Most of what the nonprofit sector knows about how boards work comes from just two people per organization: the board chair and the CEO. A report released today by Leading Edge adds the people who make up most of every board. The Jewish Nonprofit Board Report 2026 shares findings from a survey of 1,180 individual board members at 62 Jewish nonprofits, alongside 63 chairs and 59 CEOs. That makes it the largest survey of board members ever conducted in the Jewish nonprofit field and, to Leading Edge's knowledge, the second-largest nonprofit board survey ever published in the United States, in any field.

The gap it fills is sector-wide. BoardSource's Leading with Intent, the benchmark study of U.S. nonprofit governance, surveys only chairs and CEOs. The same is true of Leading Edge’s previous board research.

The report draws on Leading Edge’s 2026 Board Experience Survey, fielded in February 2026 with the boards of the 62 organizations in the first cohort of Leading Edge's Board Leadership Accelerator. While individual board members rarely get surveyed, they answered when asked: 87% of the roughly 1,500 people invited responded, well above the two-thirds response rate typical of surveys in organizational research. The research was made possible by The Marcus Foundation (established by the late Bernie Marcus, co-founder of The Home Depot, with his wife Billi).

The view from every seat. Hearing from all three roles shows how differently the same board can look depending on where you sit. Chairs were the likeliest to answer favorably (agree or strongly agree) on nearly every question about how their board functions, CEOs the least likely, and members fell in between. On more than a third of questions, chairs and CEOs were 16 points or more apart. The widest gaps show up where boards most need to be aligned:

Only 20% of CEOs say their board implements regular feedback, compared with 40% of chairs.

38% of CEOs say the board fulfills its fundraising obligations, compared with 61% of chairs.

34% of CEOs say board leadership cultivates a pipeline of qualified candidates, compared with 56% of chairs.

Members' answers add what a chair-and-CEO survey cannot: for example, 95% of chairs say their board service lets them use their skills and expertise, against 75% of members, and that question about using people’s skills has the strongest link of any in the survey to how board service feels overall. Nearly every chair (95%) would recommend their board as a great place to serve; 81% of members and 75% of CEOs would.

“Board talent matters,” said Gali Cooks, President & CEO of Leading Edge. "Excellence doesn’t stop at the staff door; it has to reach the boardroom. This report is a mirror of where boards are today and a map of where they can go. ”

Culture is the biggest growth area. Of the six areas the survey measured, Board Culture had the lowest average favorability (68%). 85% of respondents report trusting relationships with fellow members, yet the two lowest-rated questions in the entire survey concern how the board works as a group: whether it implements regular feedback (49%) and whether it enables organizational experimentation (53%).

CEO succession planning lags the sector. Just 8% of the organizations surveyed have a CEO succession plan, and 11% have an emergency succession plan. In BoardSource's national data, 35% of nonprofits report a written succession plan and 33% a written emergency plan. 

Screen time can strain boards. Members of mostly virtual boards reported lower average favorability than members of boards using in-person and hybrid formats.  

Social time outside formal board meetings helps — to a point. Members of boards that spend five to nine hours a year together outside formal business reported the highest favorability on 28 of 35 questions; past nine hours, the advantage largely disappears.

Some of the strongest practices are within easy reach. Having a written onboarding guide for board members and creating fundraising strategies as a board-professional partnership (rather than leaving it to staff alone) are both associated with a more positive board experience.

Leading Edge's 2026 board report hears from 1,180 individual board members at 62 Jewish nonprofits; most board/governance research surveys chairs and CEOs, leaving out individual board members.

Same Board, Different Views: One of the Largest U.S. Nonprofit Board Surveys Finds Members, Chairs, and CEOs Experience Boards Differently

Same Board, Different Views: Leading Edge's 2026 Board Report Finds Members, Chairs, and CEOs Experience Boards Differently

News and Ideas | Leading Edge

News & Ideas

Deadline to apply for Cohort 4: November 20, 2026

Jewish nonprofits are only as strong as the people who show up to do the work — building programs, running events, and keeping communities connected. Onboarding Intensive was designed with that in mind: a program that pairs skill-building and leadership development with sector-specific learning and a peer network that lasts well beyond the sessions themselves.

