Ben Mandelkorn & The History of the Columbus Jewish Foundation

This interview took place c. 1989 – 1991. The interviewer was Arlyn Riskind who worked for the Columbus Jewish Federation at that time.

Riskind: I’d like your thoughts about why it’s important for The Federation to fund non – Jewish organizations.

Mandelkorn: In general, the annual campaign of the Columbus Jewish Federation is restricted in its funding to non-Jewish causes local, national and overseas. In general, it does not fund to non – sectarian or non – Jewish causes. Therefore, special funds have to be required for that. However, the Columbus Jewish Foundation does not have that restriction. The Columbus Jewish Foundation can make money available through special funds that it has: philanthropic funds, and also from our general fund.

We make these funds available for noteworthy causes and programs that, though they benefit the general welfare and quality of services in the general community, they also at the same time benefit the quality of the community as far as it affects the Jewish people who are part of the general community. So when we contribute to the enhancement of the general community, we also are contributing to the enhancement of the Jewish people who live in that community. They have a responsibility for contributing and supporting the general community as well as the Jewish Community.

Riskind: How well has this aspect of the Foundation been received in terms of – is there any – are some people…

Mandelkorn: Generally, the reaction has been very favorable. We do it by giving direct grants to project. We give the whole cost of the project or general matching funds and we participate in that regard and we have found that it has created a new dimension for the Jewish Community in which we are getting more and more applications from non-Jewish and non-sectarian organizations knowing that there is a place in the Jewish Community that they can come to for funding purposes. They cannot make applications to the annual campaign because they are not beneficiaries.

Another source of contributions are those funds that come from philanthropic funds where donors have the privilege of making recommendations for their funds to non-sectarian causes. So rather than writing checks themselves out directly, their philanthropic funds done through the Jewish Foundation, many gifts are going to many organizations such as United Way, Cancer funds, universities locally and non – local and non – Jewish funds, but that is explained that only where contributions to these causes are also enhancing local services which are Jewish – or non – Jewish as far as that’s concerned, so that hundreds of contributions are made through the philanthropic funds.

Riskind: And then one thing you can do is pick out some non – Jewish projects that you have funded and give out some of…

Mandelkorn: …the field of culture, the field of health.

Riskind: The Martin Luther King Center.

Mandelkorn: Oh, yes! They were tickled pink! We provided funds for example, for employment of a Coordinator for Volunteer Services which was essential to them in the initial stages of developing programs for them. They thought it was just wonderful.

Riskind: Take two on interview with Ben Mandelkorn on February 15. We were discussing the origins of the Foundation.

Mandelkorn: The Columbus Jewish Foundation was born in April, 1955. It was an idea developed by the leadership of the United Jewish Fund which was the forerunner of the Columbus Jewish Federation. It had – its purpose was to separate out from the annual campaign of the Federation or the United Jewish Fund and from its activities, those areas which would be less confusing in activities, mainly in the holding of properties, the purchasing of properties, the obtaining of funds from a variety of sources other than from the Annual Campaign for capital purposes, as well as to encourage people and others who may want to make gifts to the Federation other than to the Annual Campaign for a variety of charitable purposes.

Here. What I’d like to insert for your use: Insert number one. It spells out the specific purposes on it. It was really the beginning of a program to provide funds for developing an endowment fund program for meeting unusual, special purposes that donors have in mind, or to build up a general fund to be used other than – again – for the purposes for which the annual campaign is conducted. Also, to develop reserves for unseen future needs in the community. It didn’t have an elaborate kind of program to start with, but really a place that would separate out these funds and keep and manage them separately from the Federation.

Now it was never their intention, even though they set this up as a separate corporation for tax – exempt purpose known as a 501 [c] [3] organization, they wanted to have it a meaningful and functional relationship with the Federation. So the way they handled that was that the constitution provided that the officers of the Columbus Jewish Welfare Foundation would be officers of the United Jewish Fund and the officers of the board – really (undiscernible) board members of the Foundation came from the Board of the United Jewish Fund, and more specifically from the allocations committee of the United Jewish Fund.

