Operational Updates
The Federation's operations will shift to best protect our employees and the community.
- Starting Monday, March 16, most of our employees will work remotely and will continue to be available by phone and email during normal business hours of 8:30 am to 5:00 pm.
- Our offices remain closed during shelter-in-place. Working remotely, we are still processing mail and sending out grantee checks and acknowledgment letters, but at a slower rate. Please consider making your gift electronically through wire transfer and emailing us any forms, as checks and documents mailed or faxed to our office will have further delays. For any urgent needs, please email daf@sfjcf.org.
- Planned events over the next few months are canceled, and meetings will be conducted virtually.
Security and resilience of the Jewish community continues to be one of our key strategic priorities.
We know that each of our agency and synagogue partners is focused on these priorities for their organizations and communities and we have great respect for the manner in which they are addressing this challenge. Some key activities that took place the week of March 10 included:
- Convening a teleconference of almost 100 local Jewish organizations to provide real-time updates, exchange ideas and information, and assess specific needs and threats likely to arise in the weeks ahead. We will continue to host these webinars on a regular basis as the situation evolves.
- Sharing a contingency plan for the Federation’s response to COVID-19 that is easily transferable to any organization.
- Convening with local foundations to discuss urgent and emerging funding needs in the community and how we can work together to address them.
Announcing our Initial COVID-19 Response
For the past few weeks, the Federation team and lay leaders reached out to organizational partners to understand their needs, formed a community volunteer task force to provide guidance and mobilize resources and partners, established a Response Fund, and set up an innovative opportunity with Hebrew Free Loan. On Thursday, April 2, we announced an initial $6.6 million commitment to COVID-19 response. Read our press release.
We hosted a virtual Community Briefing on Monday, April 6 where we shared additional details around our COVID-19 response and answered questions. You can watch a recording of the briefing, or view a copy of the presentation.
We will update with more information on operational changes, ways in which we are supporting the community, and opportunities to help as the situation evolves.
