Tag Archives: allocations

COMMENTS ON THE JCA’S SENIOR SURVEY FROM A CERTIFIED SENIOR ADVISOR

31 Saturday May 2014

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I have a much better grip on the responses I have received to this blog and I think it is fair to say that criticism of the JCA is like touching that third rail.  I have addressed my distress regarding this in one of my comments, and it is very sad.  I had a lengthy discussion with Ken Berger from Charity Navigator and he had quite a few suggestions that we here at the blog will be putting into practice in the coming months in an effort to encourage greater transparency and openness on the part of the JCA.  What is sad is that the JFED/JCA is not alone, there are thousands of 501c3’s that end up squandering everything and one of the common features about all of them is that no one spoke up.  As the Once-ler remarked in The Lorax, “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”  I would not dare to compare myself to the Once-ler, but you get the drift.

I had a fair amount of push-back after my last touch of the third rail regarding the role of Ms. Friebaum as the consultant to the JCA who has worked on the Senior project for the past twelve months, according to the Jewish News:

“The Jewish Community Association of Greater Phoenix is in the process of conducting a study to help identify the needs of the Valley’s Jewish senior citizens. The next step is a community survey, which launches June 1.

For the past year, Janice Friebaum, a senior services consultant hired by the Association, has gathered information about senior care, including demographics and existing services for seniors, to help determine what needs are not currently being met. About 80 percent of the research, including interviews with a large number of service providers, clergy, agency personnel and community members; focus groups; and the development of the community survey, has been completed, according to Friebaum.”

My point was that Ms. Friebaum, who I am certain is quite accomplished in the many diverse fields she has worked in, has no specific training in this field, and therefore, given the executive turnover at the JCA with the people that Stuart Wachs has hired in executive positions, it is reasonable to question this particular consultant’s qualifications, at least on paper.  As an aside, despite what was written in the Jewish News, I spoke with two very senior Rabbis of two large congregations and they have never spoken with Ms. Friebaum, never met with her, and had no idea who she is or that she was undertaking such a serious task.  To avoid that third rail, let’s give the benefit of the doubt to the JCA and assume that these two Rabbis just missed their phone messages.

On Thursday I asked a Certified Senior Advisor (CSA) to review the JCA’s survey as my gift to the JCA to make sure they are getting what they are paying for.  I asked the CSA for an analysis of the JCA’s survey, which is available in an hour on June 1st.  The analysis I received was the result of a relatively quick review of the survey, not a comprehensive assessment.  More suggestions would likely emerge if I asked for a deeper study of the survey.

According to the Society of Certified Senior Advisors:

“Anyone working with older adults needs the CSA certification. Today’s aging population is growing exponentially – and the need for qualified professionals to meet the multi-faceted needs of older adults and their families is greater than ever. The Certified Senior Advisor (CSA)® is the leading certification for professionals seeking to supplement their knowledge and adjust to the rapidly changing age demographic by understanding the multiple processes of aging.  Earning the CSA®certification requires individuals to pass a rigorous exam, uphold the highest ethical standards, and complete recertification continuing education requirements.”

“What makes a Certified Senior Advisor (CSA)® exceptional is their application of the knowledge gained through the CSA Working with Seniors course combined with their professional experience. CSAs are committed to ethical behavior to benefit senior clients and their families. The CSA who builds their health, social, legal and financial knowledge in aging through continuing education and forms a strong network of strategic partnerships will act in concert on the behalf of the seniors they serve using a unified approach demonstrating the difference of holding the CSA certification.”

Here is the link to the JCA’s Senior Survey   http://tinyurl.com/lwjtm7g  

Comments on the JCA’s Senior Survey from a Certified Senior Advisor

While making a survey excessively long and complex can negatively impact the response rate, the lack of adequate questions will result in too little useful information for the survey to provide meaningful results.  As a result consideration should be given to doing some of the surveying by interviewing seniors rather than asking more questions in an online survey.  The survey in its current form is sophomoric and too elementary to provide the needed information.  Suggested additional questions have been added to obtain more usable information in order to formulate a plan to provide needed services for seniors in the future and to evaluate services currently being provided to local seniors.

Question #1 Your Age?

This would be a place to add data about how people feel about their health at their current age, asking if the person considers themselves to be in good health for their age and if the answer is no, then drill down to what their medical condition is, permanent or temporary, is it progressive and will they see themselves as needing additional care as a result of this in the future. If they answer that they think they will need additional care they should also be asked about time frames for additional care and contingency plans and their financial ability to deal with the situation.  Question #3 Current Marital Status, could be combined here and then ask the age of their partner and health status of their partner to get a more clear picture of the needs of this person or persons or family unit.