The original idea was to call it The Jewish Communal Foundation but when it came to putting the constitution together they called it the Columbus Jewish Welfare Foundation.

Riskind: When did they drop the “welfare” part of the name, do you remember?

Mandelkorn: Yes. In the course of time, when the Tax Reform Act of 1968 (or 1969) went into effect and the government – the Treasury Department – the I.R.S. were discouraging the creation and the multiplying of private foundations, they came up with a device for donors to be able to set up publicly based foundations, and this meant for an arrangement “advised funds.” Euphemistically it was changed within the Jewish community, to the term, “philanthropic fund.” That allowed the donor to take advantage of greater tax advantages, less costly operation of a private foundation, provide more flexibility, but then they had no control of the funds except that they had the privilege to make recommendations for the distribution of the funds with sole power and authority still remaining with the Columbus Jewish Welfare Foundation. As long as the purposes of the distribution were covered by the purposes of the Foundation would be acceptable, there would be other restrictions.

At that time, the Foundation had a limited number of funds, did not have a broad base of contributors, and we were advised by national authorities that we might to provide a protection that would not jeopardize The Foundation by making it a part of the United Jewish Fund, therefore having a broad base of contributors, which the United Jewish Fund had, so that no one major contributor could jeopardize the Columbus Jewish Welfare Foundation. So the United Jewish Fund subsequently had merged with the Jewish Community Council – it was known as The United Jewish Fund and Council – at the time that this change was being considered, and so the function of endowment fund purposes, which was the prime function of the Columbus Jewish Welfare Foundation was made a part of the United Jewish Fund and Council, the Columbus Jewish Welfare Federation was eliminated, the function became a part of the United Jewish Fund and Council and the United Jewish Fund and Council became known as the Columbus Jewish Federation.

A further change – about 1968 – it was known now as the Endowment Fund Committee of the Columbus Jewish Federation. It had no longer its own tax – exempt identity or basis. Then, for marketing purposes, the endowment fund name was changed. Not its structure, and not so much its functions and activities, but its name for marketing purposes was called the Columbus Jewish Foundation.

This was probably about the mid 1970s, maybe the latter part of the 70s. When the Columbus Jewish Welfare Foundation became a part of the United Jewish Fund and Council, later the Columbus Jewish Federation, there was an arrangement made that the constitution of the Columbus Jewish Welfare Foundation was eliminated, and the by – laws replaced the constitution, and all the powers of operation was vested now with the endowment fund committee, a subsequent Jewish foundation, and even though
they operated almost independently, the powers and the authority of the Columbus Jewish Foundation was still based with the Columbus Jewish Federation in the sense that the constituency was the Board of the Columbus Jewish Federation, and therefore, any changes in the by – laws required the authority and approval of the Federation and also the board and originally officers had to be approved by the Federation. Subsequently we changed the by – laws that the nominating committee of the Foundation submitted only the members of the board to the Federation, and the officers were elected by the new board of the Foundation.

Basicly, that’s it and all the activities of the Foundation were handled by the Foundation. It did not have to submit any of its activities for approval or disapproval to the Federation.

Riskind: When it first was merged into the Federation, for a while there, it did have to submit – it was part and parcel –

Mandelkorn: No, no. The Columbus Jewish Welfare Foundation, initially was completely independent. When its function was made part of the Federation, its bylaws, which were formally the constitution, was the basis on which the Foundation functioned, but its power and existence was derived from the Board’s approving the bylaws of any modification of it and approving the board and the officers. In other words, it could put the Foundation out of business, or modify as it saw fit.

Riskind: At what point did the Foundation break off and become a 501?

