Leading Edge

Leading Edge is committed to recruiting, developing, and retaining top Jewish talent to transform Jewish organizations into leading places to work and the Jewish community into a vibrant nonprofit sector. Leading Edge is simultaneously elevating leadership and talent challenges and running experimental interventions to address these challenges. This allows the organization to toggle between the balcony and the dance floor, and right now, they are the only one at the party. Leading Edge is the sole Jewish organization taking a sector-wide approach to address the leadership crisis in the Jewish nonprofit sector. 

Leading Edge operates in three dimensions, each with its own innovations and contributions: as a think tank (conducting research), as a platform (providing a space to problem solve together), and as a laboratory (experimenting and innovating model programs). The think tank uses a data-driven approach to collect information through an employee engagement survey that reached 7,500 employees at 92 unique Jewish organizations last year. The platform engaged more than 50 lay leaders from across the country, first at a lay leadership “summit” and then at an “action tank” to create strategies to improve the performance of lay leaders. The laboratory launched the second cohort of its one-year CEO Onboarding Program in hopes that creating change at the senior leadership level will improve the culture of the thousands of staff  below it. Leading Edge also provides a platform to support volunteer leaders who serve on boards and search committees, critical roles in the sector, empowering them to embrace their ability to help reshape the Jewish community as a “great place to work.” It envisions a future in which Jewish organizations are leading places to work, with an abundance of high-quality leaders primed for senior positions. Leading Edge is closing the gap between aspirations for the sector and the current reality, using its three dimensions, so the holy work of Jewish nonprofits can thrive.