UJA of Greater New York. Federation of Jewish Philanthropies Unify Their Annual Fund-raising Drives

With the traditional l’chayim toast, drinking Israeli wine, officials of the United Jewish Appeal of Greater New York and the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies officially announced today they have permanently unified their annual fund-raising drives. Until the historic merger. New York City was the only city in the United States to have separates campaigns for the local community and the UJA.

Laurence A. Tisch, president of the New York UJA who is chairman of the 30-member board for the campaign, said that “by combining our forces we can do a better job to raise the money needed to support the people who need support” in New York City, Westchester Country and Long Island as well as Israel and the test of the world. Mayor Abraham Beame, who was at the press conference announcing the merger, noted that the two groups were probably the “greatest fund-raising organizations” in the United States and said “I wish you well.”

Tisch noted that after the Yom Kippur War, the two groups ran a combined $280 million drive in which donors could still mark which organization would receive their contributions. Now all the funds will go to the joint campaign and will then be allocated to Federation and UJA. William Resenwald, campaign board president and honorary chairman of the New York UJA board of governors, noted, however, that donors will still be able to give separately to the Israel Emergency Fund.

COMBINED DRIVE WILL BE MORE EFFICIENT

Tisch said the most important gain by the merger is that volunteers will be able to see more people during a nine to ten-month cam paign. thus raising more funds. He noted that 90 percent of the volunteer solicitors for the two groups had worked in both campaigns in the past. He said that the combined drive would more efficient and the consolidation of two staffs would result in an administrative savings of $1.5 to $2 million a year.

The fund-raising goal for the new drive will be set by the board July 31, Tisch said. Lawrence B. Buttenwieser, immediate past president of FJP. is campaign chairman. Ernest W. Michel, of UJA, is executive vice-president and campaign director; and Sanford Solender. of FJP. is executive vice-president.

Solender explained that the minimum allocation for the FJP for the first two years of the merged campaign will be based on the FJP’s net income from the 1972 drive plus the percentage increase since then given by 13 cities in the Large City Budgeting Conference to the local communities. He estimated this at $18.4 million in the new campaign.

The campaign headquarters which is at the Greater New York UJA offices was picketed during the press conference by members of the Association of Jewish Anti-Poverty Workers who repeated an earlier charge that the Federation has not been meeting the needs of the 400,000 poor Jews in New York, most of them elderly. This charge had been refuted earlier by Solender in a lengthy statement.