The partnership between Board members and professional staff is a keystone of organizational impact. Yet few targeted development opportunities exist for staff members who want to level up their work with their Boards. Leading Edge is launching a pilot program to support executives and other senior leaders in leveling up the professional-Board collaboration.

Built on the best insights from our executive programs, Leadership Lab: Collaborating With Your Board is a cohort-based development program. Participants are senior executives and other senior leaders in their organizations. From November 2024 through April 2025, cohort members will master leadership practices toward effectively partnering with their Boards, analyze successful governance practices, reflect in individual and small group coaching, and develop an implementation plan to improve the efficacy and engagement of their Boards. 

The following leaders will participate in the inaugural cohort of Leadership Lab:

Leading Edge’s research into CEO perceptions of Board performance highlights the importance of successful staff-Board partnerships, and also the urgency to give our professionals more robust tools to deepen the engagement of their Board members. And we know from previous executive programs that the value of peer learning is crucial for high-performing professionals.

Meet the Jewish nonprofit professionals in Leading Edge’s pilot program for professionals who work with ​Boards.

Announcing the first cohort of Leadership Lab: Collaborating With Your Board

Leadership

Leading Edge is proud to introduce the inaugural cohort of the Culture Accelerator, a professional development program for professionals leading the “people work” at their organizations. These crucial professionals have different job titles — incorporating “Operations,” “Human Resources,” “Talent,” or “People and Culture.” But while their titles differ, they share the complex and vital task of shepherding talent and team culture during this challenging moment, as the post-October-7th world heightens the urgent need for strong, resilient, and supportive Jewish organizations.

Recent data from Leading Edge’s Spring 2024 Focused Engagement Survey shows that for the Jewish nonprofit sector overall, aggregate engagement is holding steady, but challenges remain — particularly around internal communication. The people-oriented roles of this program’s participants are cornerstones for their organizations’ work to navigate these difficult times, ensuring their organizations can continue to thrive and fulfill their missions.

Over the course of seven months, these participants will engage in five virtual learning sessions, an intensive in-person retreat, and create a talent initiative plan. The program also includes 1:1 advisory sessions and connection online. Leading Edge, in partnership with coLeague, will work with participants to reflect on key talent and people challenges. The peer connections they create will provide a mutually supportive network for years to come.

These professionals who drive the “people work” at Jewish nonprofits begin their journey of learning and connection at a challenging time for the sector.

Meet the Talent Leaders Selected for the Inaugural Cohort of the Culture Accelerator

Reflecting on Leading Edge's 2022 acquisition of Boardified in this article for The Wexner Foundation, Leading Edge Chief Operating Officer Mordy Walfish highlights the interplay between technical and emotional factors, as well as the importance of transparent communication, in facilitating a smooth integration.

"Over the past year, I’ve had the fascinating opportunity to play a key role in the acquisition and subsequent integration of one organization into another. This process turned out to be equal parts technical and emotional, and the biggest thing I learned in this process is to keep both parts front and center. Not only are the technical and the emotional both important levels of the work in any collaboration, but each affects the other profoundly, and the line between them can blur."

Leading Edge, where I’m privileged to serve as COO, is a fast-growing, eight-year-old, non-profit focused on helping Jewish organizations improve their workplace culture and leadership so that they can better achieve their missions. Just over a year ago we acquired Boardified, a fiscally sponsored initiative focused on strengthening board leadership in the Jewish non-profit sector. The impetus for the acquisition appeared to be technical: Leading Edge’s work necessarily included strengthening board leadership alongside professional leadership, so why have more than one organization focused on these efforts? While this technical rationale is certainly valid on its own terms, there were major emotional dimensions at play that helped drive the ability to realize and act on it. First, there was the humble recognition on the part of Leading Edge’s CEO, Gali Cooks, and that of our leadership, that this area of work was one in which Leading Edge was struggling to gain traction, despite multiple efforts to do so. We perceived Boardified as serving as a major and necessary boon to us achieving our mission, rather than a competitor of sorts that we needed to “beat”, as is sometimes the case in non-profit mergers.

On the Boardified side, they were coming to the conversation from a place of strength — they were thriving yet wanted to be a part of something bigger. They put ego and brand aside to focus on mission alignment and constituents, which truly made all the difference.

