• Combined organization to drive a bold, comprehensive vision for talent, leadership, and culture in the Jewish community
• JPro25 in partnership with Jewish Federations – conference on May 5-7, 2025 in Baltimore – to showcase the power of the combined organization

As of January 1, 2025, Leading Edge and JPro are coming together to support, engage, and develop leaders and professionals throughout the Jewish nonprofit sector. Together, the combined organization will create a central address for the people who lead, work and serve the North American Jewish community, empowering them to deepen their impact at a critical time for the Jewish community.

JPro has educated and connected Jewish communal professionals for generations, while Leading Edge, founded in 2015, has been a premier voice on leadership and culture, grounded in innovative data from the field. Leading Edge has focused on developing top executives, HR leaders, and Board members. United, they will transform the quality and impact of leaders and professionals across the Jewish world – holistically. 

“This combination will bring unprecedented vision, unity, clarity, and capacity to serving professionals and leaders throughout the North American Jewish nonprofit sector,” says Gali Cooks, President & CEO of Leading Edge. “As we face new challenges in the post-October-7th world, our Jewish ecosystem must invest in our most valuable resource — our people. In this exciting next step, we will create a ‘whole-system’ approach to making Jewish organizations more effective so that our community and the world thrive. With less redundancy and more strategic alignment, we can grow and drive change together in ways we couldn’t do apart.” 

“JPro has been part of North American Jewish history for over 120 years,” says Ilana Aisen, CEO of JPro since 2016 and now Chief Community Impact Officer at Leading Edge. “The development of Jewish life in North America is unique in Jewish history and intertwined with the development of the modern state of Israel and global Jewry, with Jewish communal institutions and their professional and lay leaders at its core. We must prioritize excellence in the recruitment, development, and retention of the people who lead, run, and operate our communal organizations. At this moment of history in particular, I couldn’t be prouder for JPro to join Leading Edge.”

“Leading Edge and JPro coming together holds great promise for the Jewish communal world,” says Eric Fingerhut, President and CEO of Jewish Federations of North America. “At Jewish Federations of North America, we believe that communities only flourish when all organizations, schools, and synagogues have best-in-class professionals and lay leaders. We’ve been proud of our partnerships with JPro and Leading Edge to achieve this and look forward to the future.”

“This new partnership between JPro and Leading Edge will usher in a new era of professional excellence within the Jewish nonprofit world,” says Erika B. Rudin-Luria, JPro’s former Board Chair and now Board Vice Chair at Leading Edge. “The combination of JPro and Leading Edge will enable us to exponentially grow our reach and impact on the professionals and volunteers whom we serve.”

“It all comes down to people,” says Daryl Messinger, Board Chair of Leading Edge. “As a lay leader who has served on over 10 Boards, I’ve seen how vital it is for organizations to invest in talent and leadership. With Leading Edge and JPro coming together, we have a broader and stronger mandate to make this a norm in the field.”

Jewish communal professionals, leaders, Board members, funders, and other stakeholders can learn more about the future of Leading Edge + JPro, and the future of the Jewish nonprofit sector, at the conference JPro25 in partnership with Jewish Federations, taking place in Baltimore May 5-7, 2025. Learn more at jpro25.org. 

Background

JPro began in 1899 as The National Conference of Jewish Charities and cycled through many names and iterations over the century and more that followed. JPro’s mission is to inspire, educate, connect, and empower Jewish communal professionals. The “JPro” name dates to 2014, and since then, JPro has grown impressively in both its reach and its programming, with 13,000 members at 289 affiliate organizations. 

Leading Edge was founded in 2015 with a primary focus on top leaders and the leadership pipeline. Over the last decade, Leading Edge surveys have reached over 53,000 employees at Jewish nonprofits, and its leadership development programs have trained nearly 600 executive and Board leaders at Jewish organizations. In 2022, Leading Edge acquired Boardified (best known for its Board Member Institute), incorporating Board leadership development into its mission in recognition of the importance of the Board-professional partnership. 

Leading Edge, with Boardified and now JPro integrated, will become the only field-wide organization working on recruiting, engaging, and developing the Jewish nonprofit sector’s employees, executive leaders, and Board members. All previously planned JPro and Leading Edge programming for 2025 is expected to continue as planned.

FAQ: Leading Edge & JPro Coming Together