I sat in on the board meetings Wednesday of the UJA-Federation of New York. In general, I’m probably one of the few people around that actually finds board meetings to be edge-of-the-seat interesting, but the federation’s CEO John Ruskay said something that particularly struck me.
Federation officials had just explained to the board some of the details of the organization’s Connect to Care initiative. In response to the recession, the federation had taken $6 million from its endowment and set up full-service counseling and resource centers in each of New York’s five boroughs and in two of its suburbs for newly unemployed and newly financially stressed Jews. Some 4,000 people have used the centers since they opened three months ago.
And of course they told the stories of a handful of the centers’ clients — stories of the newly unemployed, their savings depleted, houses in foreclosure, unable to pay their bills or buy groceries. It was a heart-wrenching reminder that many Jews are as stuck in this financial muck as the rest of the country.
"To hear these stories and to be able to offer a solution," Ruskay said, "this is privilege."
It’s something that I’ve been thinking a lot about since the meeting, and it’s something I will think about even more on Yom Kippur.
Yes, each and every board member of the UJA-Federation is privileged. These are some of the wealthiest givers to the wealthiest federation in the wealthiest city in the wealthiest country in the world. When we Americans think of the privileged class, most of us think of people like these.
But Ruskay was talking about something different when he used the word privilege — he meant that it is a privilege to be in a position to help someone else.
That is something that many of us in the nonprofit world lose sight of, especially these days when we are all stressed and wondering if our next paycheck will clear, if we’ll have jobs next month or, on the other side of the 990 tax form, if we’ll be able to write the same check this year as we could last year. And yes, that certainly does take some of the joy out of doing good. But, in the end, perhaps this is not really supposed to be about joy; it’s about having a rare opportunity that would be a shame to waste, regardless of our tough circumstances.
I’m not a philanthropist the way UJA-Federation board members are. Far from it. I’m a journalist who writes about nonprofits, and who hopes that the information that I pass on to you helps you do your jobs or helps you make informed decisions when you decide where you want to give away your money.
It is a privilege to do so.
So as the eve of Yom Kippur nears, I wish upon all of us a better year this year.
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