Questions #3 Current Marital Status? and #4 Current Living Situations?

This needs a drill down to find out if this living situation is by choice or only due to necessity and whether the person is happy or unhappy with their current situation.  If they are unhappy, there could be a question about what kind of living situation would make that better and what is needed to make that situation feasible (financial resources, etc). One could also ask if better options were available in the Jewish community, i.e., availability of Jewish senior housing in the community would that make a difference?  Many other Jewish communities have Jewish senior housing on the campus of the JCC, one of the best being St. Louis.

Question #5 Do you live in Greater Phoenix for more than 4 months in a year?

There is quite a bit more to know about this question.  One needs to drill down to see what may or may not change with that living situation i.e. will they become year round residents.  That way one can get a better idea of why they do or do not live here year round and whether that is going to change in the future so as to anticipate further need for services.

Question #6 Zip Code of your residence in Greater Phoenix?

The drill down on this question should include inquiries about length of residence in this zip code and plans to move in the future?  Another drill down should question the safety of the neighborhood the person lives in, whether the person feels stuck there and possibly unsafe?  Some additional valuable information related to zip code would be whether they have access to the necessary Jewish resources, the availability of transportation and whether the person still drives.

Question #8 What is your employment status?

There is a lot more important information to be obtained in this question than just a simple yes or no answer.  If people are currently employed it would be helpful to ascertain whether they are happy with their situation?  Would they prefer more or less employment, are they employed at a level that uses their skills and education?  Are they commuting excessively?  If they answer that they have been laid off and/or have lost their job it would be good to find out how long this unemployment has been in place and ask if they need assistance (i.e JFCS Job Counseling Services).  This question would also be a great place to obtain information about people’s willingness to help other seniors with their needs for Aging in Place, to determine what extra volunteer capacity may be available in the community.

Question #9 Do you have adult children? and Question #10 If yes, does one or more live in Phoenix?

Question #9 is a simple yes or no question which tells absolutely nothing.  One needs to drill down from there to find out whether or not there is a good relationship with these children?  Often, today, seniors are helping their own adult children, so the question needs to be asked, do you provide assistance to your children?  The other question that needs to be asked is can you count on these children to assist you?  And then this needs to be defined further in terms of on a regular basis, only in an emergency situation, financially?  Questions #9 and #10 need to combined into a question that drills down and asks about who helps whom, who needs help more; parents or children?  In this day and age a lot of seniors help support children who have lost jobs and need help given today’s much less forgiving job market and the existence of so many lower paying and part time positions than in the past.

Question #11 and #12 This starts a section entitled Caregiver Questions and the first question is a simple yes or no to – Do you presently have caregiving responsibilities.

At this point if the answer is yes it should add a question about the effect that this caregiving has on the senior.  Is the senior able to handle the extra responsibility comfortably or is it overly stressful and are they in need of outside assistance?  There are also seniors raising grandchildren due to their own impaired adult children.  Are these caregiving duties local or long distance?  Is this situation temporary due to short term illness or do they think it will be more permanent?  Does the person need respite assistance that they are not getting?

Questions #13 and #14 are the same simplistic questions about anticipating becoming a caregiver in the future with no further information asked for.  They need the same kind of clarification as questions #11 and #12.

Question #15 Begins a section labeled Adult Needs and Outreach

This is again an anemic section that does not obtain nearly the information that is needed.  The question asks what is the best way to inform you of programs and services offered for people 55+?  Before they even begin this question which includes email as one of the ways of being reached, the whole question of computer literacy should be approached systematically.  There should be a question do you own a computer and use email on a regular basis?  Can you use a computer without the help of your children or grandchildren?  Then there should be a check list of some major computer applications and social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Skype, Facetime to determine if they use these or not.  The question should be asked if they would like to learn basic computer literacy.  Also whether the senior is able to  use a smartphone?

Question #16 Which older adult services do you currently utilize most or may use in the future?

The question needs to be two distinct sets of questions.  One needs to know what services the senior is using now and what services they anticipate needing in the future.  Also the question should determine from which providers they are currently obtaining services, how are needs being met, is it from within or outside the Jewish community?  Transportation is a huge issue for seniors and should be probed more in depth.

Question #17 What do you believe are the older adult service needs that are the most important for our community to address now?

