These big news stories all have a direct impact on the Pittsburgh region.  What that impact will exactly be remains to be seen.  The sale of Heinz, the changing of leadership at PNC Bank and the merger of US Airways with American Airlines will undoubtedly result in changes. 

All of the above point to the fact that change happens.  I know I write about this topic often.  I do so because creating change is difficult in large, established organizations.  I can tell you that there are interesting conversations going on within and between many of our communal organizations.  Creating change for the sake of saying one has created change is not helpful.  But being open to creating change because old models no longer work as effectively as they once did, always makes sense.  “By changing nothing, nothing changes.” -Tony Robbins

Going back to the Snowbirds Event and to Good Deeds Day, both are actually the result of changes.  The Snowbirds event has been on Superbowl Sunday for years and years.  This year, we moved not only the date, but also the time of day to see if a new model might work even better than in the past.  Good Deeds Day is a brand new program as part of our brand new Jewish Federation Volunteer Center.  We created that center because we identified a need to have a central place in the Jewish community to match volunteers with high quality volunteer experiences.  It is great to be part of an organization open to thinking differently and trying new things. 

We all need to be open to change.  While we may be used to the ways things have been, those models may not be the right ones to get us to our future.

If anyone knows Warren Buffett, please let him know we will be happy to match the Heinz offer and sell the Federation Building for $23 Billion.  Imagine the positive change we could then make!

Shabbat Shalom.

Jeff Finkelstein
President/CEO