Making THE MOST Difference

By Jessica Mehlman, Chief Planning Officer

In today’s climate of philanthropy, it is more important than ever to be able to show our donors, through the heart AND the head, the impact their gifts to the Annual Campaign are having. It is not enough to say We Care, We Build, and We Save. We need to show our donors, through data and reason, the actual impact their dollars are having.

We need to ensure that we at Federation are doing the best job we possibly can to make the greatest difference with the dollars entrusted to us. As William MacAskill says in “What is Effective Altruism” (click here for full article), “We don’t want to just make a difference, we want to make THE MOST difference.” Are the programs we are funding doing what they are supposed to be doing? Are we funding programs that are actually needed? (They may have been necessary 10 years ago, but do we still need them today?)

As part of our Strategic Plan, our leadership set as a priority the need for Federation to be more transparent in how we fund and to better prioritize and evaluate the programs we fund with our allocable dollars. Our first step toward this change was the implementation of the Strategic Priorities Council (SPC) led by Steve Levy. The SPC is charged with developing a data-informed process to better guide our allocation decisions moving forward. The second step was to create a staff position dedicated to evaluating the impact of our allocated dollars. Two months ago, Lauren Silverstein joined the staff as our new Director of Impact Assessment and Learning.

Lauren has been getting to know the workings of our Federation and our community inside and out. She is working with our professionals and lay leaders to identify goals and objectives and to measure the outcomes of our programs and services to ensure that we are make the MOST difference.  If she identifies problems, we will seek new solutions.

You will be hearing more about this process as it unfolds, and we look forward to open and transparent communication with our donors so they can rest assured that their charitable dollars are making the MOST difference through Federation.