Federation raises $7.5 million through

Jews in the D

Federation Building

Community Collaboration Federation raises $7.5 million through COVID-19 emergency campaign.

JFMD

CORRIE COLF STAFF WRITER I n late March, the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit announced the development of its COVID-19 Emergency Campaign. The campaign has now hit its goal of $7.5 million.

The campaign was instituted to secure funds to ensure JFMD’s agencies and other organizations could continue to provide services to the community during the coronavirus pandemic.

At the same time, JFMD also started the COVID-19 Task Force, chaired by Matt Lester, incoming Federation president, and Dennis Bernard, incoming United Jewish Foundation Matt Lester president. The task force oversees the campaign, manages the allocation of the money received, and works with the agencies and organizations to determine best practices.

“The campaign has been Dennis Bernard an amazing success. We have raised approximately $7.5 million and the vast majority of that is from about 21 donors and was received in the first three to four weeks of the announcement,” Lester told the JN. “We are not actively soliciting and haven’t been for a few weeks now but there are some donations that continue to come in.”

One of the donors was the Max M. and Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation, which announced on April 15 that it was donating $1.6 million to leaders throughout Metro Detroit who were helping with immediate needs presented by COVID-19, including JFMD.

Before the campaign kicked off, Federation was helping its own agencies and non-Federation agencies to receive PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) loans from the federal government totaling $17.5 million so they could sustain themselves during the beginning of the pandemic.

Federation agencies include the Jewish Community Center, Tamarack Camps, Hillel Day School, Frankel Jewish Academy, Jewish Senior Life, JVS and more. NonFederation agencies include organizations like JARC and Kadima.

Once the money started coming in, JFMD said it immediately went to personal protective equipment (PPE) for senior housing and human service agencies. It then went to technology so some of the Jewish day schools could begin the transition to virtual learning.

“It also went to food organizations, including Yad Ezra, Meals on Wheels and more. A lot of money also went to support community mental health funding, such as Jewish Senior Life (JSL),” Bernard said. “It went for medical issues for the community; it went to support, for instance, hero pay at JARC homes and Kadima homes, or JVS clients in the community who had people with developmental disabilities so they could keep them employed.”

JFMD says it has spent less than $1 million of the money raised so far. It wants to ensure the funding can be extended for the long haul and is available for the foreseeable future.

“One of the subcommittees under the Emergency Task Force was agency assistance. The first priority for agency assistance was to make sure all of our agencies, not just Federation agencies, but all of our Jewish agencies in town were able to receive the help they needed,” Bernard said. “We don’t know how long this is going to last, so we have to make sure to stretch out our community resources.”

To determine how much money the agencies received, the allocation committee on the task force, made up of some of the people from foundations who provided funding, federation officers and led by Steven Ingber, chief operating officer at JFMD, put together a questionnaire for organizations requesting money to fill out.

The questionnaire included a dollar amount request, the reason it was needed, what it was going toward as well as what other sources of funding had been requested and how the organization was cutting costs. “Just about everyone who has been through this vetting process has been funded,” Bernard said.

The agency assistance committee and Federation also began instituting daily phone calls with 24 agencies throughout the community to begin to work together on sharing best practices, making sure everyone had enough PPE and was acting as one community.

“This community came together in its entirety, not just the 16 agencies or organizations under the Jewish Federation,” Lester said. “The entire Jewish community mobilized under the lead of our Federation.”

While there is no hard stop date for the campaign, the task force is making sure that the 2021 Annual Campaign, which kicks off in the fall, will not be undermined. Once the campaign reached $7.5 million, Federation stopped the formal asks for donations.

“We do not believe that this will have any effect on our annual campaign simply because many of the donors for the emergency campaign are our largest donors, some of whom are our foundations, who are positioned well to respond to this type of crisis,” Lester said.

The annual campaign, according to Ted Cohen, chief marketing officer at JFMD, “is and will always be the backbone of community welfare, and it will be even more so the case going forward. Giving to the annual campaign will achieve the same purpose, if not more.”

Lester foresees challenges ahead because of the pandemic and its aftermath.

“It remains to be seen how successful we are in meeting the challenges that come over the next coming weeks, months and maybe even years,” Lester said. “We need to continue to be incredibly collaborative, and that may be the signature word that defines this effort.”

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Jewish Family Service is pleased to welcome incoming members of our Board of Directors

KAREN BERGER KAREN

GOLDBERG DRIGGS JERI FISHMAN

DAVID GACH ALLAN GALE VERNE ROYAL

Thank you to the board members who will be rolling off this year. We appreciate your time, talents and dedication in supporting the mission of Jewish Family Service.