July 19, 2011 | 12:03 am

Accountability -The Next Big Jewish Idea

Posted by Pini Herman

Is This Labor That Is Valued?

The Federation reported to the JTA that TNBJI cost $40K and I claimed that it cost $2 million.  We’re really not that far apart.

The Federation says that apart from staffing costs…....it spent only $40K.

I said that when you calculate staffing and labor costs and the cost of submitting a proposal…...it comes to $2 million.

The major divergence is in accounting.  I count the staffing, labor and opportunity costs of all who were engaged with the TNBJI contest and the Federation does not.

Several journalists asked me how I came up with my estimate of $2 million

Jewish Communal Cost=306 Ideas submitted X 1.5 persons per idea X 60 hours to develop proposal X $60 @hr grant development = $1,652,400.00

Federation Costs=306 Ideas submitted X 16 hrs staff time X $80 @hr= $391,680

[Estimated Community Costs] $1,652,400 + $391,680 [Estimated Federation Cost] = $2,044,080 [Estimated Total]

The contest ran for 143 days.  The federation reports that it “engaged 100,000 people in conversation to say what they thought.”  The federation stated budget put the cost of each person engaged at 40 cents.  If Federation staff cost (of a modest $80 per hour) are considered cost per contest engaged person is $4. If estimated community costs are included, the cost per engaged person is $20.

An argument may be made that Federation staff gets paid anyhow, no matter what they do, and the staff costs can’t be accounted, attributed or allocated to a specific project such as TNBJI.  Such lack of accountability is afforded to few organizations.

Conversely, if the work of contest invitees is valued by the Federation at $0, and it assumes that there is no cost to others, only free crowd-sourced labor.  No consideration is given to hundreds of talented Jewish persons lost opportunities to seek other funding,  for housework, childcare, elder-care and volunteer work and other ways to occupying submitters time such as paid labor or leisure. 

The outcome value claimed by the federation, is in what it describes as “engagement” and the presentation of ideas. TNBJI contest costs were described by the federation as: “in addition to the $100,000 prize and staff time, the contest cost the organization about $40,000, including online advertising, videos and printed materials.”

Aside from staff time and the $100,000 prize, the federation represents the cost of each engaged person at forty cents. A strong case can be made that a truer cost of an “engaged person” in the context of this contest was $20.  That’s what I like to thing my time is worth.

Whether it was forty cents or fifty times as much, it ultimately comes out of the Jewish community’s limited resources that might be allocated in a wiser manner.

Pini Herman is immediate past President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area. .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) pini00003@gmail.com

July 13, 2011 | 4:52 pm

Craigslist Sampling by Federation for Next Big Jewish Idea - $2 million

Posted by Pini Herman

.............Launchbox.........Where Are You?

$100,000 in direct and in-kind resources to the TNBJI winner has been announced. Launchbox.  Its a perhaps laudable program of delivering a box of Orthodox oriented content to to the lesser-practicing Jew to launch them rightward in the continuum of Jewish identity and practice.

$100,000 to Chabad might have been a bit more efficient.  $100,000 buys much more when channeled through a large existing organization than when its channeled through a start-up organization. A lot gets eaten up in start-up costs.

A competition was created. The competitors had to dig into their own pockets to compete. Even the in the book of Esther, the king bore the costs of primping the beauty contestants.

This is the equivalent of displaying a bag of money in the street and making the needy fill out forms as they swarm to reach it. The money bag target is so amorphous and vague, that forgotten is that its the Federation’s mission to research and plan so that money can be distributed in a planful manner.

The cash honeypot was modest, $100,000 for the Federation, an organization with a $40,000,000 yearly budget,  Federation staff easily burned through that amount of money in a few months of their TNBJI overhead.

The applicants spent at least $1.7 million in kind and cash pursuing the $100,000 and the Jewish Federation of Greater LA will have conservatively expended $0.3 million to give away the $100,000 to the winner, Launchbox.

The use of information gathered from unsuccessful applicants for a study is way to use administrative data.  I call it “Craigslist Sampling.” The cost of information provision is borne by hopeful applicants.  The crowd of applicants provided this data about what they thought was important enough to spend their meager resources on.  Unfortunately the other data in the Federation’s possession regarding community votes and judges votes is, so far, secret.

