from Washington Jewish Week:

Federation re-imagines its allocation process

Earlier [last] month, the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington’s Board of Directors gave a unanimous approval to implement changes in the way funds will be allocated to its beneficiary agencies.

… One of the most significant changes will be the reduction in the amount of time spent on the entire allocations process by Federation partner agencies and volunteers.

The other huge key to the process is that now 95 percent of the monies going to local agencies will now be unrestricted. That means that the agencies’ own boards will use those funds as they deem necessary.

“The change will enable agencies to know the amount of their annual Federation allocation a full four months earlier than in the past,” said Kreisberg. This is also going to give the agencies four extra months to work on their fiscal year budgets.”

… In the previous model, agencies would not know about their allocations until mid-May for a July allocation. The new plan means that agencies will know in February. The new plan will be rolled out immediately and will impact allocations beginning July 1, 2013.

“No one,” [Rakitt] said, knows better how to use these dollars than the agencies themselves.”