Our Purpose

Leading Edge exists because Jewish nonprofits are only as strong as their people. When those people are both developed and supported, their organizations and the communities they serve are stronger for it, too.

Our Vision

Leading Edge envisions a Jewish nonprofit field defined by excellence: where organizations develop and support their people according to the highest standards, and those people drive impact in the communities they serve.

Our Mission

Leading Edge unites Jewish nonprofits in pursuit of a shared standard of excellence in talent, culture, and leadership, working with organizations and their people to deliver greater impact.

Our Values

Excellence as obligation. Strong talent, culture, and leadership enable Jewish nonprofits to achieve extraordinary impact. The communities they serve deserve nothing less. We hold the field and ourselves to the same high bar, grounding everything we do in data and lived experience, and never settling for good enough when better is within reach.

Jewish roots as foundation. Judaism offers a rich history and a living framework in which questions matter as much as answers, learning is never finished, and we are responsible for one another. It shapes not just who we are but how we work and the standards we set for talent, culture, and leadership in the Jewish nonprofit field.

Learning while leading. We are building something that has never existed before — a shared standard for professional excellence in the Jewish nonprofit field — and we know the path will evolve. We have conviction about our vision, but are responsive and adaptable in how we execute it.

Responsibility to the Jewish nonprofit field. We show up for the people who make the Jewish nonprofit field what it is — their success is our mission, and the full range of experiences and backgrounds each person brings makes the work stronger.

Integrity in all things. Our work asks a lot of the people and organizations we work with: to trust our insights, be open to new ideas and practices, and hold themselves to a high professional standard. We don’t take that lightly. We strive to always show up as our best selves, and we own it when we fall short.

Our History

Founded in 2014 and originally called the Leadership Pipelines Initiative, Leading Edge emerged from a group of funders and communal leaders who saw a leadership succession crisis on the horizon for Jewish nonprofits. They commissioned the Bridgespan Group to answer the question: Why are Jewish organizations struggling to find the talent they need, especially at the most senior ranks? Bridgespan’s answer was Cultivating the Next Generation of Leaders for Jewish Nonprofits, the inaugural report and initial roadmap of the journey that became Leading Edge.

Since then, Leading Edge has helped tens of thousands of people across more than 1,000 Jewish nonprofits to transform how they approach talent, culture, and leadership — through original research, practical guidance, and leadership development programs.

In 2022, Leading Edge acquired Boardified, growing our capacity and strengthening our mandate to address longstanding structural challenges in Jewish communal Board leadership. In 2025, Leading Edge and JPro united, broadening our reach to all Jewish professionals in the field and joining together Leading Edge’s story of innovation since 2014 with the rich history of JPro and its predecessors dating back to 1899.

In 2026, Leading Edge began operating under a new strategy centered on defining and raising the standard for talent, culture, and leadership across the Jewish nonprofit field. We will soon release Standards of Excellence for Talent & Culture, and Standards of Excellence for Boards, with an ambitious goal: At least 33% of Jewish nonprofits will be actively practicing these Standards by 2030.