The 306 applicants were classified into an average two or more categories by the Federation on its TNBJI website.  Community and Jewish Identity came out on top as the most popular themes of The Next Big Jewish Idea applicants. Interfaith, Health & Fitness, College, and Special Needs were the least popular. Israel was ranked in the middle.

Rather than the enticing Craigslist-like Internet come on, “Work From Home,” the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles used the siren call of “Work From An Office in the Jewish Federation building.” Individuals grasping for legitimacy of a real office and a real budget in these recessionary times and Jewish agencies grasping at a way to make up for cuts in Federation funding stuffed a lot of electronic envelopes.

If the Federation doesn’t have any more information about communal needs than its TNBJI applicants, then everyone is in the dark.  TV game show logic sets in. TNBJI is described by the media as an open submissions contest with a $100,000 prize.  The judging process is tantalizing long, but on TV, more transparent. 

The light that legitimate Jewish communal needs research would provide is missing. Jewish communal Leadership does not mean keeping the lights off in a dark room and having the only box of matches around.

Most responsible Jewish communities have known, since the 1920s, having valid actionable information is like paying the light bill.

Pini Herman is immediate past President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area. .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) pini00003@gmail.com

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June 29, 2011 | 9:02 am

The Next Big? Jewish Idea?

Posted by Pini Herman

A new Jewish Paradigm?

The LA Jewish Federation is about to announce the winner of The Next Big Jewish Idea. 

Innovation, innovation, innovation is the mantra.  Jewish social service agencies and providers in LA are having their historical funding from the Federation reduced, greatly reduced or eliminated.

Bob Goldfarb, president of the Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity,  puts innovation in context in “Innovation and Responsibilty”

Whom does Jewish innovation serve? It’s a question that needs closer attention as the sector continues to grow. According to a recent report, The Jewish Innovation Economy, this sector “is more focused on Jewish identity and belonging, along with religious expression, than on social services and large-scale institutional action.” That’s markedly different from Federations, which typically have a primary commitment to caring for Jews in need.

I fear, that the current paradigm shift is: Rather than serve the needy, the innovators see themselves, and people they know and are like them, as in need of the organizations they are developing to actualize where they see their place in the world.

Our LA Jewish Federation is marching bravely into the new Jewish Innovation world as Jay Sanderson, Federation president, heralded his view of The Jewish Innovation Economy study.

Goldfarb describes the findings of The Jewish Innovation Economy

These data confirm the emergence of a new class of Jews defined by disproportionate access to communal resources. As several attest in the study, they often use their advantages to pursue their own interests. One speaks of “the drive to create a Jewish community that I would want to participate in myself.”

Goldfarb points out the possibility of a reverse Robin Hood.  Resources from services to the needy being diverted to the well-off.

If the innovation sector displaces older communal structures, the question of whom it serves becomes even more urgent. Here is a sector spending $200,000,000 a year on projects directed by a privileged group of leaders, yet with social services and human services glaringly underrepresented. This would have been a good time to correct that imbalance by recommending incentives to take care of the helpless and the needy among us.

Pini Herman is immediate past President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area. .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) pini00003@gmail.com

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June 27, 2011 | 11:14 pm

Facebook - a Jewish Home Away From Home

Posted by Pini Herman

Fruit stands next?

The big survey story in June was the Foreskin Protectors swarming the Demographic Duo circumcision survey and thus revealing a bit about their lifetsyle and ethics. Nothing surprising. A few loud extremists in a media echo chamber. Foreskin Protectors to the Fore in Jewish Journal Blog Survey and Superiors” Court our Protection from Circumcisions were the workhorses of that topic.

At this rate of response, I would have to leave on the 7th billion man blog on for another week to get a desired forty respondents on its survey.  The majority of sentiment is that it is unlikely that Judaism will be popularly adopted in the world.  The minority view was that Judaism is somewhat likely to gain popular adoption, in order of likelihood in Mexico, South America, Africa, Russia and finally China. See Survey.

A Mexican conversion trip log by Rabbi Daniel Mehlman put bones and sinew on the phenomenon. No missionary work there, the potential Jews by choice are pretty much shunned by the traditional post-Conquistador Mexican Jewish community.

We’re decreasing population-wise in the past 10 years was the consensus of the few Jews who responded to Left out of the Picture, Looking at Our Navels blog.