At the same time, saying “yes” to this acquisition required both organizations to undergo a shift in their own self-perceptions. Leading Edge was accustomed to being the young, small, scrappy startup. In fact, at the time of the acquisition, we had only been an independent non-profit ourselves for five years, and we had grown from a staff of three to 13 in that time. Leaning into the role of the acquiring partner meant that we had to take a close, hard look at our systems to ensure they were ready; to ask our staff to absorb exponential change, amidst an always-changing environment; and remind ourselves that there is no going back to being an under-the-radar organization — we were putting our stake in the ground and positioning ourselves to be a major player in new spaces. On Boardified’s side, they had to take a new perspective on their work — from the team, culture, and programs they had built to the relationships and image they had so carefully fostered — and move away from their fiscally sponsored model into being a fully integrated part of an organization three times their size. This was also a tremendous shift. Both Leading Edge and Boardified leaning into these new identities played a key role in moving the acquisition ahead. While all sides experienced loss, each of our organization’s relative newness onto the scene of North American Jewish life — and our evolving organizational identities — helped us embrace the change and see the process through. There was nothing so entrenched that couldn’t be called into question.

Leaning into the role of the acquiring partner meant that we had to take a close, hard look at our systems to ensure they were ready; to ask our staff to absorb exponential change, amidst an always-changing environment; and remind ourselves that there is no going back to being an under-the-radar organization — we were putting our stake in the ground and positioning ourselves to be a major player in new spaces.

The Technical, the Emotional, and the Both

On March 14, senior teams from four organizations will begin a three-month shared learning journey about how a nonprofit’s senior leadership team can lead together as one.

The program, Leading Teams, by Leading Edge, brings senior leadership teams from multiple organizations together to elevate how top leadership teams collaborate and achieve their missions. “Leadership isn’t just about the top job,” says Dena Farber Schoenfeld, Chief Programs Officer at Leading Edge. “This layer of leadership—one rung below the CEO—is essential to organizational success. And that’s not just about having great individuals in those roles, it’s about helping those great individuals combine together into a team that’s more than the sum of its members.”

“The Network's member agencies provide a vast array of vital services, and they do so with quality and care,” said Reuben D. Rotman, President & CEO of the Network, “but since what our agencies do is so important, nobody can afford to rest on their laurels. They have to keep improving, for the sake of everyone depending on them. The Leading Teams experience will help participating agencies to do just that.” 

This cohort of Leading Teams is being conducted in partnership with the Network of Jewish Human Service Agencies, funded by The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, and all four organizations in the cohort are members of the Network. 

The organizations participating in this cohort of Leading Teams are:

●        Goodman Jewish Family Services of Broward County

●        Jewish Family & Career Services of Louisville

●        Jewish Family Services of Columbus

●        Jewish Family Services of Greenwich

Teams from all four organizations will join together with the whole cohort for masterclasses and skills sessions. Each organization’s team will also meet separately with its own senior advisor who specializes in working with executive teams.

Interested in learning about future cohorts of Leading Teams? Fill out an interest form, and be sure to sign up for Leading Edge’s email newsletter.

Collaboration, communication, and group dynamics are the focus for learners in this special cohort of the Leading Teams program.

Leading Edge will train senior teams from four organizations in the Network of Jewish Human Service Agencies

Prof. Hilarie Lieb has taught economics at Northwestern University, and been active in Jewish lay leadership, for many years. She is now the president of the board at Jewish Free Loan Chicago, and in that capacity, she’s currently participating in the Chicago Leadership Seminar, a modified version of a Leading Edge program that improves the partnerships between CEOs and board chairs. Rabbi Megan GoldMarche is executive director of Tribe12, an organization connecting people in their 20s and 30s to Jewish life in Philadelphia. In that capacity, she is participating in Leading Executives, our executive leadership training program. 

None of this would be out of the ordinary, except that Prof. Lieb and Rabbi GoldMarche are mother and daughter! I sat down with them (well, “with” them via Zoom, that is) to hear their reflections as representatives of (quite literally) two generations of Jewish leadership.

R’ Megan: Three weeks ago. We were talking and my mom said, “I have to go, I have a call with my Leading Edge coach.” I was like, oh, I have a coach through Leading Edge too!

Prof. Hilarie: I didn’t realize Megan was involved with Leading Edge. I hadn’t heard about it until my executive director, Leah Greenblum, told me about it. She knows the Jewish nonprofit sphere, this is new to me.

R’ Megan: She didn’t realize that her niece, my cousin, Mimi Kravetz, is on the board of Leading Edge!

Prof. Hilarie: Small field. Just too small.

Prof. Hilarie: At Jewish Free Loan Chicago, we’re a startup; we just five months ago gave out our first loans. The way we work is still “all hands-on deck” at this point. With of course Leah doing most of the work as our only staff person. But as we move forward, we need to be intentional about separating out these board and professional roles, even while we’re so new. There are many models of how to do that, and of course we’re creating our own, based on all those possible models, and that’s the area I most hope to work on. In my life and career, I’ve often been the mentor. But earlier in my career, when  I would have been a mentee, this idea of mentorship wasn’t established as it is now. So, I hadn’t participated in a formal mentorship program. And now, it’s a gift to be on able to.