Mandelkorn: It never has. It derives its authority to accept gifts and to provide the donors with the tax exemption through the 501 (C) (3) of the Federation. By legal
device, the Federation has permitted that activity – that power to take place.

Riskind: So really the Federation at any time can abolish the Foundation.

Mandelkorn: Yes, it could.

Riskind: At some point, do you think that the Foundation, as it gets bigger and bigger, (you mention $40 million in assets,) will need to (undiscernable)?

Mandelkorn: Only if it felt that the relationship would not adversely affect one another, and that they would have the strength to achieve their combined missions of the Federation and the mission of the Foundation. At this point, there is no plan to do that. It could happen in the future, because there is a great deal of overlapping as far as key leadership is concerned. The functions are very clearly separated out from one another. It could, overnight, with changes in the constitution and other devices, go independent and operate. It would not be a major task to do that. It could revert back to the original position of being independent. But as long as they’re both able to achieve their purposes without adversely affecting one another, they will continue to be where they are. The overwhelming experience throughout the country is that endowment fund programs of Federations are under the umbrella of the Federation in the form of a function in a committee rather than as a separate corporation. There are advantages and disadvantages. There is a great deal of strength that the Federation provides a Foundation in terms of leadership and resources, and the activities that do have a certain amount of (undiscernible) of this one up.

On the other hand, the identity and the freedom to build up its own resources and to reach out and to eliminate any confusion that might be in the minds of donors would have the advantage of being separate. There is a oftentimes a lack of clear understanding on the part of the donors, that when the donor is asked to identify with or to give to the Foundation, in most cases, the donor is not able to clearly make the distinction between each, and feels that sometimes giving to the annual campaign is contributing to charity, and why give another gift to the Federation via the Columbus Jewish Foundation. There is that confusion.

Riskind: Do you think that there is sometimes confusion about whether all the Foundation’s money goes to the Federation, when really, only a very small portion of the Foundation’s money goes to the Federation’s annual campaign?

Mandelkorn: The relationship of money going to the Foundation and then some of it ending up at the Federation, is a decision of a cooperative nature between the donors and the Foundation, but the Foundation receives funds that belong to the Foundation, and it has the ultimate decision as to where the money will go, but that Federation has no power to determine that distribution of the funds. However, the donors may devise instruments, recommend or earmark money that can go to any one of many types of beneficiaries that are 501 [c] [3] of which the Federation is one.

Riskind: Is it the function of the Foundation to supply whatever needs the Federation has as a result of a shortfall in its own campaign? How do you determine how much money goes to the Federation?

Mandelkorn The Foundation was clearly set up, not to duplicate the funding process or the funding sources of the Federation via the annual campaign. No grants will go from the Foundation , and we call them grants, not allocations, to the Federation or any of its financially affiliated organizations for the same purposes for which the Federation makes money available, namely, operating purposes. Foundation will give us money for long term needs, capital needs, risk – taking, scholarships, et cetera. The way money gets to the Federation through the Foundation is essentially and almost exclusively through an instrument known as the Philanthropic Fund, which is a device which has been created by the Treasury Department and the IRS to permit a person to set funds aside in a public – based foundation, of which, in Columbus, there are only two – the Columbus Jewish Foundation and the Columbus Foundation.

Giving money to The Ohio State University is not a public – based foundation, or to United Way is not a public – based foundation. It’s not that they couldn’t, but they don’t have it. When you give to Red Cross, it has to go exclusively for Red Cross.

The Philanthropic fund is simply a mechanical device where donors can put in dollars, and keep them there, unearmarked, and he can then at a later date recommend a distribution to any one of a number of organizations, local, national or overseas. At the same time, that principal gets invested in a pool of money, so he can make recommendations on the distribution of the other income and principal, if he wants to, so he has banked money away. Instead of having a private foundation, he has built up…

Riskind: Say I give $100,000 to the Fund, that $100,000 is tax exempt, it’s off my taxes, right?