Will Facebook Save Israel / American-Jewish Relations? I came out against sir and lady bountiful exotic social service tourism and railed against the lack of attention to local needs. On the survey only one in five hadn’t been to Israel and predictably the majority who had traveled to Israel had done so privately, not as part of an organized Jewish group.  Most people who had been to Israel acquired Israeli Facebook “friends.” Most friended Israelis met on private trips, but a fifth did so on organized trips.

Again, as in two non-survey blogs, I took the Jewish Federation to task for not undertaking a population survey since 1996, 15 years ago.

My foray into the death penalty only elicited respondents who were for the death penalty, all three of them in the The $308 million You Saved Calfornia Taxpayers

In Facebook’s Goodness Shines Upon Jews. Community awareness is big.  Only a tenth of respondents didn’t know the names of neighbors who lived close to them.  This is not Sweden.  Two-thirds of responders were users of Facebook.  Almost like Jewish homeownership rates.

2 to 3 hours on Facebook on the last 24 hours was the largest group of respondents with only a tenth spending less than an hour in the past day.

Pini Herman serves as President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area. .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) pini00003@gmail.com

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June 26, 2011 | 12:18 am

Big in Facebook, Jews lose face on National Geographic’s 7th Billion Typical Man

Posted by Pini Herman

Can you locate a Jewish zit?

Jews may not be increasing, everybody else seems to be. Minority babies in the U.S. are now aborn the majority. That was old news in LA hospitals for years.  Its lucky for us in LA, because in a quarter of all US counties there are more coffins than cradles now.

My world is largely defined by my monthly dose of National Geographic Society (NGS) magazine.

Responses so far

While Jews are such a great presence on the virtual world of social networking sites, we were airbrushed off in the NGS March 2011 magazine graphic of the typical 7th billion man.  Jews could have rated a bit over 120 of the seven thousand little person figures that comprise this picture.

I’m looking for a Jewish mole on the face of the world at seven billion.  At least NGS could have given us a pimple.  Jews don’t even rate mention on the religion chart.

Our coreligionists have adopted some really cute Chinese baby girls. Now, with many Jewishly well educated, some may grow up to be the next Jewish Aimee Semple McPhersons of China.  As Sister Aimee said:

With God, I can do all things! But with God and you, and the people who you can interest, by the grace of God, we’re gonna cover the world!

Pini Herman serves as President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area. .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

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June 24, 2011 | 4:31 pm

Circumcision Survey shows Intactivists Pretty Limp

Posted by Pini Herman

So far, what is in for this blog’s ongoing web survey,  is that Intactivists, or as I like to call them, the Foreskin Protectors have predictably skewed the survey the against circumcision.

What is surprising is the amount of zeal and energy some put into survey. During some periods exceeding over a fifty percent response rate of all who opened the link to the Demographic Duo blog.

Other than the actual responses, only the time of response is captured. I can describe the Foreskin Protector respondents as voting early and very often.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the same ethic probably applied to their signature gathering for the petitions to put their initiative on the ballot in Santa Monica and San Francisco. 

This is further evidence that this is a pretty small group. The Foreskin protectors have created a media tempest in a teapot.  I don’t foresee them gaining a lot of traction and getting very much popular support in the near term.  If Intactivists had more popular support, the swarm on this survey would have been greater. Melt the server, they didn’t.

Taken from the results spreadsheet: Of 180 responses so far, some lonely person probably put in an all-nighter with 27 responses (15 percent of the total) coming in one night from 9 pm to about 7 am the next morning :

6/21/2011 20:40:11
6/21/2011 21:00:17
6/21/2011 21:24:28
6/21/2011 21:26:36
6/21/2011 21:27:24
6/21/2011 22:08:15
6/21/2011 22:45:09
6/21/2011 23:45:12
6/22/2011 1:08:00
6/22/2011 1:35:50
6/22/2011 1:36:53
6/22/2011 1:37:28
6/22/2011 3:16:14
6/22/2011 3:44:14
6/22/2011 3:44:53
6/22/2011 3:45:06
6/22/2011 3:52:44
6/22/2011 3:59:47
6/22/2011 3:59:59
6/22/2011 4:15:49
6/22/2011 5:09:52
6/22/2011 5:22:57
6/22/2011 5:25:24
6/22/2011 5:34:09
6/22/2011 6:14:13
6/22/2011 6:17:52
6/22/2011 6:37:21
6/22/2011 6:42:01
6/22/2011 6:44:24

Pini Herman serves as President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area.