R’ Megan: I started a new job last spring as the executive director of a small nonprofit called Tribe 12, building Jewish community for people in their 20s and 30s in Philadelphia. And I'm trained as a rabbi, so this is my first executive director role. I had heard really positive things about Leading Edge programs and I reached out to Dena [Schoenfeld, Chief Programs Officer at Leading Edge] to see what types of programs might exist. I have so much to learn in this new role, and I've learned a lot even in the last ten, eleven months or so. I think it's just great to be part of a cohort of some folks who are in that same space. My coach has just been amazing as sort of a sounding board. This is my first time not having a supervisor, and it’s so valuable to have someone to ask questions and help me figure out my growing edges.

R’ Megan: I hope there are differences! Are you buying Leah [Greenblum, executive director of Prof. Hilarie’s organization] clothing? Did you take her shopping yet?

Prof. Hilarie: Not yet! It is interesting, because in our first meeting of the Leading Edge program, they asked us to think of some fictional characters we might think of as being parallels for the board chair and the executive director. And since I have two grandchildren who watch Frozen all the time, I said, Elsa and Anna, but in Frozen II, because that's really when they take on very separate roles. Initially, they're very interdependent, and then they differentiate. And there’s a parallel there to parenthood. As a parent, for me at least, at first I knew very little about being a parent. So, I think you are learning your roles together. And then at some points you feel like you are ready to give more guidance.

R’ Megan: My board chair and I are the same age. We are very much peers; we definitely don’t have a parent-child relationship. I think in an ideal world, you’re each bringing a different expertise to the partnership. We’re in different lanes. And it’s not a straightforward hierarchy. The board is legally the boss, but in a good dynamic, it’s a real partnership between the board chair and the ED, a sense of healthy interdependence. Of course, parenting is also not a boss relationship. My children are the boss of my household most of the time.

R’ Megan: It’s interesting: my mom, because of her work with college students, has always been in touch with the younger generations. I work now with people in their 20s and 30s, so as I age, I still feel very in touch with young people too. I think I am more in touch with Gen Z than many other older Millennials. But there are differences. I was raised to be a workaholic by my workaholic parents. Maybe Boomers and Millennials have similar work ethics. There’s also a generational divide around Israel, which is very difficult to speak about. That may be the biggest generational divide. And it comes up in our household, like any other. But overall, we’re aligned. Both of us are very committed to justice, what it means to bring non-Jews into our work, People of Color in our work, we’re on the same page.

Prof. Hilarie: People from my generation seem to still be very present in the Jewish nonprofit world.  It is important for us to be supportive, but we also need to make way for the next generation. I think that I'm in a good role right now because I can help mentor someone, but I'm not in it because I see this as something long-term. My goal is to share what I've learned and then step away and see this next generation lead. But my generation needs to think about supporting the next generation emotionally, financially, and intellectually, so they can be successful. And we’re doing that in this Leading Edge program. We're taking two different generations and really getting guidance and making that happen.

R’ Megan: I don’t know about “people need to get out of the way”. But we’re living in a strange time. My generation is, on average, going to be less wealthy than our parents. The older generations, at least from what I am seeing, have more wealth than my peers and I, and are more likely to have worked in the for-profit sector, giving my peers the ability to choose a career we love that might pay less. There’s often an interesting tension between board leadership who have more wealth and worked in the for-profit sector and nonprofit leaders who are making nonprofit salaries and trying to raise competitive salaries to pay young talented people. What does it mean to be generational wealth holders, and to be wealth seekers in the sense of being fundraisers? That’s a conversation we need to have more of.

Two generations of Jewish leadership reflect on their journeys and their generations.

A Mother/Board President, a Daughter/Executive Director, and a Tale of Two Leading Edge Programs

Leading Edge is proud to announce the 40 board members at Jewish nonprofits who will join the seventh cohort of the Board Member Institute, the reimagined signature program of Boardified powered by Leading Edge. The program is delivered in partnership with Northwestern University’s Kellogg School Center for Nonprofit Management. 

We’re excited to welcome a cohort of future-focused leaders who will, over the next 6 months and beyond, build the strategies and community they need to govern their organizations toward long-term success. Participants will engage with the curriculum and their cohort, and bring their insights back to their boards and communities. 

We’re thrilled to support a group of volunteer leaders representing such a broad range of institutions, generations, identities, communities, and leadership journeys.

Leaders of Color. 20% of participants identify as Black/African American, Multiracial, Middle Eastern/North African, Hispanic/Latina/Latino/Latinx, or Native American/American Indian/Alaska Native/Indigenous Peoples. 

Leadership across generations. The cohort includes an even split between Millennials, Generation X, and Baby Boomers. 

Leadership journeys. 63% of the cohort have served more than 3 years as board leaders, including 18% who have served for more than 10 years. 