Mandelkorn: And that’s the only tax exemption he can have from it. When he makes a recommendation that X dollars go to another 501 [3] [c] organization, he does not get a second tax exemption. There are many donors to the Federation – we have something like 140 philanthropic funds in the Foundation by the name of the individual, or family, and they will make recommendations in the form of a gift to the annual campaign, or a gift to United Way, or a gift to OSU. They can do that, and so it’s a convenient device – instead of a donor having to manage his funds and manage his money, or if he has a windfall at any time, and doesn’t know how to disburse those funds, he can put it into the Columbus Jewish Foundation, into a philanthropic fund, and somewhere down the road, he’ll determine how to distribute it.

Riskind: When you say recommendation, is that a polite way to say he can mandate how this is used?

Mandelkorn: You can’t use the word “mandate,” and you can’t use the words, “to honor a pledge.” Can’t do it.

Riskind: If I say, “Ben, this year I want ten thousand of my dollars to go to OSU,” can you say, “No, we can’t use the money that way,” or how much discretion do you have?

Mandelkorn: Technically, we could say that, but as long as the funds are going to organizations that are acceptable for the purposes of the Federation, we will not say no, we have to have a good reason. If it’s an organization of a questionable nature, or if it’s not a 501 [c] [3], we will say no on it. We’re here in this case to serve the common interests of the donor and the Foundation.

Riskind: So some of the money the Foundation disburses each year is the decision of the Foundation and its officers, and some of the money is the decision of individual donors. Yes?

Mandelkorn: Right. Philanthropic funds have the privilege of having donors make recommendations, but we have other categories of funds in which donors have no decisions on it. Now donors can set up special purpose funds and the money can go only to those purposes for which the donor can say, “I’d like it to go…,” we have no choice. We took the money in under those conditions. Or an institution will set up funds with us for its purposes and it sends a letter to us that says, “We would like to receive X dollars from that particular fund for the purposes for which it was set up,” we have no choice about it, we have to honor it, it gets distributed. The Foundation has complete control and discretionary privileges for unrestricted and undesignated money.

Riskind: Why do you think that, starting in 1955, even after it became part of the Federation, still it was sort of stagnant – not a lot of money was in it, a couple of million or that, it never got very far until the late 70s or early 80s. What was going on – it wasn’t very dynamic. Why?

Mandelkorn: When some leadership were saying, “Gee, I wish some people would leave some bequests, so that we could have some extra money – this was a couple of years before 1955 – and the general purpose of the annual campaign of the Federation was to meet ongoing needs of the community through the Federation’s device for local, national, overseas. Jews always had a responsibility to take care of their own needs, whether it was family service, resettlement of refugees, or a Jewish Center to keep their people together culturally, heritage, historically and all that, with Jewish education, or community relations, needs that nobody else would meet – that when Jews came to America, in the early 1600s and they wanted to settle in New Amsterdam / New York, they were only allowed to come here and settle, they were told in no uncertain terms, that, “You can come and settle here, but you cannot be a liability on this city (New Amsterdam / New York), you will have to take care of the needs of your people.”

And that was true for other religious groups. Religion was a terribly important thing in those early days, there was a lot of people were coming – they had been persecuted, whether they were Protestants, or Lutherans, whatever they may have been, Jews were no different. Almost all religious groups set up institutions to take care of their own people. They grew in the course of time, and the Federation movement came on starting in 1898 and gradually, by World War I, the Federation movement took hold. It was the forerunner of the Community Chest, United Way and so forth. It was a concept that the Jewish Community did that and together we could do better by pooling our funds, cutting our overhead, reduce the manpower, do planning, than doing it separately. And donors were saying, “Enough’s enough – I don’t want twenty different people knocking on my door during the year,” and Jews recognized that this was one way to preserve their services effectively, and it was customary for them to feel they could meet the daily needs of the Jewish community by that device.

