Religion and community philanthropic organizations: The case of the United Jewish Appeal‐Federation of New York

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/nml.21340
• Date: 01 March 2019
• Author: Hanna Shaul Bar Nissim
• Published date: 01 March 2019

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Religion and community philanthropic

organizations: The case of the United Jewish

Appeal-Federation of New York

Hanna Shaul Bar Nissim

Visiting Scholar, The Maurice & Marilyn Cohen

Center for Modern Jewish Studies, Brandeis

University, Waltham, Massachusetts

Correspondence

Hanna Shaul Bar Nissim, Cohen Center for

Modern Jewish Studies, Brandeis University,

415 South Street, MS 014, Waltham, MA 02451.

Email: hannashaul@brandeis.edu

This article explores the processes that occur when com-

munity philanthropic organizations develop religious

expressions and practices by examining the shifts that

took place within the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of

New York between 1990 and 2014. As the findings indi-

cate, the gradual integration of ethnoreligious practices,

norms, and expressions into the Federation's missions,

routine, activities, and distribution of resources, as well as

among staff and volunteers, reshaped the Federation's

identity and faith-based orientation. This process led the

Federation to move beyond being a faith-background

organization toward becoming a faith-affiliated organiza-

tion, expressing Jewish beliefs through its charitable work

and philanthropic activities. The article highlights the

resulting dilemmas and obstacles faced by the Federation

and concludes with a discussion of the implications for

understanding the process of increased religion among

community philanthropic organizations.

KEYWORDS

community development, ethnicity, faith-based service,

philanthropic organizations, religious charity

1|INTRODUCTION

This study sheds light on the processes that take place within an organization and the community it

serves when the organization undergoes a shift in the continuum from a nonreligious to a faith-based

identity. It explores how the process of organizational change resulted in an expanded role for reli-

gion within a particular communal philanthropic institution, namely, the United Jewish Appeal

(UJA)-Federation of New York (henceforth, Federation), between 1990 and 2014. The Federation is

Received: 19 December 2017 Revised: 30 August 2018 Accepted: 10 September 2018

DOI: 10.1002/nml.21340

Nonprofit Management and Leadership. 2019;29:363–381. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/nml © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 363

among the largest, wealthiest, and most influential of Jewish Federations, raising over $150 million

per year, with an endowment of $1.4 billion in 2015 (Report to The Community 2014–2015, 2015).

It is a federated fund-raising organization that optimizes resource allocation in a community or geo-

graphical area (Pfeffer & Leong, 1977). The Federation has dual designations in raising and allocat-

ing funds and works closely with its affiliated network of agencies, including welfare services, social

services, education, advocacy organizations, and international/diaspora organizations.

The Federation is a member of the Jewish Federations of North America, a system of community

organizations that serve a specific ethnoreligious group in which religion is one of several factors,

along with cultural and historical ties, comprising its ethnic identity. Among these organizations, the

distinct cultural attributes of the ethnoreligious group are incorporated into various organizational

activities (De Vita & Lee, 2008), making them faith-background organizations (Sider & Unruh,

2004). As such, the Jewish Federations seek support not from members of religious institutions, such

as synagogues, but directly from the Jewish community at large.

Expressions of religion within the various Jewish Federations can be viewed as a part of a broader

discussion concerning the declining role of religion in organizations and the challenges this decline

poses to their identity. This issue has been extensively explored in light of secularization theory,

which claims that the influence of institutionalized religion on society has declined in recent decades

(Tracey, Phillips, & Lounsbury, 2014). Despite the findings of secularization theory, it has become

apparent that the opposite phenomenon is also taking place in America, among organizations such as

the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, the Evangelical Christian sponsorship of World

Vision, mainline Protestantism, and the Unitarian-Universalist tradition (Bender, 2003; Evans, 1979;

Whaites, 1999).

North American Jewry also struggles with the changing role of religion in its communal institu-

tions, which are, in practice, nonreligious. Over the last few decades, an ongoing broader process of

Jewish revitalization has led to an increasing interface with Jewish observance and practice. This in

turn has challenged the character, missions, and roles of the organizations as well as their contribu-

tion to Jewish life and the welfare of their beneficiaries (Berkman, 2017; Kelner, 2013).

This phenomenon, and its impact, has yet to be fully explored and is the focus of this article,

which traces the influence of religion over organizational identity and practices within the Federation.

This article provides an analysis of the motivating factors for this process, as well as the factors that

hinder it and challenge its implementation. The insights gained from this case study offer a broader

understanding of the complexities facing organizations dealing with similar challenges to their

identity.

2|UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE OF RELIGION IN VOLUNTARY

ORGANIZATIONS

Religion, by which I mean the rituals, behaviors, practices, symbols, and beliefs of the sacred tradi-

tions of a religious community (Bender, 2003; Geertz, 1976), is expressed differently among organi-

zations of different forms and serves to connect between larger cultural frameworks and specific

social action (Becker, 1999). In the sense being used here, religion is an expression of wider cultural

frameworks embedded within society's religious organizations and collectives (Bender, 2007; Durk-

heim, 2008).

Some studies suggest that religion is a dynamic aspect that exists within organizations as a contin-

uum (Unruh, 2004). Other studies posit that religion is expressed differently in three organizational

dimensions: service, staff, and public image (Ebaugh, Pipes, Chafetz, & Daniels, 2003). Monsma

364 SHAUL BAR NISSIM