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Last update - 11:22 10/07/2008 A handout for the handers out By Ruth Sinai Tags: Israel, Yad Sarah  Over the last few years, Arcadi Gaydamak has become the person to turn to for thousands of despairing citizens, nonprofit organizations serving the needy, and small and large organizations from the Jewish Agency and hospitals, to neighborhood synagogues and community sports clubs. Indeed, Gaydamak wrote out checks and made pledges totaling tens of millions of shekels, and based on the donations and pledges, plans were drawn up and workers mobilized. One day, or more precisely around six months ago, the tap was turned off. Gaydamak's aides announced that he could no longer donate to charity because the donations might be deducted from the sums he is permitted to spend on his Social Justice party's Knesset election campaign. Clubs for youths at risk, apartments for girls in distress and a slew of other projects were caught in various stages of their projects without funding, or with a reduced and depleted budget. The reports this week about the halting of donations ("The Marker," 6.7) were especially relevant given the first event of its kind that was held in the Knesset two days ago - the signing of a pact in which the legislators agreed to promote the third sector of organizations that do no function for a profit, and to encourage a culture of contributions, volunteerism and civilian involvement in society. Advertisement "The story with Gaydamak illustrates the limits of philanthropy," says Prof. Benjamin Gidron, director of the Israeli Center for Third Sector Research (ICTR) at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. "It also shows why it is forbidden to rely on philanthropy for underlying projects in the areas of education, health, welfare and social affairs. There is a consensus that when it comes to anything relating to core issues, the responsibility for outlining policy, financing and supervising such projects is the government's." However, the more the sector referred to as the third or civilian sector widens, and the more organizations that exist and people working for them, the greater the tension and confusion surrounding its roles, and the place it has alongside the other two more dominant sectors - the government-public sector and the financial sector. The Second Lebanon War placed the issues on the public agenda and served as a catalyst for attempts to address them. "No one defines what are the core services that a government should provide," says Galit Sagi, executive director of the volunteer division at Elka, a partnership between the Joint Distribution Committee-Israel and the government, which trains managers to work in the public sector and in the third sector. "There's a lot of ambivalence with regard to the sector and to the philanthropy. The government wants to encourage philanthropy, but is afraid that the people with the money will want to set the policy priorities." The Prime Minister's Office has been leading an effort for over two years whose goal is to delineate the limits of responsibility of each sector, through dialogue encounters between government bodies and social organizations, as well as in the Knesset, where a lobby whose role is to promote legislation on behalf of the organizations has been created, headed by MK Zevulun Orlev (National Religious Party). "But we are lagging behind in data, legislation and addressing the sector and philanthropy because of the sense that we got into this against our will," says Sagi. "Unlike the United States, where people are proud of the strong civil society in organizations and in donating to organizations, here there is an apology for setting up an organization and thereby freeing the government from social responsibility. We still haven't decided where we want to be." The most up-to-date figures from the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) are for 2004, and cover every not-for-profit organization, be it a university or health maintenance organization, or a charitable association in Bnei Brak or a parents' committee in Haifa. According to data from the Registrar of Nonprofit Associations, there are around 27,000 such associations in Israel, but only around 12,000 operate on a financial scale that obligates them to file a report with the Income Tax Authority. The number of people employed by such organizations in 2004 totaled 365,000, which at the time represented 17.5 percent of all salaried employees in the country, compared with 10.5 percent of salaried employees in 1991. Since the war, there has been a sharp surge in the organization and solidification of the sector, but Prof. Dov Goldberger, chairman of the nonprofit umbrella group known as Manhigut Ezrahit (civic leadership), says that there is a substantial gap between what is desirable and what there is. "There's no connection between the importance of the sector and the reality," he says. "This issue does not appear in coalition agreements and in party platforms, and until recently the government did not even hold a discussion on the sector. It is impossible to continue relating to the sector as a negligible and marginal sector." Goldberger is especially frustrated by the sector's financing problems. The government is cutting back support for nonprofits, and the rates it sets for the services it purchases from the organizations - to run institutions for people with mental disabilities, youth clubs, and more - do not reflect the increase in the prices of food and fuel. The size of contributions from abroad has decreased, and their value has been eroded by 30 percent due to the weakening of the dollar. On the other hand, contributions from businesses barely amount to 1 percent of their income, and the organizations also have to compete with the government - trying to raise funds for social projects from philanthropic organizations that the government also solicits. The organizations do receive funds from the state, but they also save it a lot of money. According to Dr. Yaron Sokolov, director of Civic Leadership, the volunteer hours provided by citizens in a variety of areas are worth 7.5 billion shekels annually. At Yad Sarah, for example, it was calculated that borrowing medical equipment for home use saves the state NIS 1.5 billion - the cost of hospitalization days. The value of the hours put in by the organization's 6,000 volunteers reaches 26 million shekels. Nevertheless, according to the CBS, organizations are increasingly relying on donations. In 1991, they represented 16 percent of their income, while in 2004 that rate increased to 19 percent. The government still is the primary source of income for the sector, for the services it purchases and the support it provides, but the government funds reach only a small percentage of all the organizations. At the same time, government spending on social services is declining. According to data gathered by Dr. Haggai Katz of the Center for the Study of the Third Sector, the government's share in national spending on education dropped from 53 percent to 50 percent from 1991 to 2004, and in education from 22 percent to 20 percent. The organizations are the ones that fill the funding vacuum left by the government. Despite the increased wealth in Israel in recent years, most of the donations still come from abroad - $1.5 billion annually, according to various estimates. Israeli companies did indeed increase their donations, but the amounts as a percentage of their income have decreased, from a record of 1.2 percent in 2006 to 0.9 percent in 2007. Katz wants to debunk the image of the organizations as entities that work primarily to serve the weaker elements in society. "The primary beneficiary of the organizations is the middle class," says Katz. "It is true that there are organizations that grab headlines by using some distress as a public relations tool. But who is active in the parents' committees, the leisure and culture organizations, environmental organizations and human rights associations? The middle class." The director general of the Joint-Israel, Arnon Mantver, also sees a message for the country's citizens in the third sector. "The decline in the power of states is a worldwide trend that reflects the weakening of the traditional centers of power: governments, political parties," says Mantver. "I was in the government in the 1970s and then it worked. But the governments have become fossilized, they have trouble doing things, they worry about covering themselves. You could talk from now until tomorrow about the state's responsibility, but it won't go back to what it was." The third sector entered the vacuum that was created. "Citizens organize in groups, in communities," says Mantver. "I don't see in civil society a chance for the renewal of the social fabric that once was, for the intimacy, the support." Bookmark to del.icio.us   Photoshopped launch Did Iran doctor an image of its provocative missile test launch? 'Hitler was a good boss' Nazi bodyguard describes the fuhrer's last moments in a Berlin bunker.   1.   better leave policy to philanthropists 21:04  |  Joanna 10/07/08

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