And they didn’t look ahead! They only looked at what they have to take care of now. The fund raising in the Jewish community didn’t hit its stride until the Holocaust – until the State of Israel. Large amounts of dollars were needed and the instrument was in place. The Federation was the place – they could marshal the manpower and everything else, and that’s where big bucks began to come forth to us. Jews had been giving their money for current needs. It was never in the back of their minds that they should be planning ahead for unforeseen needs, emergencies, crises, the only ones who thought of that were like colleges, some hospitals, some institutions, but no one else. This idea of putting money aside for special needs and future needs, is, relatively speaking, a new phenomenon in fund raising. That’s how Harvard go started, that’s how Yale got started, that was their own source. They told their alumni, you know, “Leave Money!”

Riskind: Why did it take so long to get going? Really – why –

Mandelkorn: In general, no program, no matter how worthy or how credible, will ever be successful unless it has the following elements in place and are being worked on:

1. A clearly defined program, not duplicated, not a conflict.

2. A knowledgeable, experienced, skilled staff person.

3. You’ve got to have a budget – a program – a plan to make it work.

When I came on board in 1956, this had only a paper…

Riskind: What was your position when you came on board in 1956?

Mandelkorn: When I came to Columbus from Detroit, I was with the Federation and my clear responsibility was just Federation work, although I had training and skills in other areas. When I came here I had the naive concept that I was coming here for meeting the needs of the United Jewish Fund, and that was my prime task. I was 42.

Riskind: Give me an outline of your career and where you were born.

Mandelkorn: I was born in Paterson, New Jersey in 1914. I grew up in the city, went through high school, to Rutgers University, spent two years in law school and decided that was not the area where I wanted to function, and I went back to complete my undergraduate degree in psychology – sociology, stayed out for a year to get enough funds, then I went to graduate school at The University of North Carolina – got my degree in Social Work.

At that time I received notice of being drafted for World War II, they allowed me to finish up my master’s degree at the University of North Carolina. No sooner did I finish it, I was drafted into the army at the age of 27. I spent two years as an enlisted man, 2 1/2 years as an officer, and I came out as a captain. I was overseas for 2 1/2 years. When I came out, I had lost all my contacts so I got an opportunity to become director of the social service operation under the Federation of the Department of Jewish Social
Service Bureau and I was to be the director there in Dallas.

I was there two years and I had the opportunity to join the staff of the Detroit Jewish Federation. That was the year primarily for budgeting and planning, and I got into fund raising, development, the whole panoply of work. I was there for nine years and wanted to get out on my own. There weren’t too many good opportunities. Columbus came along and I was encouraged to come here to Columbus. The director here was a top – notch man, but he was holding on to the job on a limited basis. He wanted to get back to New York.

I came here with the idea that I was going to stay 2 or 3 years. I came here as Director of the United Jewish Fund. Then I found out I was also Director of the Jewish Community Council. Then I was Director of the Jewish Family Service, which was a separate institution; then I was Director of the Columbus Jewish Welfare Federation. All four.

Riskind: You directed all four?

Mandelkorn: All four at the same time. So you wonder why…

Riskind: So you wonder why – how much one person can do.

Mandelkorn: When I came here, there was myself – in the United Jewish Fund there was me, the bookkeeper, and a secretary. Family service, the entire staff had left – there was only one person there. Jewish Community Council, there was no staff people, I had to handle it. Columbus Jewish Welfare Foundation, there was nobody there, so I had to handle that.

Riskind: Even though at that point the Foundation was technically separate from the Federation, there was no director for it.

Mandelkorn: Right. Right. Its budget, as I saw it later, was something like $3,000. At that time, as I saw it, they had maybe about $30,000 – $40 ,000 of cash, and maybe had at that time,) $50,000 – $60,000 worth of property. Then I noticed in the course of their audit later on, after four or five years, they’d picked up parcels of land that were contiguous to the 40 acres at the Jewish Center. They picked up the Alum Creek, they picked up some more, so…

Riskind: At that time were all the operations run out of the Jewish Center?