Leaders of many institutions. Participants serve and lead in a range of local/regional, national, and international organizations, including: 

The Board Member Institute is the premier leadership development program for board members at Jewish nonprofits. A program of Boardified powered by Leading Edge, it is administered in partnership with Northwestern University’s Kellogg School Center for Nonprofit Management. It is taught by their faculty along with expert practitioners from the Jewish nonprofit sector.

Between November 2022 and March 2023, the volunteer leaders in Cohort 7 will learn, grow, and connect in both in-person and virtual sessions.

Each participant opted into one of these Affinity Groups: 

Interested in information on the next cohort?

If you or someone you know might be a good fit for future Board Member Institute programming, be sure to sign up for email updates from Leading Edge so you won’t miss any opportunities moving forward.

These volunteer leaders from Jewish nonprofits join a multi-generational, multi-denominational, multi-racial cohort, representing a variety of leadership trajectories.

Meet the 40 Board Members Chosen as Cohort 7 of the Board Member Institute | Leading Edge

Meet the 40 Board Members Chosen as Cohort 7 of the Board Member Institute

Leading Edge President & CEO Gali Cooks joined nonprofit consultant Joan Garry as a guest on Garry's podcast, “Nonprofits Are Messy,” for a wide-ranging and detailed conversation on what it takes for nonprofit organizations to become leading places to work.

Gali Cooks and Joan Garry: How to Attract, Develop, and Retain Top Nonprofit Talent

A new podcast hosted by the heads of Leading Edge, Jews of Color Initiative, and the SRE Network offers an unflinching look at the dynamic factors of leadership today, and how leaders can model and increase equity and inclusion.

Supported by The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, the “Just Leading” podcast features eight episodes (released between May 20 and July 8) hosted by Gali Cooks, Ilana Kaufman, or Elana Wien and featuring a diverse subset of leaders from within and beyond the Jewish world. 

“Like many philanthropic organizations, The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation believes the strength of a nonprofit’s leadership is the most important determinant of its success,” said Jon Hornstein, Program Officer at the Weinberg Foundation. “The Foundation has invested significantly in each of the three organizations led by the podcast hosts—including more than $3 million to Leading Edge and more than $1 million each to Jews of Color Initiative and the SRE Network—because of the strength of their executive leadership, in addition to the importance of the missions of their respective organizations. The Foundation also believes that executive leadership at Jewish nonprofits should reflect the diversity of the Jewish community, and Gali, Ilana, and Elana have distinguished themselves by taking on challenging and important conversations regarding equitable and inclusive leadership. Listeners will hear insightful and thoughtful perspectives in the podcast, which is hosted by three of the Jewish community’s most extraordinary leaders. The Weinberg Foundation is proud to support this effort.”

“Just Leading” has been featured as a Top Pick by the podcast distributor Stitcher. 

Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!

Gali Cooks of Leading Edge, Ilana Kaufman of Jews of Color Initiative, and Elana Wien of the SRE Network glean insights and wisdom from leaders who are changing what leadership looks like.

New Podcast “Just Leading” Investigates Bringing More Equity into Leadership

The roughly one-year mark since pandemic restrictions began, along with a new phase of vaccine progress, converge to create a milestone moment. We sat down with seven leaders of Jewish organizations—all alumni of our CEO Onboarding Program—to take stock of the lessons they will remember from the eventful past year, and the insights they’ll bring into the future.

Paul Bernstein
CEO, Prizmah: Center for Jewish Day Schools

Rabbi Jacob Blumenthal
CEO, The Rabbinical Assembly

Addie Goodman
President & CEO, JCC Chicago

Heather Moran
CEO and Executive Director, Sixth & I

Rabbi David Rosenn
Executive Director, Hebrew Free Loan Society

Miryam Rosenzweig
President and CEO, Milwaukee Jewish Federation

Todd Schenk
CEO, Jewish Social Service Agency (JSSA), Rockville, MD

In March 2020, what went through your heads when you first understood the severity of the pandemic?

Addie Goodman: I don't think any of us, and certainly not I, had any inkling how long the true crisis would last. I wasn't prepared to engage in months of crisis management. I'd never done that before. Even though we’d had bomb threats and other shorter crises in the past, this was totally new territory. And if I had been aware of the length of this situation, then I would have guided my team differently. Honestly, I would have supported myself differently. I just didn't realize that the adrenaline was going to have to last for a year. 

Rabbi David Rosenn: When COVID hit, we thought, “Okay, here’s something we know how to do.” And we stood up a stripped-down version of our general-needs loan that would be much more accessible to people, because we figured there would be extra costs associated with illness, childcare, and more. Then, three days later, it became utterly clear that this was not just a “respond-with-the-tools-you-already-have-in-your-toolbox” kind of situation. So I suggested to my board that we just to tell everybody to stop repaying their loans. Debt forgiveness — we've never done that before. And we did that for four months. And that’s cash flow; that's lifeblood for us. So that was not an easy decision, but I think everybody felt that clearly this was the right thing to do. 

