good morning. welcome to mosaic. through the our country, faith communities develop resource organizal structures in order to meet the social, educational and other needs of their particular community across the nation and worldwide. with us this morning is jennifer --, the ceo of the endocument fund of san francisco and the peninsula. and joining with her is tom. so let's just jump right n what is the federation? >> the federation has a simple

role that is much more complicated in execution. our goal is to create a vibrant and healthy jewish community here and in eastern europe and latin america and israel as well. >> how does a vibrant community get formed? i know that a general question. but what does the faith community has for itself and an example of the rest of community? what formulates a vibrant community? >> there are three principles that are derived. and it could be strictly or literally. souers a more fix the i believe interpretation because of the diversity to the area. one is identity. bullying the next generations

of jews to figure out what they come from and where they are going. another is absolutely essential it caring for our vulnerable. this is a jewish value rooted in the torah absolutely. and then the third is culture and public affairs. we're part and parcel with the community in which we live and we're a cultural people as we are a faith based people and so our cultural institutions are important for us to foster, newer -- nurture and protect. >> you're the chair of the jewish federation. and everybody knows that every organizational structures that. can you talk about how the lay leadership functions within the jewish fed vacation and the

endocument fund? >> we took a look at our structure not that long ago to look how we can tighten it even further in terms of the relationship between the professional staff and the lay leaders. and we have an executive committee that about 34 people and a board of governor that's about 70 people. and the decision making responsibility in terms of making decisions for the federation rests with the board of directors. but we're part of the community. the federation is part of the community so we wanted a larger body where we could bring members of the community in to discuss issues of importance or to provide feedback to the professional staff if they had questions or if they wanted to explore a particular subject. so we are the lay people are really here to support work of the federation and to support

the professional staff. they provide guidance and counsel. and they may raise questions for us. but we work together for the benefit of the entire community. >> i would add something to that. is we have strong committees and subcommittees. we have over 700 volunteers coming in and out of the federation in any given year. the endocument committee is made up of over 30 members that are made up of our oldest and new people and we want to make sure that is something that is a high point of the work that we do. people have a lot of trust in us. and we have an exclusive allocation committee that help us to make our grants in a

strategic way through the year. >> can i add within other committee? -- one other committee? we have the capital planning committee that works with all the agencies in our community when they have a capital project, to help them think through the project and review the financial aspects of it and to help them put together the best project that they can both in terms of getting it done but also in terms of financing it. >> thank you. we'll take a quick break. we'll see you back here in a moment on mosaic.

welcome back to mosaic. welcome back jennifer and tom. we were talking about the architecture of the federation and how it is set up and that it gets grants and other resources to jewish community agencies. and i wonder if you talk about what the granting process is like and the other resource that's the federation makes available to the community? >> sure.

from the grant making standpoint, we were talking about the importance of creating a healthy and vibrant community and the factors that go into that. we have a family fun approach. and we look at our donors and jewish community as invest ors in the community and -- investors in the community. and we created a portfolio approach. and we want to strengthen. so the first is the core fund. you think of the core. a lot of people take pilates these days. it's important to have a strong core, strong infrastructure or nothing else works properly and west global fund where we support jews around the world to get what they need and in his toys support a pluralistic

organization. we can deploy a variety of agencies all together to achieve a goal such as in the area of special needs and finally our invacation fund. if we -- innovation fund. if we don't keep an eye on that, we'll be holding our community back so that is the primary way in which we make grants as a collective. but we have over # 970 donors and we help them pursue their own vision and passion in the general community as well as the jewish community and the hope is by making opportunities available in the jewish community, the folks will make grants to the thing that are priorities for us. and that creates great leverage as well. and we grant out $173 million of grants a year from all of our sources about 16 or so from

the annual campaign and our unrestrict endowment and this great amount from our philanthropists in the community. >> and we look at our demographics and the way our society is shifting, one of the questions that is being asked, no matter what part the sector is in why why do people give of their time and financial resources? and why do people give of their own expertise? and why do people get involved in something that is beyond their own particular zone of individual life. and i'm wondering from your perspective, what are some of the shifts that you see at work that are important for us to pay attention to in an

evershifting landscape? we can call straight that whatever that is. but there's a multiple factors that work and that are everchanging in the global landscape and the jewish landscape. and i'm wondering what you think about them and how they land? >> we are in a rapidly changing environment that nobody would have predicted five or ten years ago. with the advent of such wide use of the internet and the ability of any public charity anywhere in the world to not only create a site but to seek donations on the site, a lot of our young people are looking at not only the internet as you would think of it historically

on a desk top and laptop but facebook and twitter but learning about and connecting with the charities wherever they are. that is the first general trend and the second is that young people want to be very connected to the cause to which they're giving. they want to be involved. they want to see, feel and touch the impact. historically, our parents generation and our grandparents felt and obligation to give to the jewish community. it's just something you did. it was in your bones. part and parcel of being a june and caring first for your family and then the community and then the stranger among you. i think our young people think of themselves as the helper. we want to bring them together

to study and issue and who is doing the best job of tackling the issue and interacting with the grand tease grantees and sticking with the organizations for a couple of years so that we can really monitor how they're doing and these donors feel very engaged both in the process and in the organization. so ultimately, we think this is an approach that will benefit the community at large because these are young people who didn't know very much about the jewish community that now know a lot about the jewish community and feel connected to in a variety of ways. >> we'll return book that this wonderful conversation in one moment.