Mandelkorn: When I came here, the United Jewish Fund was at the Grand (Theater) Building on State Street, opposite the Capitol. About a year later we moved to the University Club at 40 South Third Street. We stayed there until ’69 when we got our own building out here. The only other community facility was the Jewish Center, which was here.

Riskind: Why, in the fifties and sixties, was so little emphasis put on Jewish communal services in the sense that there wasn’t any staff support? It was a relatively small operation. Was it because it wasn’t such a big Jewish community?

Mandelkorn: No, no, no. When I came here the Jewish population was hovering around ten thousand, which would represent approximately 3100 Jewish families, as far as
that was concerned. Columbus was coming around pretty late in its own development.

Riskind: Pretty small.

Mandelkorn: First of all, it wasn’t professionally directed, at least the Federation part. In fact, the Federation, five years before me, the Director of the Federation was not a professional, as far as that’s concerned and so, when my predecessor came, who was a very well – trained professional, he began to professionalize these things and I did the same thing, too.

Riskind: What kind of things did you do to make things more professional and to make things bigger – take on more staff people?

Mandelkorn: When I first came here my first responsibility was to enhance and dispense (undiscernable) with the annual campaign, which was a major experience and skill that I had.

I think at that time they were raising about (tape ends)

Mandelkorn: While that was going on, I took on all (undiscernable). I directed the Family Services and I immediately got an associate director who handled the professional aspect of case work and so forth, and developed programs around social and family needs. At the time when I severed my relationship with Family Service, we had something like eight or ten professionals. At the same time, for example, I was directing Community Relations, up to a point, so I co-oped the ADL – the Anti-Defamation League that had a regional office here, and bought time from them and staff from them but made it a community committee, not an ADL committee, and demanded a professionally developed Community Relations program.

Then it was brought to my attention that there was a converted residence on Woodland Avenue that had about 10 or 12 occupants or residents for a home for the aged. The elderly people were being sent to Cleveland because they didn’t have the facilities or service here. Within one year I conducted a study – brought in consultants and so forth. And I handled the study – to determine the cases. Were there cases that warranted building an institution? Within a couple of years, the answer was yes, it was needed, and I conducted the campaign for a home for the aged and also recruited staff for that. I didn’t run that and I delegated to someone else, but I played a major role with the building committee and with the fund raising. We raised for that building something like $800.000, compared to $18,000,000 now. So we got that service going. So we got the Family Service going, to some extent. The Center was already established.

Riskind: And about what year was this by the time you got all this stuff done?

Mandelkorn: It started in ’56. In ’57 we began to roll.

Riskind: At what point did you then start turning your attention to the Jewish Foundation?

Mandelkorn: I recognized its importance but they weren’t prepared to program – put in budget, put in money. They had priorities and they had other needs.

Riskind: Did they have a problem, as you said, in not being able to look ahead?

Mandelkorn: Partly. I couldn’t give it the time and attention, and theyweren’t ready to hire any staff for that – they wanted me to do it. Whathappened about five years before my retirement, when I was 60, in 1974, arrangements were made that I was going to retire in 1965. In 1979. when I took it over, and retired as director of the Foundation, I took it over part time with the freedom to do consulting work if I wanted to. We had assets of about (undiscernable) which was being held by the Welfare Foundation was now turned over to the Federation, so we lost that asset – it might have been $800,000 or more, so in ’79, we started out with about $750,000 of assets. The Jewish Center, Heritage House, Cubbage Corners, the Development building were assets that were part of the Foundation that was removed.

Riskind: So up to 1979, the Foundation was not really making any kind of significant grants. You had no money, you had no liquid assets.