“If I had been aware of the length of this situation, then I would have guided my team differently. Honestly, I would have supported myself differently. I just didn't realize that the adrenaline was going to have to last for a year. ”

Early on in the pandemic, we heard from some CEOs, “This is not the job I signed up for.” And from others we heard, “My organization was made for moments like this.” Where were your reactions on that spectrum?

Heather Moran: When COVID hit us, I had the most intense feeling of imposter syndrome that I've had since I took this job. I know I’m well-positioned for my role, I love it, I love the organization, and I understand it. But I was completely overwhelmed by the feeling that decisions that I would make would make everything unravel. Having said that, I feel incredibly proud and energized. We ended up working so well together doing things that we never imagined we would do. We decided to double down on local work in the arts community, creating programs to help local artists, in ways we had never done before.

Paul Bernstein: When COVID hit our community, schools were dramatically affected right from the start. So we did things very quickly. Jewish day schools did have—if not necessarily a playbook for this—we had experience with responding to things like Parkland, Harvey, Pittsburgh. As a network of day schools, Prizmah was ready to facilitate rapid information-sharing among schools, since in COVID, no one knew exactly what to do. The Monday of the week of Purim is when we had the first major webinar about how to run a school online, led by the first school that did it. They had all of two days’ experience by that point—but they were ready to share what they were learning. It gave the rest of our network a head start for what was to come. Our team was listening to what was going on and channeling the needs and effort of the schools. My job was to back what they were learning, and provide space for rapid, fast-changing responses.

For yourselves and your teams, how have you dealt with burnout and emotional challenges?

Rabbi Jacob Blumenthal: I feel some responsibility to model what I really want rabbis in the field to be doing and what I want my staff to be doing, which is to create boundaries and to create time for self-care. So, much more than any time in my career, I’ve been focused on that piece. And I'm public about it; I show myself on my bike on Facebook. If I'm taking a day off, I write something about it. Because I don't think anybody thinks I'm lazy, but I do want them to see that I'm publicly taking that time, because I want them to do the same.

Miryam Rosenzweig: We are all living and working through this pandemic. It’s not business as usual, its compounded by the fact that we are all home, taking care of our lives while work hovers. I learned that it is important to speak about the challenges. So I talked about it in a staff meeting; I said, “I suffer from anxiety.” And saying it out loud to my team was very, very freeing for me. The number of people who reached out for support afterward was incredibly restorative for me, and helped me understand the different stresses facing of my team. This was a vulnerable leadership moment and I did it intentionally to create an environment where we can speak about challenges and support each other.

Heather Moran: I find myself doing a lot more triangulating between team members, trying to help everyone see that everybody is going through a lot right now. So many of people are struggling and taking things more personally than before, and I’m having so many conversations about dynamics in the workplace. We spend time in team meetings talking about things like giving people grace, benefit of the doubt, that kind of thing. I feel a responsibility to do this work, but also, I'm not a social worker. I’m realizing that actually, it isn't my job to make sure that everybody on my team is happy. That isn't in my job description. It is in my job description to make sure that everybody on our team has the tools that they need to feel supported in their work, but that's different from being responsible for their individual and personal happiness.

“I talked about it in a staff meeting; I said, ‘I suffer from anxiety.’ And saying it out loud to my team was very, very freeing for me.”

What has changed about your relationships with your boards?

Todd Schenk: The ability of board members to relate to what is so important in our services right now, because they are also living it, has fostered a different kind of connection to the work. Suddenly they’re not talking about somebody else's issue that we’re responding to; they can see it in themselves, their neighbors, and their own family members—the impact of isolation, the impact of trying to school children at home, the impact of not being able to visit a parent who's in a facility. All of those things are very much part of each of our lives and our board members’ lives as well. So a lot of our board members have now invested even more in being able to share in the response of the agency.

Miryam Rosenzweig: We often talk about the essential partnership between our lay leadership and the professionals. We felt the partnership in a completely new light. Our board chair joined every internal COVID response meeting, even though in the early days of the pandemic, we were meeting six times a week. Our board met weekly for months to ensure we can make decisions and respond quickly to the community. My team and I felt the partnership with our lay counterparts in a deeper way. We were in the trenches together. We struggled with the challenges, disagreed and then we had to rely on each other’s knowledge and role to get things done. How has the partnership changed? It’s forever transformed.

“The ability of board members to relate to what is so important in our services right now, because they are also living it, has fostered a different kind of connection to the work.”

What were your experiences as Jewish organizational leaders during the protests, unrest, and conversations taking place about racial injustice over the summer? 