welcome back to mosaic. before the break, jennifer was talking about shifts that she's observed in the community. and i'm wondering what you see as well? >> there have been two shifts in the whole world of philanthropists. taking care of people that had needs and caring for the vulnerable was our primary

focus. but as the economy has developed and the people have been successful, they're lacking to broaden their -- looking to broaden their goals. and we try to match the needs of the community. and we're in a unique position to gauge. we engage hundreds of people from the community. and to take those needs and match them with the passion of our donors, so what are our donors passionate about today. we can extend beyond just caring for the vulnerable in terms of our philanthropists and we connect the positions with the needs and we're a connector in the community and we try to network organizations and donors together to really tack ordeal with a specific issue where we can have a

significant influence and result. today donors are looking for connection to what they believe in. they're looking for results. they want to know that their dollars have been well spent. and i think it's wonderful that donors have the confidence in the federation to know where the needs are and that we evaluate those needs and the organization serving those needs so that we can most effective and relevant in the community. >> you remind me that one of the most dynamic aspects of the federation is it is not only a granter of money, that it also gets engaged in a lot of other ways in which an organizational structure can use it. and i'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about the other kinds resources that the federation offered the community at large to help

bolster that vibrantsy. >> tom mentioned the capital planning committee that are important who are real estate experts and banking experts, all manners of experts and they've probably contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of hours in any given year. in addition to that, we talked before about grant making. so we play three roles in the community strategic investing and capital building. in the capacity building, we match pro bono experts in the community which we have about 175 signed up and the organizes in the community that have particular needs and we made 45 matches last year in the areas of real estate leasing, it, marketing, finance, legal and more. and then we also have the

communities of practice, communities of learning that are consist of the executive director of jewish organizations and the finance professionals and fundraising professionals where we bring in outside experts or use our own staff, each of our organizations to really provide learning and best practices so that everybody can really thrive. our feeling is that a financial investment in the community is not sufficient. it has to be followed with the insurance that everybody is getting everything they need in order to succeed, so much of which was nonfinancial. they need leaders to sit on the boards and hope this guide and inform their decisions and they need donors and how are we going get those? by developing leaders proactively, we'll help the

community to have successful generations of people that are skilled and knowledgeable about the issues of the community, who are interested in being part of those organizations and continuing them into the future. >> we'll take a quick break and come back in a moment here on mosaic. ,,,,,,,,

welcome back. we're in the middle of a wonderful conversation. welcome back, tom and jennifer. how does our particular jewish community federation endocument fund compare to others in the country? we have a federation in the east bay and south bay and jewish community federations exist in forms in almost every urban center across the country and north america. how do we compare to the other federations around the country and the continent? >> we share a lot of common

characteristics in terms of some of the work that we do. but there is some distinctive work than others. west broadest geographic reach. we go from samoa to the south peninsula. where we're located in the heart of the valley and technology and the bioindustries, we put, i think more emphasis on invasion and on creativity and entrepreneurship. we're all looking at new ways of doing things. we created the impacts grant initiative or what we call igi. and this is really a combination of several things. one, we gather a group of people. i was at the kickoff of one of

our igis about a week ago in san francisco with young people learning to be philanthropists and we bring them together and we exposes them to what it means to be a philanthropist and we help them through the process of how do you allocate and raise money and how do you al allocate money? they have to evaluate the proposals and decide where to spend the money. and one of the things that they learn early on is that the needs far exceed the resources. so how do you channel the precious resources where they can do the most good in the community. >> tonight, from your perspective as chair of the board as a lay leader, there's

a conversation of what is proactive and reactive. where does an organization do to react to what the grassroots is moving forward? and can you talk about that kind of a concept within the context of our our federation on this side of the bay functions? >> it begins with strategy. and recently, we just went through a strategic planning process. and we stepped back and looked at the whole community and looked at where the needs are and where we could make a difference and be relevant. and i think we're proactive about that. so we look at these challenges and we become proactive in trying address the challenges through the work that we do. but we there is to react to

changes in the environment. the environment is constantly changing. so we need to keep our finger on the pulse. the last study we did was in 2004 where we did an extensive community study. and we need to look at redoing that study because a lot of time has passed by. we saw some of the natural disasters of that taken place where we will immediately try and step in and provide a vehicle for our donors to be able to help address the needs as a as a result of those kinds of issues. >> so always and everchanging environment. believe it or not we have come to the end of our time together. so i want to thank you so much for being here and thank you for johning here on mosaic. this is a comma in the conversation and we encourage to you go to the federation's

website to engage them in whatever way you think is helpful to yourself and community to give back your time, energy and money. thank you very much for being with us here on mosaic.

if you have a show idea, we would love to hear from you. go to kpix.com. and now we're helping boys become men and three book authors. this is jason mott. thank you very much for joining us today. >> tell us about this wonderful new book of yours. >> the book is called the return. and it centers around a global event for people's loved ones that passed away suddenly start