Jewish foundation recovered quickly from recession

By AMY R KAUFMAN

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John Moss knows the meaning of the word “penurious.” He uses it to explain how the Oregon Jewish Community Foundation managed their operation so they would be poised to recover quickly from the recession.

According to Moss, executive director of OJCF, as of Sept. 30, 2009, the organization’s aggregate consolidated portfolio is “down only 1.03% from before the crash.” (Translation: “If you had a dollar invested with the Foundation at the time of the crash, you have a dollar today.”)

“We have a very defensive portfolio that minimizes losses and tries to eke out gains where we can, while protecting the corpus,” said Moss.

How OJCF handles the monetary investments of the community is very important. This public charitable organization contributes to the entire spectrum of human services in Portland and Southwest Washington.

“We funnel money to Jewish Family and Child Service, JFGP, Israel, scholarships—the list of charitable organizations is very long,” said Moss. “A significant amount of the total JFGP campaign comes from OJCF through the advisement of our donors. We manage a large portion of the federation’s and its agencies’ investment portfolios; we work with most of the region’s synagogues as well. If donors have a passion to do something excellent through their funds and through their philanthropy, we facilitate that.”

Funds established within OJCF may be used to support capital projects, creative programs, endowment gifts, special needs and community emergencies.

OJCF’s mission is to grow the funds entrusted to it, assuring that funds are available to safeguard the quality of Jewish communal life in Oregon and Southwest Washington now and into the future.

“Our investment committee and our advisors at First Republic Bank watch over these dollars very carefully,” said Moss. “It takes years to raise funds that could be lost in a few minutes if the market is not managed properly.”

He said one reason OJCF performed better during the recession “than the vast bulk of foundations across the U.S.” was that “most of the holdings in the aggregate were allocated roughly 50 percent to bonds and 50 percent to equity because of the collective asset allocations of our member donors. We benefit from the collective wisdom of our donors.”

OJCF, unlike many other community foundations, permits individual donors to “set their own asset allocation,” said Moss. (Translation: “If these individuals want to invest in bonds or stocks or cash, OJCF lets them make that choice.”)

“Our advisors control the quality of the four pools (money market, fixed, stock, and S&P),” said Moss. “Those pools were very good in themselves and did everything they were supposed to do, and they performed handsomely, but when the equity market went into the tank, we weren’t as exposed as others because of the wise asset allocations of our individual donors....And when things started to recoup, we were able to take advantage of the upswing.”

OJCF took other steps to brace itself against the recession, Moss said. The already efficient operation went on an “austerity budget.”

“We were scheduled to move to larger quarters, and we’ve continued to stay in our same cramped location,” he said.

Moss said significant gifts to the Foundation have resumed, including the $3.1 million bequest of Chuck Karsun, and these have also “sheltered the Foundation and the community from the worst effects of the recession.”

“The fact that we are strong shows that there is good fiscal management,” said Moss. “Overall, there’s a lot of wisdom at the table. We’ve managed our dollars very penuriously.”