Rabbi Jacob Blumenthal: Both the Rabbinical Assembly and USCJ signed on to a communal letter supporting Black Lives Matter. I'm proud we did so, and there's a lot more we need to be doing. I got lots of very pleased responses and a number of very critical ones. And getting a gauge for where our people are in the Conservative movement on these issues, it turns out, is very complex. We have a fairly complicated community around these issues, and it was a wake-up call, but not everybody was woken up in the same direction.

Todd Schenk: As a service organization, we're used to dealing with the impact of discrimination on people's lives. But it's really hard to acknowledge our own role in causing that pain. That's not usually our place—our place is to try to fix something that happened to somebody, something that we were not involved in. So stepping up as an organization to acknowledge our own role in structural racism is painful. Our approach was to clean up our own house before we start making proclamations about what needs to happen in the rest of society. And we met with some skepticism internally about whether we were being reactive to a social movement and our commitment would wane the minute that media attention subsided. But our commitment is to sustain a focus on these issues and really understand and address how they're impacting our organization. We're an organization where a third of our clientele are People of Color, 60% of our staff are People of Color and our board is zero People of Color. That's a pretty stark picture of who we are as an agency. And it’s something that our board recognizes needs to be addressed. So there's been a response, there have been some learnings, but we're nowhere near a final destination.

“It was a wake-up call, but not everybody was woken up in the same direction.”

Will society learn lessons or change on the other side of this pandemic?

Paul Bernstein: It's going to take time to figure out what is going to change permanently, or to what extent the pendulum will swing back to old habits. I do think there are things that we can look forward to being different. That might be in collaborative spaces, for example—collaborations across the Jewish community. And maybe we’ll truly recognize the value of what we had before COVID. In the day school world, the reasons why these schools have done so incredibly well is because K-12 education is about so much more than getting grades, which was always true, yet has been recognized and appreciated much more during the pandemic. A great education is driven by our values. It is about whole child development and their mental health. It is about family. It is about community. And of course it’s about excellent academics. Jewish schools are actually very good at all these things, but weren't appreciated for them in quite the way they are now.

Addie Goodman: A number of people have said to me, “I used to commute an hour each way. I'm not doing that again. No way, that is not the life I want to lead.” I think that this time with family, the time with our spouses and our children, this unexpected time together, has given us a focus on family that we haven't had as a society in a very long time. And we're talking about what's core to being human. How do I want to live my life? What is the society I want to live in? How can I help build that society? We’re internalizing, and acting upon, these questions in new ways.

The Pandemic, the Future, and Jewish Organizations: Leaders Reflect

An article in eJewish Philanthropy explores how the ebbing of the pandemic is a moment of opportunity—and stress—for Jewish nonprofits.

“Leaders are caught in this tension between ‘survive and thrive,’” [Leading Edge President & CEO Gali Cooks] said. “We know this is an unbelievable moment, but summoning up the energy to think about the next chapter is challenging.”

CEOs, managers, and other leaders reckon with the mental and emotional costs of a pandemic year.

In the News: Leadership Burnout

“No vulnerability, no creativity. No tolerance for failure, no innovation. It is that simple. If you’re not willing to fail, you can’t innovate. If you’re not willing to build a vulnerable culture, you can’t create.”

—Brené Brown

The Leading Edge team is buzzing about the new Netflix special, . In case you aren’t one of the nearly 40 million people who are familiar with her TED talk, Dr. Brown is a bestselling author and a research professor at the University of Houston who has spent more than 20 years looking at topics like empathy, shame, courage and vulnerability.

The first researcher with her own Netflix special, Dr. Brown connects vulnerability to authentic leadership: “Giving feedback receiving feedback. Problem solving. Ethical decision making.  These are all borne of vulnerability,” she tells us.

Leading Edge has now surveyed more than 10% of the employees in the Jewish nonprofit sector regarding their overall engagement at work. When Leading Edge looked at the largest gaps between those claiming they want to leave their organization within the next year and those who plan to stay, senior leadership, direct managers, and internal communications (which is closely tied to leadership) have the greatest impact on this response.

Dr. Brown stresses that vulnerability is a sign of strong leadership. She defines vulnerability as taking action when there is “uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.”

“When we build cultures at work where there is zero tolerance-for vulnerability,” Brown says, “where perfectionism and armor are rewarded and necessary, you can’t have [difficult] conversations. They’re not productive.”


Leading Edge President & CEO  Gali Cooks recently opined about the issue of vulnerability:

“When people take the time to reflect upon and understand their own internal experiences—to “know thyself”—they unearth fertile ground that is the bedrock for learning and growth,” wrote Cooks. “The more you know about yourself—what drives you, what triggers you, what strengths you have, what weaknesses you struggle with—the better able you are to communicate those factors to your team and surround yourself with people who can complement your attributes, energy and behavior.”


