The non-profit world is a business. Billions of dollars change hands, the tax write-offs to individuals and corporations are enormous. In an editorial this week, Rob Eshman of the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles writes about an Israeli non-profit that, in the post-Madoff world, finds itself needing to pare down, reduce overhead and cut back in order to survive. “To rebuild, [the organization] is zeroing in on those things it does best, that aren’t replicated elsewhere in the Jewish world.”
Support Canada Free Press
Eshman may not have meant to highlight the most important conclusion, so allow me to do so: When life is easy, we tend to take things for granted. When we are faced with adversity or challenges of some sort, we are forced to re-evaluate, change old habits, bring down the old guard and start anew. This is the time of change, and people, thus organizations, learn it the hard way. The long-term result is beneficial.
Due to its perceived scarcity, money is more valuable now than before. Mobilization of people should be by making them participate rather than asking them again and again for money. Fatigue and a feeling of saturation (“we have been asked enough”) act as detriments, participation is an energy booster. If they only look, organizations would find armies of willing volunteers, whose combined strength is much larger than the trickling of dollars that soon may dry up.
A new era has begun when “other people’s money” is treated a bit more cautiously than before. Jewish organizations have always been competing for the very same dollars, and many have been shifting focus according to fashion. Green Energy, Iran, Anti-Semitism, Israel-Hatred on Campuses, the Second War in Lebanon or more recently Operation Cast Lead, one holiday or another, organizations hop from one subject area to the next, instead of focusing on a narrow strip of excellence – that which they do best.
Some would claim that we need as much presence as possible on campuses, as many different organizations teaching Holocaust at schools, a more positive side of Israel shown, and so forth. If each organization would only focus on its core objective, possibly the little presence we have would be magnified and thus more effective.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center should focus on the Holocaust, Stand with Us on Israel advocacy on campuses, Camera, Honest Reporting, Memri, Palestinian Media Watch and The Israel Project on the media, the Anti-Defamation League on fighting bigotry and racism, the Jewish Federation on local social services, and so on. Very few organizations have been properly narrowly focused – Dr. Daniel Pipes, Steven Emerson, American Jewish Congress and ZOA to name a very select few. When money does not come easily, organizations go back to basics – a wonderful unintended remedy, a byproduct of the difficulties of the present time.
The New Great Depression in its very early stages is providing a dire warning: Improve now. Scale down. Become innovative. Excel. Become more efficient. Business as usual will see its demise and people and organizations will be held accountable. No one will be spared. The days of lack of responsibility are gone, a new era is being ushered in.
Ari Bussel is a reporter and an activist on behalf of Israel, the Jewish Homeland. Ari left Beverly Hills and came to Israel 13 weeks to work in Israel Diplomacy’s Front from Israel.