UIA speaking with one voice

THE United Israel Appeal (UIA) is consolidating its resources across Australia to create one single message and reduce costs.

Recently elected national president Harold Finger said the organisation, which is the largest fundraiser in the world for new immigrants in Israel, needs to change with the times.

“We have been going through many campaigns with our existing donors and they understand and connect to Israel, but the new generation that is coming through don’t understand what we do,” Finger said.

“By centralising our message, rather than having individual state-run campaigns, we are going to create a great way for us to reach out and communicate with younger people.”

He said that during the last Gaza conflict with Hamas, much of the war was played out in cyberspace and, although the traditional methods of communication are still important, UIA needs to start making sure it meets the challenges of today and speaks to the younger generation on their level.

“In the next month or so, we will be appointing someone to take care of our social media, a community manager, and that is really a step moving forward.

“The other reason that we are making this is change is that we are trying to save costs obviously, and this will allow us to share the costs of each campaign, including the marketing, invitations, speakers and other costs, because we will work on campaigns together.”

By way of an example, Finger noted that American radio talk show host Dennis Prager addressed UIA in Sydney last year, but not in the rest of Australia. He stressed that will now change.

He said that the organisations in each state have always worked well together, but they haven’t always been able to plan speakers together, and this new agreement will only benefit the community.

“I am extremely pleased to say that I’m communicating weekly with all the presidents of all of the states, and they are very enthusiastic to develop this into a successful model that will make UIA stronger and the community more aware of our campaigns and projects.”

JOSHUA LEVI

UIA national president Harold Finger.