If you’re interested in exploring the role that vulnerability plays in your own leadership and in your workplace, check out more from Brené Brown here.

Dr. Brown is a bestselling author and a research professor at the University of Houston who has spent more than 20 years looking at topics like empathy, shame, courage and vulnerability.T he first researcher with her own Netflix special, Brené Brown: The Call to Courage, Dr. Brown connects vulnerability to authentic leadership.

Brené Brown, Vulnerability, and Strong Leadership

Learn more about "It's Who You Know! The Podcast". Bridging the gap between Jewish leaders and those who follow them, with Michelle W. Malkin.

The President & CEO of Leading Edge discusses Leading Edge's work in the areas of CEO onboarding, lay leadership development, and building great places to work in the Jewish community on "It's Who You Know! The Podcast".

It’s Who You Know: Interview with Gali Cooks | Leading Edge

It’s Who You Know: Interview with Gali Cooks

March 15, 2017, New York, NY—Leading Edge released a report today that highlights key areas of opportunity that will enable the Jewish community to attract and retain top talent. The report, Call to Action: How Lay Leaders Can Overcome the Jewish Community’s Leadership Pipeline Challenge, outlines a number of practical steps lay leaders can take to promote progress in building stronger leadership pipelines and follows 18 months of work by its Lay Leadership Commission.

The Commission, co-chaired by Susie Gelman (Board Chair, Israel Policy Forum), Joe Kanfer (Founding Director, Lippman Kanfer Philanthropies), and Daryl Messinger (Board Chair, Union for Reform Judaism), is made up of 25 individuals from across the country with extensive experience in guiding local, national, and international organizations. Data shows that over the next five to seven years, 75 percent to 90 percent of Jewish nonprofit CEOs and other senior leaders will retire or otherwise leave the Jewish non-profit sector. The potential implications of this exodus inspired Leading Edge to form the Lay Leadership Commission as one of its three primary program areas.

“We view the release of this report as an opportunity for lay leadership to step up to the plate,” said the Commission’s Co-Chairs. “We want to help our community glean strategies from the private and broader non-profit sectors, translate them into best practices guided by Jewish values, and deploy them in the field to build the next generation of leaders and support a vibrant Jewish community.”

The report provides recommendations for organizations in the areas of:

. making smart, financial investments in leadership and talent;

. strengthening the lay-professional working relationship; and

. building more adaptive and effective search committees for hiring CEO’s.

This second report from Leading Edge dovetails with findings from its first report, Are Jewish Organizations A Great Place to Work?. Released in September 2016, that report details the results of one of the largest surveys of Jewish nonprofit employees.

“Our Lay Leadership Commission feels strongly that modeling great leadership starts with board members and funders,” says Gali Cooks, Executive Director of Leading Edge. “If the Jewish community wants top talent, current leadership has to be willing to leverage the right resources to find it, pay for it, nurture it, and enable it to focus on the aspects that matter most.”

March 15, 2017, New York, NY—Leading Edge released a report today that highlights key areas of opportunity that will enable the Jewish community to attract and retain top talent.

Call to Action: How Lay Leaders Can Overcome the Jewish Community’s Leadership Pipeline Challenge

Over the next five to seven years an estimated 75%-90% of Jewish nonprofits will have to find a new executive director.

Concerned about a looming leadership crisis, 15 foundations and federations banded together to create Leading Edge, an organization charged with identifying the causes and solutions to the problem. Executive Director Gali Cooks recently shared the organization’s plans as well as some interesting findings.

GC: Leading Edge is a new organization, founded by 15 foundations and federations to help build the leadership pipeline for the Jewish nonprofit sector. We have been hearing for many years about a looming “leadership gap” in the American workplace – the baby boomer generation is aging and will begin retiring from their leadership roles. In the Jewish community, my founders began seeing leaders of major Jewish organizations retiring, with no succession plan or obvious successor in place. And finding qualified leaders to fill these roles was proving difficult. For example, in any given year, Hillel has about 35 open director positions. Some of these positions will stay unfilled for months because we have no bench. That is the case for many of our organizations.

JF: How do you begin to tackle this issue?

GC: The first step is to understand the landscape. In the winter of 2014, my founders commissioned Bridgespan to shed light on this problem. Bridgespan interviewed hundreds of stakeholders across the community and surveyed leadership development programs in our sector. Their findings were published in the Leadership Pipeline Initiative report, which found two main themes for our leadership pipeline problem: The field of Jewish nonprofits is not sufficiently developing and advancing the leaders it already has, and many Jewish organizations don’t have the value proposition to attract and retain the leaders they need. We have steep hierarchies, lots of politics, and an aversion to risk that does not appeal to high-potential talent.

