy and support Jewish literature, culture and ideas. (It is now funded primarily by the Jewish Communal Fund of New York, the massive donor-advised fund to which Keren Keshet contributes $16 million per year, according to its latest 990 tax filing available). Nextbook forged a partnership with Schocken Books to publish an ongoing series of high-quality Jewish books and hooked up with the American Library Association to put together the "Let’s Talk About It: Jewish Literature" reading series. It also launched its online publication, Nextbook.org.

About a year ago, Nextbook shut down its offices in Seattle and Washington, D.C., through which it ran the American Library Association series, and the rethinking took hold when the organization hired the former arts and culture editor of the Forward, Alana Newhouse, to oversee the online publication in 2008.

“When Alana joined us, we focused on what we could do to harness the power of the web, and our main focus is to promote Jewish consciousness through Jewish culture,” the organization's executive director, Morton Landowne, told JTA’s The Fundermentalist blog. “We wanted to find a way to wholesale our offerings.”

The major step in the revamping process came earlier this month when Nextbook.org took on new life as Tablet, transforming from a site that rarely veered from culture and books to an incarnation that is more of a feature-driven magazine -- still covering arts, but also focusing on news and politics. While Nextbook Press will continue to publish books, it has curtailed temporarily its partnership with the library association and will focus more on creating discourse on Jewish culture through Tablet, Landowne said.

Newhouse has recruited an uber-talented full-time staff that includes executive editor Jesse Oxfeld, formerly an editor at New York Magazine and Gawker, as well as a number of former staffers from the Forward, the now funderless Jewcy.com and The Jerusalem Post. Among the stable of high-profile columnists and contributing writers are Jeffrey Goldberg, Seth Lipsky, Victor Navasky, Daphne Merkin, Ruth Wisse and Leon Wieseltier. With the beefed-up staff, Tablet has expanded its editorial reach and is now writing heavily on politics, religion, news and pop culture while still maintaining its emphasis on the arts.

“It was let’s examine our mission statement and see how we can continue to uphold it with less money," Landowne said. "And we just felt the money would be better spent and we would reach more people if we built on the foundation we had with the Nextbook Web site."

Tablet’s launch created something of a buzz in the mainstream press, garnering write-ups on The New York Times' blog and in the Atlantic Monthly’s online edition. But behind the buzz over the editorial teams is a story about bang for the buck, as Nextbook has cut its $4.5 million budget by roughly 30 percent, according to Landowne.

“There shouldn’t be the impression that we sunk a big load of money into this,” Newhouse told The Fundermentalist.

Landowne said that Nextbook laid off no staffers in cutting the budget, that he looked at the strengths and weaknesses of what he had and outlined clearly what was expected of those on the payroll. A couple staffers left voluntarily afterward. Also, instead of paying for outside Web hosting, Landowne he hired an in-house webmaster.

“These are new positions, not new money,” he said. “We didn’t add anything really. We were just trying to find a different way to get at the same objective.”

On the editorial side, Newhouse is bucking something of a trend in journalism: Instead of trying to reduce costs by relying on freelancers rather than staff writers, she decided to cut her freelance budget significantly to hire more staffers. The thinking, Newhouse said, was that she could expect more output in a variety of forms from staffers than she could from freelancers, and in trying to define Tablet’s editorial voice, she felt she needed a consistent core group of talent.

“We were creating a new magazine that had a personality and a voice," Newhouse said, "and in order to do that, we needed people on staff who stew in the same juices and who understand the heart and soul of the magazine and who are part of the brainstorming."

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The Forward to become Zeek magazine’s Web host

By Jacob Berkman · June 26, 2009

The Forward will become the Web host for Zeek magazine, according to mediabistro.

Zeek, which had been hosted by Jewcy.com until it lost its funders this winter, had been seeking another partner and apparently found one in the Forward.

The two entities will remain editorially independent, the Forward’s editor, Jane Eisner, told mediabistro's Fishbowlny:

Under the terms of the agreement, the Forward will host Zeek on its site, but both publications will remain independent.

"Zeek will have a channel or microsite on our site," Eisner explained. "They will control all of the content and keep up their relationships with all their writers. We will at times try to collaborate if we think there are things that will be interesting to our readers, but we're going to try not to obviously overlap our content. We're also trying to do some programming with them in New York and around the country in the fall, I hope."

As far as Eisner is concerned, pairing with Zeek was win-win for the Forward. The paper, which focuses mostly on complex, investigative stories that affect the Jewish community, was looking to attract a younger audience and expand its reach.

"The reason that Zeek made so much sense for us is because we have been developing this idea of becoming a portal for the Jewish community," Eisner said. "Until very recently most of the content on our site was generated by the Forward. We really want to move forward into a time when we can be partnering with like-minded enterprises, like Zeek and host their content or share content on our site as well. Readers will know they are getting quality content and we will be providing a service to the community."
 

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Loose Change: No allocations cut for Baltimore, $500k for the AJC, Madoff victims talk

By Jacob Berkman · June 26, 2009

Hot off the Jewish presses:

• The Associated: Jewish Federation of Baltimore saw its income drop by $1.7 million, but it did not cut allocations, according to the Baltimore Jewish Times.
• The victims of Bernie Madoff speak out, as the Forward has solicited letters from those bilked by Bernie.
• A debate stirs around a poll that shows that one-third of Americans in some way blame Jews for the economic downturn, according to the New York Jewish Week.
• Though some say that the economic downturn may be slowing, nonprofits in the Washington area have yet to see their pain ease and are still struggling with their budgets, reports the Washington Jewish Week.
• The Ford Foundation gave the American Jewish Committee a $500,000 grant to help create new pathways to citizenship for immigrants, reports the New Jersey Jewish News.
• The SEC formally charged Stanley Chais with implication in the Madoff sheme, according to the LA Jewish Journal’s God Blog.
• Jewish organizations in New Jersey are stoked about the new money they are getting from the Office of Homeland Security, reports the New Jersey Jewish Standard.
• The Hebrew Free Loan Association will open a chapter in Milwaukee, according to the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle. The paper also has more on the Helen Bader Foundation’s $10 million endowment for Jewish day school education.
• After the longstanding Board of Rabbis in Philadelphia lost its funding from the area’s federation and its leader, another board is cropping up, according to the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent.

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