Winnipeg CJA drive falls short for 2014-15

Adam Bronstone

WINNIPEG — For 16 years, Winnipeg’s Combined Jewish Appeal campaign has annually reached or exceeded its ever-growing fundraising targets – but all winning streaks must come to an end at some point, and for the Winnipeg CJA, unfortunately, that turned out to be the 2014-2015 campaign. 

The 2013-2014 drive raised $5.8 million, an increase of about $150,000 over the previous year. The goal for the 2014-15 drive was $5,950,000. The final tally, however, was $5,647,806 – more than $300,000 short of the goal and almost $150,000 less than last year.

In an update in early February, longtime CJA campaign director Elaine Goldstine conceded that the pace of gifts was slower than in the recent past.

“It has been a tougher year,” she said at the time. “But we remain optimistic.” 

In an email sent out March 18 in an effort to pick up the pace of gifts, Adam Bronstone, the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg’s CEO, issued a challenge to the community on behalf of campaign co-chairs Bob Silver and Daniel Friedman. 

Silver and Friedman had pledged to give an additional $28,000 to the CJA campaign if another 150 donors came forward before March 31. 

The appeal fell short, however. Goldstine said the campaign did attract 380 new donors overall, including another 136 new pledges in response to the appeal. She also said the campaign did well from the 2,800 pledges received. The major reason for the overall shortfall was that several major donors from previous years had passed away, she said.

“We are already planning the 2015-2016 campaign,” she added. “We are hoping to get more new donors.”

The new campaign chair is lawyer Bryan Klein, a longtime CJA canvasser. 

The new women’s philanthropy campaign chair is Elana Schultz, who has been a CJA canvasser since she was a teenager and has been very involved in the women’s campaign for the last few years, Goldstine said.

Jared Akman and Baillie Chisick are carrying on as co-chairs for a second year as the young adult division campaign co-chairs. “We are putting more focus on our young adult division campaign,” Goldstine said in an interview last year. The young adult division raised $347,866 from 531 younger adult donors during the 2014-15 campaign, a figure that is included in the $5.6 million total.

Goldstine said about 20 per cent of the funds raised are earmarked for overseas initiatives such as the March of the Living, Birthright, Israel advocacy and support for programs in Israel and some of the countries of the former Soviet Union. 

The campaign itself and the federation’s overhead costs account for nine per cent each of the funds raised, with the remainder being designated for local beneficiary agencies.

While planning has already begun for the 2015-16 campaign, Goldstine said no dollar target figure has been set yet.