Mandelkorn: First of all, we weren’t structured in a lot of committees. Secondly, the programs would be episodic. I proposed different programs, but who’s going to follow up on them? We did develop a program on letters of intent. We did have a program for insurance. We had a group of nine persons that gave insurance policies to the Federation, which we wouldn’t touch today – we wouldn’t take ’em – because they weren’t gifted. We were made the beneficiary, but when they stopped paying on the premiums, there was nothing there.

Riskind: Were you giving any kind of grants at that point?

Mandelkorn: Grants we gave out for capital needs – modest ones – for repairs of a building, for site development, for the purchase of some land – the Center needed some landscaping, we gave them some money – we bought the building – we had a residence on College Avenue – it’s no longer there, we bought that – we picked up a little extra land, we made some loans available to some institutions, which they had to pay us back, but the kind of grant making that you see today was non – existent. We didn’t have a grants committee. We didn’t have a property committee. We didn’t have an investment committee. We just didn’t have a lot of committees.

Riskind: Take me through the growth years. Let’s go to 1979.

Mandelkorn: Once I was relieved of all these other responsibilities, I could focus clearly on how to organize. The first thing I did was to strengthen the board – strengthen the by-laws, start to build up committees for specific functions, begin to develop programs, develop those educational programs, prepare brochures, run institutes, begin then to approach board members, officers, and discuss different things they could do, start to push on those philanthropic funds, because that became big, and that started building it up. That part of the program went wild.

That was the bulk of our money at that time, both in cash and non – cash. And that wasn’t good, because of the purposes of a multifaceted endowment fund program, because the money then was all controlled to a large extent by donors. What the hell did we have for dispensing? We had very little. In fact, we turned to discretionary funds, non – restricted funds – I was lucky if I had fifty thousand – a hundred thousand dollars, so what’s the use of having grants committees? To sit around a table and bite one’s fingernails? That’s when I began this whole process of developing programs – 1981, ’82. That’s when I sat down with committees to determine goals. Look, Fellows, we got to get up to a million – got to get up to two million. How do we get up to here? These are things we gotta do.

Riskind: In 1980 what were your assets?

Mandelkorn: The growth was rather phenomenal. It started going up – from one million to three million, to four milllion. These were book assets. We never had a bad year.

Riskind: What about this thing – book asset and…

Mandelkorn: A book asset is the actual value that you take in money. Cash is book value. There’s no appreciation to it. A dollar’s a dollar. You don’t put an inflationary price. Market value is stock or property which may go up, so it’s largely securities. Book value can also be non – cash, but does not go up or down. It’s fixed. An Israel bond, for example. All cash money is invested in a pool, and that was invested, and we have to redistribute the money back to each fund according to proportion and amount.

Anyone that had a philanthropic fund and realized from the investment say, $900, first we took one – fourth of that, and then we took one – third of that, so from the $900, we could take off $300 to go into a general fund. When the money went to the general fund, we maintained the principal and used only the investment income from the general fund. That became money for grant – making purposes. And in the course of time, initially might have been $50,000, $100,000. Now we distribute maybe $200,000, but that doesn’t take grants committees to do it. It’s pretty much designated to a large extent. Each year we’ve been building up, from one million, to two million, to about five and a half million dollars, and then it would distribute out about three and a half million. Then we have the net on the thing. So that began to add up, to a large extent. Some of the money that came in was securities, too, so we would segregate it, what’s cash, what’s not cash and so forth.

And so the grants committee began to take on meaning in terms of an application that’s made – it’s a carefully worked out application form, with guidelines, rules, regulations, criteria, so forth; committees meet, review them, determine whether they’ll approve the grant; sometimes we pull grants for one year or one shot, sometimes for one, two or three years, they have to report back each year before they can get the second or third year and so on. Then we can go into investments. First we worked on a volunteer basis, then we hired a professional financial advisor, because with the volunteers, you went crazy sitting around the table. No one would want to take responsibilities for a poor investment, and everyone was an expert and wasn’t an expert, so we set up guidelines for investments, have an investment committee, turned it over to a professional financial advisor, said “This is how we want our moneys invested. Guide us. We want you to try to realize X dollars, and we want you to protect the interest and to protect the principal, because the bulk of our money is still donor controlled, and we can’t afford to lose our credibility.” We do have some equities, but that’s limited.

