Like many others involved in the Jewish communal world, we’ve been pre-occupied these past two weeks with the Madoff scheme and the resulting fall-out. Among other things, this has caused us to reduce posting on other subjects. At least for “new news” hopefully the worst is behind us and we can begin the process of picking up the pieces.

Taken together with the losses in the capital markets earlier this year, the past several months have not been easy on the entire philanthropic world. One of the areas we intend to begin speaking about is the effect of the recession on fundraising. We began collecting both articles and research earlier in December to share with you – and plan to begin this week. To paraphrase a colleague with a similar agenda, the purpose will be to speak about what is happening – not what may happen. Hopefully you, our readers, will gain insight and new ideas to help propel discussion within your own organization.