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June 23, 2011 | 11:45 pm

Left out of the Picture, Looking at Our Navels

Posted by Pini Herman

We're in there somewhere.

Today’s LA Times lead article headlines a “strong increase” in the past decade in non-traditional families such as single parent families, unmarried partners and and same-sex partners.  Whats happening with the Jews? The census doesn’t capture information on religion because of strictures of Church/State separation.  That’s a good thing.

Whats bad is that the Jewish community has no idea of whether anything has changed in more than 14 years.  While Thomas Jefferson’s decennial US census creates a new vision of reality, current Jewish communal policy and planning is based on anecdotes and assumptions colored by Anetevka.

So, Jewish community, study something cheap and easy, say Jewish start-up organizations. All the information can be gathered from the Internet. No messy, time-consuming interviews with thousands of plain old people.

The trumpeted study of Jewish non-profit organizational start-ups found dearth of social service organizations among the start-ups featured in the survey. 

A study co-author Shawn Landres said,

Jews already do social service work quite well and the impact of a new start up might be limited. Second, although the new generation of Jewish start-ups might not be focusing on social service provision in their hometowns, many individuals and organizations are doing important work in the developing world.

It is more fun to get on an jet and be the photogenic exotic abroad and the brave returning hero at home.  Its more messy to deal with violent couple living nearby or the festering wounds that can’t find adequate treatment or facilities locally.

Its no wonder that the Jewish injunction is “The poor of your city, first.”  If no one ever looks, through an organized scientific survey, to see if there are such Jewish people around, then its easy to look elsewhere for challenges and sexier funding opportunities.

Federation President Jay Sanderson, who moderated the panel, said it would be difficult for start-ups to compete with larger organizations — like the one he leads — when it comes to courting donors.

I hope Sanderson dresses well and arrives in style when he goes acourtin’.

Pini Herman serves as President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area.

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June 23, 2011 | 12:33 am

Morning Minyan Mortality Measure

Posted by Pini Herman

Just until the tenth person comes.

Sometimes a demographer doesn’t need a fancy survey to feel that the Jewish population is shifting.  The Jewish vitality of an area can often be judged if it’s morning minyans, prayer quorums, live. 

People die and mourning family members, as they recover, look for a minyan to say Kaddish.  Kaddish can traditionally only be recited within a quorum of ten Jews.. Males, if Orthodox, and all genders if Conservative or Reform.

You can see a perhaps dying Minyan from the street.  Someone in a tallit, a prayer shawl,  may be standing outside on the sidewalk intently sizing up the the Jewish and availability characteristics of passersby.  If they can snag a Jewish person before the eight or less others have to leave, then they’ve constituted a minyan.  The communal sigh of relief when the tenth person enters isn’t audible, but still palpable when the prayer leader continues the stalled service. 

This is especially critical on Monday and Thursday mornings (traditional village market days with lots of buying and selling Jews about) when Torah reading takes place, only in the presence of ten Jews.

The morning minyans in an Jewish area develop their own ecology.  In areas of robust Jewish population, the “shulI I wouldn’t set foot in”  often has the same starting time of a nearby mirror minyan, competing for the loyalty of the minyan goers.

When minyan goers thin out in Jewish areas,  start times become staggered. Cooperation and symbiosis may kick in.  If an acceptable nearby minyan isn’t formed, the earlier unsuccessful minyan, members can fulfill their minyan needs at a later minyan, that they also help complete.  Some later starting minyans send a member or two to an earlier nearby minyan with the understanding that early minyan members will go sit through a second morning service if needed.

In areas with declining Jewish populations, without cooperation, cordiality and mutual support, minyans may die out more quickly. Rabbis who won’t be seen on the dais with other rabbis may soon find themselves with failed minyans.

Then, there are “minyan factories.” In areas of really dense Jewish and Orthodox presence,  such as near the diamond districts of New York and Tel Aviv,  a few places with continuously forming minyans around the clock fill the needs the Jews for morning, afternoon and evening services.  If you find a minyan factory in LA, let me know.

Pini Herman serves as President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area.

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