Asks for the person to simply check off up to five items for what services are needed, without asking for commentary about the need behind the request and how prevalent a need this is in the community at large.

Question #18 Ask for thoughts or comments?

It is good to have a commentary section, however what could be more valuable would be a question about what programs, activities, organizations or institutions have you experienced in other Jewish communities that could be replicated here.  What were those model programs you would like to see in the Phoenix area and what communities did they exist in?

There is quite a bit more that could be said about the survey and what kind of methodology will be used to evaluate it, but this has been a brief critique of the JCA’s Senior Survey.

Well, I think that is all that we have for the moment.  Please feel free to comment, send in material for us to post (as long as it does not involve commentary regarding my mother’s virtue) and know that we are busying ourselves here with an action plan for the future.

THE JCA’S REPORT CARD – FULL OF EMBARRASSINGLY FAILED GRADES

25 Sunday May 2014

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A Gallup poll study is hardly necessary to conclude that the performance of the Jewish Community Association (JCA) and the local Jewish Federation before it has made the Greater Phoenix Jewish Community one of the most underperforming Jewish communities in the nation. Even without hard data it would be difficult to find any knowledgeable and engaged Jew in the area who would contradict the premise that the JCA’s fundraising ability as reflected in its annual Campaign for Jewish Needs is embarrassingly meager. And as a result of such shameful results the JCA’s financial support of critically important and unmet community needs has been nothing short of pauperous and misery.

But despite what most knowledgeable people have intuited to be a failed fundraising machine for decades it should not be left to conjecture and assumption to indict the lay and professional leaders of the JCA for their shameful performance as fundraisers. That indictment deserves to be supported by facts and analysis by an irrefutable source… data that the local JCA itself has provided to an authoritative national study published by the North American Jewish Data Bank in cooperation with the JCA’s own umbrella organization, the Jewish Federations of North America.

A November 2013 study Comparisons of Jewish Communities – A Compendium of Tables and Bar Charts was prepared by the very distinguished Dr. Ira Sheskin, Director of the Jewish Demography Project at the University of Miami. The study contains comparative data on virtually every aspect of American Jewish demographics and behaviors in a 36 chapter report. But the one chapter that analyzes the relative fundraising performance of Federation study participants is found in Section 29 Donations to Jewish Federations. And the data is both revealing and chilling regarding the Greater Phoenix Jewish community. Data that the JCA has understandably been eager to keep out of public view. And data that JCA leaders are constantly trying to dodge and excuse as not relevant. When it comes to this data and its implications the JCA has done more spinning of this data than a school full of children with Hanukah dreidels.

According to the introduction of the report: “The compendium is a single source of tables and bar charts designed to provide a comparative context for understanding American Jewish communities. It is intended for local Jewish communities seeking to compare themselves to others as well as for researchers, teachers and students of North American Jewry. In short, it is an invaluable tool that is based on self-reported data by local Federations.”­­

The entire 67-page Section 29 Donations to Jewish Federations can be found online at: https://tinyurl.com/nbp6j77 . Here are just a few highlights, or perhaps it is better to describe them as lowlights from this important benchmark study.

