Rosner's Domain: Jack Ukeles on "Can Jewish Nonprofits Turn Crisis Into Opportunity?"

Jack Ukeles, of Ukeles Associates (bio here), spoke at NYU Wagner on "Doing More with Less: Can Jewish and Other Nonprofits Turn Crisis Into Opportunity?" (full text here). I sent him 5 questions:

1. You write that "A crisis is a time to make changes that probably should have been made anyway". Does this mean that Jewish institutions should welcome the downturn?

I don't think anyone welcomes the personal and communal trauma caused by the current economic and fiscal crisis. But since we can neither turn back the clock nor wish it away, we might as well derive some benefit along with the pain.

 2. You call upon organizations to reset their priorities, does this mean that the community as a whole will also have a new set of priorities?

Setting priorities pre-supposes some agreement on mission. It is hard enough to get organizations to agree on mission.  Centralized bodies, such as United Jewish Communities, have had little success in reaching agreement on mission. The current crisis could motivate such bodies to clarify mission and set priorities.

3. You want more emphasis on performance, while arguing earlier in the article that "success is hard to quantify in the nonprofit sector".

How do you reconcile these two assertions?

"Hard" is not a reason not to try, especially since I believe it is urgent for Jewish and other nonprofits to focus on performance.  But we shouldn't get discouraged if it takes several tries to get it right, and even if the results are less than perfect.

4. Do you get the feeling that most Jewish organizations and leaders understand the enormity of the crisis and move fast enough to make the best out of it? Do you not get a sense that many organizations, rather then ask what is the right thing to do for the community, ask what they should do in order to survive?

In the best case, survival and doing the right thing are not incompatible. I think that most Jewish organizations understand the enormity of the crisis; I am less confident that that they have the will, capacity and knowhow to move quickly to make the best of it.

5. If resetting priorities and structural changes are needed and even beneficial, do you think that the elimination of organizations in this crisis will also enhance rather than reduce the productivity and effectiveness of organized Jewish life?

Some wonderful organizations have gone out of business, especially as a result of Madoff. I am not sure we are seeing the survival of the fittest or survival of the luckiest. This is the time for those with access to power to do serious and systematic thinking about what the Jewish organization landscape should look like post-crisis.