On “Saturday Night Live,” comedian Mike Myers starred in a recurring shtick in which, as Linda Richards of “Coffee Talk,” s/he’d become verklempt and give audience members an assignment to discuss while s/he regained composure. One well-remembered discussion topic was “the Holy Roman Empire wasn’t holy, wasn’t Roman and wasn’t an Empire.”
Marsha Atkind and Sandra Lief Garrett, respectively president and executive director of the 109-year-old National Council of Jewish Women, met over Chinese dinner at the Szechuan Restaurant with members of the Greater San Diego section of NCJW on Thursday, Sept. 26. Atkind noted that the organization founded in 1893 by Hannah Solomon was still national and still a council, but today its members are no longer exclusively Jewish nor exclusively women. 
The organization’s 90,000 members, including 250 in the San Diego section, are spread across the nation. Using the imagery of a delicious orange, NCJW refers to its local units as “sections” rather than as “chapters.”
Atkind, an Essex County, N.J., resident who took over as national president six months ago, said NCJW’s mission is “to improve the quality of life for women, children and families and to protect and preserve individual freedoms for all.”
These goals are implemented through a variety of projects, both in the United States and in Israel. In collaboration with other pro-choice groups, NCJW lobbies the U.S. Senate to deny confirmation to U.S. judicial nominees whose records indicate opposition to abortion. 
In Israel, the organization underwrites Tel Aviv University’s new Women and Gender Studies Program. In an initiative called Yad v’Yad (Hand in Hand), NCJW provides grants to a multitude of grassroots projects in Israel, including an after-school program that brings Arab and Jewish children together to learn about each other, and another that provides computers to a school for Orthodox Jewish boys. 
In San Diego, NCJW members led by co-presidents Olga Worm and Judy Shear work with HIPPY, a program to encourage parents to read and teach concepts to their preschool children, and also provide volunteers to a number of projects operated by Jewish Family Service, including the College Avenue Senior Center and Mentoring Moms. 
The national organization raises some money from its membership, as well as by assigning fundraising goals to each of its 126 sections. San Diego, for example, is expected to contribute $11,000 through fundraising projects. However, to raise its current $4.1 budget and its projected $5 million annual budget, the national organization also must seek support from foundations, corporations and individual donors.
Success in obtaining philanthropic dollars often depends on the clarity with which the organization’s mission can be communicated to the prospective donor. 
With the many things that NCJW does, it is difficult to explain in just a few words about the organization to other people, said executive director Garrett, who came 10 months ago to NCJW from the Jewish Women’s Foundation of New York. 
NCJW recently engaged the Siegelgale “branding firm” to devise messages about NCJW that will communicate the organization’s essence in just a few words. 
Ideally, said Garrett, the message will communicate that at NCJW “we are one, carrying out our mission in 126 sections.”