A Savage idea: Hazon founder envisions a shared space for young Jewish orgs
Nigel Savage, the founder and executive director of Hazon, is trying to create a shared work space for young Jewish non-profits.
The idea behind the space, which would be called "Makom Chadash," Hebrew for "New Place," is that these non-profits could cut overhead costs by moving in under one roof and sharing office infrastructure and support staff; they could also share expenses on fund raising and marketing staff.
"Imagine that there was one funder for all the young Jewish non-profits," Savage told me earlier this month when we sat down at the CAJE conference. "That funder would say, 'I think you guys are great, but why am I paying for 17 copiers? Why am I paying for 17 servers and 17 different pieces of accounting software? Not only do I require you to save on the cost side, I also want to see you guys leveraging the front side – cross-promoting, marketing together, staff training together and [working on] development together.'"
Savage's Hazon currently sublets space from the American Jewish World Service in a building on W. 36 St., between Fifth and Sixth avenues in Manhattan. He is eying a floor in the same building in an area that has become a corridor for Jewish non-profits.
The floor has space for about 52 staff members and could house between five and 10 Jewish organizations, he said.
Makom Chadash is a play on Bikkurim, an incubator for startup Jewish non-profits, that essentially provided them with office space and professional support.
But Makom Chadash would be for non-profits that have made it past the start-up phase and are now established – those between 3- and 25-years-old with budgets between $200,000 and $10 million. Participating groups would have to show signs of good governance and acceptance by the organized Jewish community, Savage said.
Savage estimates that Makom Chadash would cost around $8 million over the next 10 years in build-out expenses and rent.
About $5 million of that would come in rent paid by the organizations that move in, leaving the rest, about $300,000 a year, to be raised in subsidies.
He is looking for six funders to invest $50,000 per year, each. The Chais Family Foundation has signed on as an initial investor, and Savage hopes that the UJA-Federation of New York will become a funder as well.
But Savage is under a bit of a time crunch and will have to come up with his six investors in the next two or three months in order to obtain a lease on the space, he said.
Aside from sharing expenses, Savage thinks that the space could also provide a forum for sharing ideas and thoughts and for working together.
"There are tremendous opportunities for synergy," he said. "It will be a real indictment of the organized Jewish community if we are not able to make this happen."
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As the Jewish population in Louisville disperses, Jewish infrastructure is suffering
The Jewish community in Louisville, Ky., is struggling as population numbers decline and the Jewish community in Louisville becomes more dispersed, the Louisville Courier-Journal reports.
The Jewish population there dropped from 8,700 to 8,307 between 1991 and 2006, which has put pressure on the Jewish infrastructure in the area.
Louisville's only non-Orthodox day school recently closed, as did its only kosher restaurant. The local JCC has about 8,000 members, but only 38 percent are Jewish, and it recently closed its kosher cafe because of lack of demand. Several synagogues are discussing mergers simply to stay afloat. And, the local federation's annual campaign has remained stagnant over the past five years at about $2.8 million, the Courier-Journal reports.
The Fundermentalist's take: At the same time that the Louisville paper is reporting this story, several large-city federations, including those in New York and Baltimore, are reporting that they saw record gains in their fund raising last year. But, in the middle of the country, the situation in Louisville is more the norm than an aberration.
Population shift is a serious concern for smaller federations in the Midwest, especially, as Jews move away from Jewish communities that were small to start off with.
Perhaps it is time for the federation system to start considering some sort of domestic profit-sharing plan in which large city federation success could be used to help ease small city federation distress.
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Jewish charities in Britain are less transparent than most
The London Jewish Chronicle is reporting that Jewish charities are among the worst in Britain when it comes to being open and transparent.
An independent charity watchdog, Intelligent Giving, studied the reporting of 500 English charities and gave each a percentage score based on a number of criteria.
The 10 worst charities on the list were all Jewish, according to the Chronicle.
Adam Rothwell, director of IG, said: "Many of the Jewish charities have stayed at the bottom again this year, making them among the least transparent in the country. It is very disappointing."There are 10 Jewish charities scoring under 40 per cent, meaning they would make up the bottom 10 of all the 500 charities we have profiled this year."
Some of those scoring the worst included JNF, the Jewish Leaning Exchange, and the Oxford Centre for Jewish and Hebrew Studies.
The worst performer was Cosmon (Belz), which works to advance Orthodox Judaism. It scored just 20 per cent, a 30 per cent drop from last year.
Mr Rothwell explained: "It doesn't really take much effort to get over 60 per cent, so these charities are not taking transparency and openness very seriously.
"There's such a dearth of information about them and they are so reticent that it makes it look like they are trying to hide something."
Thanks to Dan at ejewishphilanthropy.com for pointing this one out.
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