  • Phoenix ranks 48 out of 54 participating communities when measuring the number of households who donated to the local Jewish Federation in the last reporting year. Phoenix reports that only 25% of Jewish households donated to the JCA while eight cities report that between 50% to 61% of their households donated.
  • 71% of Jewish households in the Phoenix area do not contribute to ANY Jewish Federation which explodes the myth that many Phoenix Jews give to Federations in cities where they have a second home or where they emigrated from. Of the 34 communities reporting in this area only two cities (Las Vegas and Seattle) had a worse performance.
  • Of 44 communities reporting the number of Jewish households which do not support ANY Jewish charity, Phoenix reports that 49% of its community falls into the group that do not support any Jewish charity. Only four communities report a worse percentage of support for Jewish charities.
  • Perhaps one of the most shameful statistics is the average gift per total Jewish households in a community to its local Federation campaign. Phoenix ranked 50 out of 53 reporting cities with the average gift per household at an appalling $65. The ten Federations with the largest average household gift to their campaign are: Detroit $968; Tidewater (VA) $778; Charlotte $753; Minneapolis $731; Cleveland $716; Baltimore $617; Pittsburgh $613; Milwaukee $599; Richmond $582; Columbus $561. Tucson reports an average gift per Jewish household of $254.
  • A related piece of data shows the number of households and the total size of the Federation campaign in each community. In this chart Phoenix reports 44,000 households and a campaign total of $2,863,000. The cities with the closest number of households and their campaign totals are: Denver 47,500 households and $6,040,000; San Diego 46,000 households and $6,135,000; Essex-Morris (NJ) 44,500 households and $19,684,000; Baltimore 42,500 households and $26,241,000; Cleveland 38,300 households and $27,411,000; Detroit 30,000 households and $29,051,000; Miami 54,000 households and $21,695,000.
  • Communities with a much smaller number of Jewish households but with relatively remarkable robust annual Federation campaign totals include: Tidewater (VA) 5,400 households and $4,202,000; Charlotte 4,000 households and $3,013,00; Minneapolis 13,850 households and $10,131,000; Pittsburgh 20,900 households and $12,805,000; Milwaukee $10,400 households and $$6,232,000; Richmond 5,000 households and $$2,946,000; Columbus 11,878 households and $$6,658,000; Lehigh Valley (PA) 4,000 households and $2,176,000; St. Paul 4,700 households and $2,278,000; San Antonio 4,500 households and $1,883,000; Cincinnati 12,500 households and $5,111,000; Rochester 10,230 and $4,133,000; St. Louis 24,600 and $9,288,000; Jacksonville 6,700 and $2,327,000; Hartford 14,800 households and $4,684,000; New Haven 11,000 and $2,906,000; Seattle 22,490 households and $4,907,000 and Tucson 13,400 households and $3,400,000.
  • One of the charts in which Phoenix is notably absent measures “Familiarity with the Local Federation”. 37 communities responded with a range of 20% to 60% of local Jewish households reporting that they are not at all aware of the Federation. The fact that Phoenix didn’t report indicates that the local JCA is completely out of touch with what the broader Jewish population in the Valley thinks about the JCA or if they even know it exists.
  • And the last piece of data that speaks volumes about the disastrous market condition of the local JCA is the chart that measures the “Perception of the Local Federation”. In this chart, 34 communities report a range of 93% to 68% of local households that regard their perception of the Federation as Excellent or Good. And once again, the Phoenix JCA did not report leaving one to conclude that they are clueless as to the qualitative perceptions of their local community about their organization.

There is considerably more data available in this study but in no case does Phoenix ever report statistics that are exemplary or commendable. And there are at least 100 other Federation communities which did not even participate in the analysis so it is difficult to say how Phoenix would compare if the report was complete and comprehensive.

What can be concluded from this is that the JCA, and the Federation before it, have been woefully underperforming organizations in the past, they continue to show their inability to motivate and engage the community today and it is highly unlikely that they will be able to engender sufficient trust and confidence to lead Phoenix to become a high performing Jewish community in the future. The only thing that might change the JCA’s failing trajectory is to eliminate it completely, let the dust settle, and convene as a community to take stock in what the best way forward might be to create a vibrant and thriving Jewish community.

An apology and the unfortunate truth about the JCA’s 2013 Campaign and its 2014 Allocations

21 Monday Apr 2014

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When I first started this blog, it was in response to the outrageous behavior of the Jewish Tuition Organization and the manner in which they allocated money.  The blog ebbed and flowed with the vicissitudes of the mismanagement of our Jewish leaders, reaching an apex with the poorly thought out and hastily announced merger of what was left of the Jess Schwartz Academy and Pardes Jewish Day School.  My attention then drifted to the behavior of the Jewish Federation and their relentless and pernicious mismanagement of the future of the Jewish Community, highlighting the interlocking directorate that existed between the JCC and the Jewish Federation.  Now that those two poorly governed entities have merged, it will be a bit easier to shine a very bright light on what continues to be a threat to the existence of Phoenix’s Jewish Community, or at least their financial assets.  My apology is for an over reliance on invective and sarcasm which diminished the impact of my message.  The blog could have been more effective, could have really helped bring about change, and I squandered an opportunity to highlight the malfeasance of what is now the JCA, and things have gotten worse.  I will not make the same error twice.

This blog had a great following once, with readership hovering around 10,000 visits per month, and I am committed to publishing the same critical analysis with less sarcasm, less invective and opening the blog for people to contribute their own articles, anonymously or with attribution.  So without further delay, here is my first story of the “new” and “improved” blog.