Then we have a committee on property, because we began to learn, people would try to dump junk on us. They would go out and get a high appraisal value, then we couldn’t sell the goddamn stuff. Oh, I’m sorry – you can’t get that on tape. Now we’ve learned what to take in and what not to take in.

Now in the course, we’ve been learning different kinds of instruments.

We’ve been getting then into insurance kinds of programs, we’ve been getting a child’s remainder trust, wills and bequests, and we’ve been doing a lot of institutes. We set up a legal fact committee – well, that takes time! And programming and effort – we do that because we want to educate and sensitize certain resources in the community that will come back to us in terms of attorneys’ accounts, financial planners, trust officers.

We set up a woman’s committee that for the past 5 to 6 years has been running a series of institutes to educate and sensitize women. I will have to tell you we’ve been setting up a whole variety of committees, we’ve been getting funds from people who attend these meetings or participating in, they have a reason. We get funds also from people who don’t participate in it, but I have to tell you that that is what we call community organization process (undiscernable) – that as people come close to us and get involved with us and it makes sense to them, then they do something, and then they tell their friends.

Our board is made up of very prestigious people. We’ve got lots of people that want to get on the board, on the committees, we don’t have room for them. We have an annual meeting now, going into our tenth annual meeting now. It’s a sit-down dinner. We started out with 50-60 people at one time.

Last year we had 250 people at a sit – down dinner. It’s not fund raising. Now what brings them to them? It must be something we’re doing that makes sense. The type of people that come are top leaders of the community.

Riskind: What has the Foundation come to represent to attract such interest among top people?

Mandelkorn: We’re doing what the Federation itself cannot do in its annual campaign. We serve two kinds of purposes. One would make funds available for programs of projects and services that are not being made available by the annual campaign.

We make money available to institutions, organizations and agencies that get no money from the Federation. They’re not affiliated with (undiscernible). Three. We make funds available to nonsectarian organizations. The Federation doesn’t either.

Equally and even more important, we are serving the philanthropic interests of donors who cannot give their money to the annual campaign, and tell the Federation just where our money goes . (It would) destroy the concept of the Federation. The donor can come to us and say, ” We want you to give this money to Pilot Dogs. I want to give this for health purposes. Can you do this for me? And I got a lot of different causes I want (undiscernible).”

What kind of instrument do you want to set up to achieve your purpose?

Do you want to have it during your lifetime, do you want any income? We do all those things the Federation cannot do. And we do it. What’s more important, is when you give money to the campaign, it goes in, and it goes out. That’s it.

You give money to us, a large amount of it sticks. So the theme we are using, is called, “Building a Community Legacy.” Live not only for the present, but for the future. When you came to this community, you had a network of services here. How do we maintain that? How do we meet these needs? Somebody did something for it – you’re not benefiting from it? You have a Center here, you have a Family Service, you’ve got Jewish Education, what the hell did you contribute to it? Nothing! Now what are you going to do about it for the next generation?

Now you’ve got to add to that, so that the next generation coming along will have something. And that’s what we do. We are a much more flexible, multifaceted (undiscernible). We are purely philanthropic in what we do. The Federation doesn’t have to be purely philanthropic. Campaigning is terribly important, but a lot of other things are important things. Not us – we raise money, we distribute money. We don’t deliver services. Except we deliver services of donors. We will not deliver Family Services, Health – says, Don’t come to us if you have an earache. Can’t help you on that.

Riskind: But you deliver money to the organizations that take care of the earache.

Mandelkorn: We can do it the most effective way possible.

Riskind: I think this is a good –

This interview is a part of the Oral History project of the Columbus
Jewish Historical Society.