JF: What will you do with these findings?

GC: We’ve chosen three ways to tackle the issues. One is learning more about the problem by mapping the field so that we have a better understanding of gaps, areas of need, and areas of opportunity. Second is shifting this leadership problem to a leadership opportunity. This is more of a positive marketing campaign we will be launching soon. Third is launching programs that we believe are levers to help bend the current leadership pipeline trajectory. These are tangible program ideas that came out of the original Bridgespan report.

GC: We have three programs. One is the CEO onboarding program. A transition in leadership is a prime opportunity for organizational transformation and we want to maximize that point in time. After a lot of research, we decided to create a cohort-based peer fellowship for new CEOs and recently announced our first cohort. We are running this 12-month program with a very generous grant from the Jim Joseph Foundation, the Schusterman Foundation, and the Weinberg Foundation, and we hired TBF Consulting to help us design, steward, and implement the program.

The second program that we launched is called the Lay Leadership Commission, and it is focused on the role that the philanthropic community has in building great organizations. We will be releasing a Commission report this summer which deals with some ways volunteer leaders can help build our talent pipeline.

And the third program, Leading Places to Work, is all about culture change. How can we define a culture that will really allow people to maximize their potential at work? Recently, we closed a pilot employee engagement survey designed to measure how engaged employees are in their work. We will be sharing findings from this pilot survey in the coming months and determine other steps we might help Jewish organizations improve their workplace culture.

GC: Here’s a nugget of data – of the 5,000 people who took the survey there were 2,100 unique job titles, as in only that person has that job title. The problem is not the job titles, but the fact that they aren’t linked to a level or a band or an understanding of what skills are needed for each role. In the private sector you may have crazy titles, but the HR department knows what level that person is on. We don’t have that, and we need that as a community. How else are we going to be able to advise talent on career advancement opportunities.

JF: How did you arrive at this Leading Edge?

GC: I have a meandering professional background. I started my career in politics as a speech writer for the Israeli ambassador to the United States. Then I spent some time at AIPAC as a legislative assistant. From there I went into philanthropy, first as the founding director of the PJ Library and then at the Rita & Stanley Kaplan Family Foundation, where I became the executive director. While at Kaplan, I got an MBA so that I could better talk the language of philanthropists. I went to work at an education technology start up and, from day one, knew I needed to go back to the nonprofit sector. It was my home. I worked at URJ for a bit and am now at Leading Edge.

JF: How do you like being an executive director?

GC:  I like it, for the most part. Most days I feel like we’re making progress and doing important work that will help people. And then there are some days that are tough, when I touch the oven in some way or the stress becomes overwhelming. There’s a heavy burden when you are captain of the ship, trying to navigate uncharted waters. This is my third, and I believe, my last, startup.

GC: I lean heavily on my board. I also have three teams of stellar consultants. They help us craft and design our programs. I also have a coach. It was one of the things I asked for when thinking about taking this role. I speak to her each week. She has a law degree and a background in mediation, which is really helpful when you are leading an organization that has a board of 17 aiming to tough multiple stakeholders!

GC: Yes! I’m definitely putting the lessons I learned at the embassy PJ Library, Kaplan and the tech company to work. The key is to listen more than to speak. I am also exercising my grit and resilience muscles. When you’re cutting a new path, there will always be problems, we are going to mess up, so let’s learn from them and keep going. I’m trying to get better at that.

This blog post is re-published with the author’s consent. It originally appeared on the Hungry Marketing Blog on July 20, 2016. (Page since removed; view web archive version.)

Leading Edge Works to Solve the Jewish Leadership Problem

“A sweeping generational change is surging through the top tiers of the Jewish communal world,” writes Forward journalist Nathan Guttman, in an article detailing the increasingly difficult challenge of filling the ranks of retiring leaders.

Guttman cites a March 2014 Leading Edge report that found 75%–90% of Jewish nonprofits will need to find new executive directors in the next five to seven years.

Leading Edge Executive Director Gali Cooks discusses the “leadership gap” with Guttman:

“It stems,” she said, “from the overall shift in career patterns from the baby-boom generation to younger Generation X rising leaders, and has affected the entire American organizational environment. Professionals no longer feel committed to one workplace, and job stability is no longer a driving factor when making career choices.”

Cooks also spoke about the important work this organization is doing to address these challenges:

“Jewish Leadership Pipelines Alliance, which is now changing its name to Leading Edge, recently launched a program to provide new CEOs with mentoring, peer networking and coaching in their first year in office. Most CEOs have 18 months before they are deemed a success or a failure,” Cooks said. “We know that this transition time can be magical, and we want to help.”

The increasingly difficult challenge of filling the ranks of retiring leaders.

The Forward Lifts Up “A Sweeping Generational Change”

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