Fund Shortage is Hindering Valued Agencies, Says Karpf

School first because it is the only institution in the country providing the special training necessary for Jewish social work, and second because there is little doubt that if the School went out of existence it would not be long before the sources of students would be dried up for the local schools.

Yet this School, which is the servant of the Jewish agencies, throughout the country which takes its students from and distributes its graduates to all parts of the country, an institution whose standards and quality of work are beyond question receives but a small portion of its support from federations and welfare funds. I can state authoritatively that less than twenty per cent of its inadequate budget comes from the federations and that almost half of that sum comes from one federation.

DO FUNDS RECIPROCATE

With this picture of what federations are doing for the national agencies and what the national agencies are doing for federations, we may well ask whether federations and weleare funds are doing their duty by the national agencies. Moreover, can federations which are contributing no more, I think, than about fifteen per cent of the budgets of the national agencies on the average, assume that they have the last say and that they are the final arbiters of the fate of the national agencies?

In all my experience I have never known the federations to show any concern about the welfare of the national agencies. I have known numerous instances where federations reduced their appropriations to national agencies far beyond the reductions to local organizations. I have known only one instance where a federation (the Cleveland Federation) increased its appropriation to a national agency without pressure being brought to bear upon it by that agency. How can the federations except the national agencies to have confidence in their good will toward them?

BAR GROUP BARGAINING

This is an age of collective bargaining. Nevertheless, collective bargaining was literally refused the national agencies about a year and a half ago by the National Conference of Federations and Welfare Funds. The national agencies are ready to co-operate in an effort toward coordinating and planning for the financial needs of the national agencies. But thus far little has been done by the federations to make this possible. Planning has not been done with the national agencies but for them. They have thus far not been taken into the confidence of the Council of Federations.

In the preparation for this article I sent out a letter to the various national agencies asking them what they would like me to say. I am not including all that they wanted me to say. It would not be in the interest of that in which we are all interested were I to do this. But I can say that the national agencies feel that the day must come when everybody will realize that federations cannot be at the same time prosecutor, judge and executioner, with respect to the national agencies; that although this depression has brought a great deal of change in local agencies and national agencies, it has practically meant nothing so far as a reorientation of federations is concerned; that the time must come when federations and Jewish communities throughout the country will recognize that a community organization must be created to which the federation will be accountable so that the purse strings will not dominate and will not control Jewish community organization and development in the United States.

Some slight beginning along these lines have already been made. If they are development, then it will not be a question of federations against national agencies or national agencies against federations. It will be a question rather of how best to create and develop a common Jewish life and an all-embracing Jewish community in this country. In this task the national agencies are eager to co-operate with the federations and with the local agencies.