The Unfortunate Truth about the JCA’s 2013 Campaign and its 2014 Allocations

I have been trying to get a copy of the JCA’s IRS 990′s to really learn what has been happening there, and they are not available on either Guidestar or Charity Navigator, so I am relying on information on the allocations by the JCA that were recently published by the Jewish News article on March 26 entitled “ $1.3M Allocated to Local Programs.” and on a Commentary published in the Jewish News on April 16 entitled “Community should increase help for Jewish day schools” both of which included data on the JCA’s 2013 annual fundraising campaign and their 2014 allocations.

ANALYSIS OF THE JCA’S 2013 CAMPAIGN AND ITS 2014 ALLOCATIONS

The JCA reported in the March 27, 2014 Jewish News that its 2013 campaign raised $3.2 million.  Of this amount, $338,208 was donor designated and thus not available for allocation by the JCA.  It should be noted that many of the donors who make designated gifts are “double dipping” by making a restricted gift to the JCA and getting donor credit for that contribution while at the same time channeling support to the Jewish causes of their choice.  Through this plan these donors are in essence getting credit or kavod from two organizations for the same gift.

It is my understanding  that approximately $500,000 of the JCA campaign total comes from  endowment funds created at the Jewish Community Foundation by donors interested in providing a perpetual income stream to the JCA.  While reported as a part of the total campaign, this amount is received by the JCA automatically each year from the Foundation resulting in no development efforts or expenses to be expended by the JCA.  This means that the actual money raised in the campaign through the current efforts of staff and volunteers is approximately $500,000 less than the amount reported.

The 2013 campaign of $3.2 million less the designated gifts resulted in $2,861,792 of allocable support over which the JCA has full grant-making discretion. From the allocable amount of $2,861,792 the JCA allocated $250,000 to Israel or 8.7% of the total allocable amount.

After the $250,000 allocated to Israel there was $2,611,792 available for the support of local causes in the Greater Phoenix Jewish Community.  This $2,611,792 was allocated as follows:

ALLOCATION % OF LOCAL ALLOCABLE DOLLARS PURPOSE
$99,000 3.80% Jewish Day School Education
($165/student)
$525,000 20.10% Valley of the Sun JCC
$78,000 2.90% Bureau of Jewish Education
$33,000 1.20% Council of Jewish with Special
Needs
$80,000 3% Hillel at ASU
$259,000 9.90% Jewish Family and Children’s
Service
$81,000 3.10% East Valley Jewish Community
Center
$3,000 0.10% Arizona Jewish Historical
Society
$1,000 0.03% Chabad ASU
$6,500 0.20% Friendship Circle
$3,500 0.10% Jewish Student Union
$7,000 0.20% Phoenix Jewish Film Festival
$5,000 0.10% Jewish Arizonans on Campus
$15,000 0.50% Jewish Free Loan
$5,500 0.10% Jewish Genetic Diseases Center
$5,000 0.10% Kivel
$7,500 0.20% Smile on Seniors
$22,500 0.80% Valley Beit Midrash
$5,000 0.10% BBYO
$50,000 1.90% Israel Center
$9,000 0.30% Israeli Camp Counsellors

Of the total allocable dollars available for JCA grants, approx. 54.2% was allocated and approx. 45.8% was retained by the JCA for its own operating costs, overhead and undisclosed programs.

COMMENTARY

I could wax on forever about the wisdom of propping up the campus and the JCC, and whether it is prudent to be spending JCA dollars to do that, but here is what it boils down to.  Give a dollar to the JCA and about half winds up benefitting Jewish charitable causes.  Presuming that donors are OK with the agencies getting allocations and the way in which the pie is divided, the idea that your dollar is diminished by so much and has such minimal impact begs the question about whether the JCA is the most effective way of supporting the community.  Another way of saying this is that it costs more than $1,196,200.73 dollars for the JCA to operate or to raise $1.6 million dollars.  Generally speaking, Charity Navigator or Guidestar would rate this performance as failing.  General and administrative expenses greater than 10% would raise eyebrows, so general and administrative expenses of 45.8% for every dollar donated means that there is only a possibility of 54.2 percent of the money you donate ever getting to the organizations who need it.  If you donated the money directly to the organizations you wanted to support, your money would go twice as far.

Consider the donor who has a Donor Advised Fund  at the  Jewish Community Foundation.  Their dollar contributed to their fund actually grew by more than 19% last year through prudent investment management.  So they now have $1.20 to give and that $1.20 can be granted to  any charitable organization where the donor feels the need is greatest.

So it boils down to effectiveness, efficiency and impact and when you look at it that way, giving to the JCA is just not a smart business decision for donors who really want to make a difference.

PS – Special thanks to my research and accounting colleagues who did the heavy lifting here – MG