In an effort to strengthen its brand identity and align itself with local federations, the United Jewish Communities (UJC) changed its name to The Jewish Federations of North America.
Danny Goldberg, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Ocean County, said he expects that the change will make it easier for new community members to become comfortable with the federation.
“For Ocean County, a community that has grown by leaps and bounds over the last decade due to the constant influx of retirees and other community members, this change is a positive step toward creating universal identification of federations,” Goldberg said. “We stand to benefit from this because it should make it easier and more convenient for newcomers to our community to recognize and identify with federation both for seeking services and in order to participate in our fundraising efforts.”
In 1999, a merger between the Council of Jewish Federations and the United Jewish Appeal (UJA), which had focused on overseas fundraising, first formed the UJC. Ten years later, the umbrella that now represents 157 Jewish federations and 400 independent network Jewish communities across North America decided after market research that it was time for another change.
“Our new name makes a clear and bold statement that we embody the Jewish federation system,” Jerry Silverman, president and CEO of The Jewish Federations of North America, said in a statement. “Further, this change enables us to work with our partners to create stronger positioning of the Jewish federations for the future.”
Silverman, previously the executive director of the Foundation for Jewish Camp, took over as CEO in September. The UJC said that its name change “aligns with 90 percent of local federations’ names,” yet that leaves 10 percent who never changed their names to reflect the 1999 merger, most of whom kept the name UJA instead.
After all, the UJA had been around for 60 years when the UJC was formed, and the UJC at the time “was just a name,” said Dr. Mark Rosen, who teaches at the Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program at Brandeis University and is coming out with a book called “Mission, Meaning, and Money” that covers the fundraising history of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee as well as the broader fundraising system of North American Jewry.
Borrowing an expression from former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill, Rosen explained the desire noted for federations to keep the name UJA based on the fact that “All politics are local.” One could make the parallel that all donations are also local, Rosen said.
“Donors don’t think nationally, donors think locally,” Rosen told The Jewish Journal. “If a federation has a name, they are not going to change it unless it’s not working.”
As donors of the past grow older, and a new generation of donors may not be as focused on giving to federations, the UJC needed to garner more public attention for federations. The name change doesn’t solve the whole problem, but is a step in the right direction, Rosen said.
“In the minds of the donors, they are trying to associate themselves more with the federation system,” which was not apparent under the name UJC, Rosen said.
Along with the Oct. 8 name change, unanimously approved by the UJC Board of Trustees, the organization adopted a new logo with a circular design and a menorah.
Nearly 20 federations are looking to adopt the new logo in the coming months, the UJC said, and the new name and logo will be publicly adopted for the first time at the organization’s 2009 General Assembly from Nov. 8-10 in Washington, D.C.
Rosen said he puts “a lot of trust” in Silverman and the UJC’s changes because of Silverman’s marketing background.
“He’s got a lot of experience in marketing, and I think he realizes that the federation system doesn’t have the name recognition it once had,” Rosen said.