Leadership Lessons

PROVIDENCE – As the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island’s Annual Campaign season heats up, Sharon Gaines, named the new chair of the Alliance at the June 10 annual meeting, sat for an interview.

Gaines and her husband Alan are the parents of Ben, Alex and Zachary. The Cranston resident juggles her twice-weekly work as a nurse in Alan’s medical office in Cumberland with her Alliance duties.

Excerpts of Gaines’ interview with The Jewish Voice follow.

Q: What do you see as the most important challenges of your role as chair? The Annual Campaign is flat and has been for some time, yet community needs are growing. What do you think can break that logjam?

A: The biggest challenge to growing our [Annual] Campaign is to recreate the relevancy of the Alliance, post-merger. (The Alliance was created, effective Jan. 1, 2011, out of the merger of the Jewish Federation of Rhode Island, the Jewish Community Center of Rhode Island and the Bureau of Jewish Education of Rhode Island.)

It’s time to stop talking about three merged agencies and just become one institution. We continue to do excellent work for the Jewish community; we have to package and sell ourselves better.

At the same time, results of the poverty study (read a future issue of The Jewish Voice to learn more about the Brandeis University-led study of poverty or financial instability within greater Rhode Island’s Jewish community) may give people a greater sense of purpose and understanding about why we do what we do.

[As for fundraising], I think we’re tracking with other federations that are of like size to us. We are facing the same challenges that all nonprofits [face]. It goes back to relevancy and meeting the needs of our younger donors as we create new philanthropists.

They [philanthropists of an earlier generation] had a learning curve. It’s a learning curve for us to make sure we appeal to the next generation in a whole broad spectrum.

Q: Given people’s ability to give directly to an organization important to them, why would they give first to the Alliance to then have that money given to an organization? Both the Alliance and the recipient agency incur administrative expenses that reduce the funds actually used for the program.

A: Gifts are more impactful when we add your dollar to my dollar and to others’ dollars. In addition, the Alliance is in a unique position to assess our community priorities so as to best meet our needs for programs and services. We’re monitoring the outcome of the donations to make sure that dollars are being used for programmatic purposes and in an effective way.

There’s no perfect system, but the impact of the collective can be far greater than the impact of the single donor.

Q: Does the Alliance have the personnel and financial capacity to do what needs to be done in the next few years?

A: Yes, it starts from the top down; Jeffrey has built relationships with donors … We’re in a much stronger place than we’ve ever been; our campaign lay leadership is strong and we’re doing a better job with our messaging. I think we have to make sure we use our infrastructure as effectively as possible. We’ve brought in the people we needed; we can take a deep breath and know we’re moving up.

Q: What’s on your agenda for the first six months?

A: For me, one of the most important things is to move away from merger talk and become a strong Alliance and continue to build community; to make people want to be part of us and to reinvigorate a sense of volunteerism among old and young alike. Through a reinvigorated leadership development program, I hope to inspire and capture the ‘Next Gen’ so that they can continue to strengthen our community as we create the leaders of the future.

As a participant in the Jewish Federation of Rhode Island’s LEADERS program, I gained the skills and confidence to participate in a variety of activities in the Women’s Alliance, which I continue to rely on to this day.

[We’ll be] doing some leadership development; I rose up in the ranks and my first foray into federation life [was] a bit of stuff with Women’s Division.

We need to build leadership, we’ve lost a generation [of volunteers] and we need to build our Next Gen program so that we can become relevant to that generation.

Q: To that end, how do we engage people outside the ‘Alliance bubble’ and get them involved – as donors, volunteers or board members?

A: By spreading the word, through parlor meetings and in new, innovative ways – such as crowdsourcing or kickstarter.com – and meeting the donors where they’re at. We started that with the donor choice last year; people want more control [in their giving decisions]. We need to find ways to appeal to people and expand our committee structure so there are places for people to start.

Q: You’ve said you want to move past merger talk, but before we do, what do you think the merger accomplished?

A: We stabilized our agencies and created a strong institution that can better implement programs and services; smaller agencies aren’t so worried about where dollars are going to come from now. Hiring Jeffrey [Savit, chief executive officer and president of the Alliance] brought that sense of camaraderie and sense of oneness; even though we still struggle with turf wars – I want to change that. I think some of the other staffing moves – promoting Michelle Cicchitelli and Larry Katz – and growing different partnerships [may help break down turf wars].

Q: Do you have a professional bucket list of goals you want to accomplish?

A: As I said when I was installed as chair of the board last June, my ultimate success will lie in my ability to engage the community, young and old alike, and to create and stimulate a new generation of leaders. We must transcend individual goals and achievements to create wider interpersonal synergy and pursue collective objectives and accomplishments. Additionally, we must embrace a new clear vision and well-designed strategies that will determine community and organizational priorities.

I’m not a believer in setting [fundraising] goals; if we’re looking to raise money for different projects – the poverty study, the Alliance building, a Holocaust memorial – we may have to shift how we do things. For me, it’s growing the number of donors, becoming more relevant to more people and developing strong leadership.

Q: Were your parents role models for your philanthropic engagement?

A: When I was growing up on Long Island, N.Y., my parents were involved in synagogue, not federation. My father was the synagogue’s Brotherhood president, my late mother was synagogue president and president of B’nai Brith. My parents made time for that even when their family was young.

Although I’m now a Lion of Judah (which requires an annual $5,000 gift to the Alliance), it was a long time until I got to that point, but I always gave my time.

People talk about ‘doers, donors and door-openers’; now, I believe I fit all three categories, but when I began, I was only a doer.