Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

UJA-Federation New York announces 54 layoffs, CEO forgoes pay

(JTA) – In the last few months, UJA-Federation New York has awarded millions of dollars of emergency grants to help organizations survive the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now, it’s joining the ranks of organizations letting go of its own staff members as it anticipates declining donations. Its CEO, Eric Goldstein, will forgo a salary for the coming year as the organization, one of the largest nonprofits in New York City, figures out how to navigate the fiscal crisis.

In total, 54 employees are losing their jobs and no open positions will be filled, the organization announced Wednesday. The cuts amount to a 12% reduction in the size of the staff.

The cuts, which Goldstein announced in a note to staff, came as a result of a projected drop in donations and revenue in the coming fiscal year.

“We expect our major donors to continue generously supporting our work – at a time when our mission has never been more urgent. However, given the current environment, we nonetheless project a significant drop in FY’21 fundraising (and potentially beyond), particularly because it will be many months before we expect to resume large in-person events and missions – critical drivers of our annual revenue,” Goldstein wrote.

Goldstein, who joined the organization as CEO in 2014, earned a salary of $546,000 with his total compensation coming to $884,000 in 2018, the last fiscal year for which tax filings are available. In addition to Goldstein’s decision to forgo a salary, senior executives at the organization will take pay cuts of 10% while other higher-paid members of the staff and management teams will have their pay reduced by 3-5%. 

The cuts come as federations across the country struggle amid the pandemic and its financial consequences. An umbrella organization working with nearly 150 local federations, Jewish Federations of North America, announced layoffs of its own last month; its CEO said he was taking a 10% pay cut.

UJA-Federation New York raises money to support Jewish causes and organizations across New York City. The organization disbursed funds of over $166 million in 2019.

The post UJA-Federation New York announces 54 layoffs as CEO forgoes pay appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.