WE MULTIPLY THE IMPACT OF YOUR GIFT
With the successful close of the 2012 Community Campaign ($6.3 million raised, exceeding our $6 million goal!), we are shifting gears to the process of distributing the community’s dollars, ensuring your gift goes where it’s needed most.

Together with our 83 Planning & Allocations volunteers, we spend over 600 hours thoroughly assessing the programs that have applied for funding.

Staff and volunteers visit local agencies—meeting clients served, reviewing applications, analyzing budgets and interviewing program coordinators and agency executives—to measure the outcomes, goals, impact, quality and cost-effectiveness of each program. They then meet as a council multiple times to discuss the evaluated programs and, eventually, make recommendations for funding, which the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati Board takes into account when making final allocations.

But the Planning & Allocations process is more than just evaluating and assessing programs and distributing the community’s dollars. It’s also helping programs run as efficiently and effectively as possible, by improving program quality, prioritizing community needs and encouraging collaboration.

• Improving program quality: Through strategic planning, consultation and more, we help agencies increase program capacity and reach and improve services offered. For example, the Bigs & Littles Mentoring Program of Jewish Family Service
  
  
• Prioritizing community needs: We ensure programs align with the vision set forth by Cincinnati 2020, which means we keep both the immediate and the future needs of the community in mind as we make assessments and decisions. For example, the PJ Library expansion through Jewish Family Service and the Mayerson JCC
  
  
• Encouraging collaboration: By encouraging collaboration, we combine resources and expertise to multiply the effect on the community. We maximize our collective impact. For example, Cincinnati’s Jewish day schools’ collaboration and the new Senior Russian-Speaking Program from Jewish Family Service and the Mayerson JCC