Early in my career, I was a staff recruiter at Teach For America at a moment when the organization was growing rapidly and building much of its staff infrastructure in real time. I was still relatively green when I was given the opportunity to lead a large, high-stakes set of relationships and outcomes — and, before long, to begin managing a team. I learned by doing: taking risks, making mistakes, and eventually pairing that experience with more formal training.

That early opportunity shaped my career. Someone trusted me with real responsibility before I had all the tools to do it perfectly and gave me the space to grow into it. It unlocked in me a lifelong love of developing people and leading teams, and I have never forgotten what it meant to be offered an early opportunity to lead rather than being expected to arrive in a leadership role fully formed.

In a recent eJewish Philanthropy piece, Betsy Berns Korn (Board Chair, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations) and William C. Daroff (the organization’s CEO) reflected on the path toward the next generation of leadership. “What gives us confidence about this generation,” they wrote, “is that it has already demonstrated courage. Our responsibility now is to help that courage mature into judgment, patience, discipline and the ability to bring others along.”

Korn and Daroff note that the post-Oct. 7 moment has galvanized young people across the Jewish community into action, and into a desire to lead. “If we believe these young men and women belong in Jewish leadership now,” they write, “our community has to find more ways to trust them with real responsibility… We need to create more opportunities for them to participate in consequential conversations, learn how decisions actually get made, build relationships with senior leaders and assume responsibility before every credential has been accumulated and every rough edge polished.”

I couldn’t agree more. So the next crucial question becomes: How?

We can’t just suddenly hire a promising young person with no relevant experience to be the next CEO of a major organization. But we can see potential and talent and help develop it. So what does it take, on the ground, to build a viable pathway from entry into a Jewish nonprofit career into a Jewish nonprofit leadership career?

My work supporting talent and people practitioners and CEOs, as well as young professionals directly in multiple sectors has helped me see four vital parts of the picture:

Someone’s first year after joining our field is a moment we can’t afford to miss, because it will shape how they understand this work and their place in it. It’s a time to help them feel welcomed, valued, informed, challenged, and on a clear path to growth. They should understand not just their duties, but how their day-to-day work drives the mission forward. Beyond the organization, they should get a sense of the unique history and landscape of the Jewish nonprofit world and their organization’s place in that bigger picture. They should feel connected to teammates they learn from and with and supervisors who can help them envision potential futures. Ultimately, good onboarding is about belonging to a team of trusted people achieving something valuable. That matters much more than any information the onboarding can convey.

No single organization can build all of that alone. That's what Leading Edge's Onboarding Intensive is designed to do: give early-career professionals field-wide understanding, a peer network, and the skills and guidance to thrive. If you manage someone new to the field, consider it for them. Applications are open until Nov. 20.

When people talk about professional development, managers often think first about training and programs. But it’s a mistake to reduce professional development to training alone. Some of the most effective professional development is about creating learning opportunities within the job itself. Nothing teaches a skill more effectively than a chance to apply it when the needs are real, with supportive coaching and guidance along the way. At Leading Edge, we use a matrix organizational structure, in which everyone has a dedicated functional manager, but individual projects may have different project delivery leads. The chance to be a project delivery lead is an opportunity to practice skills people will use in the future even for those who aren’t (yet) functional managers. Providing big responsibility early on, with the right supports is key to developing the next generation of leaders and helping foster retention in both the organization and across the field.

Korn and Daroff are right: we shouldn’t make early-career professionals wait until every credential is accumulated and every rough edge is polished before giving them more responsibility. But growth also shouldn’t feel mysterious. People should know what’s expected at the next level and have opportunities to practice those skills before a promotion is on the table.

Many organizations use a competency model to begin defining what strong performance looks like at each job level. That gives managers and employees a shared language to ask: What are you already demonstrating? What will be expected of you at the next level? And where can we give you opportunities now to stretch, practice, and get routine, clear feedback? Clear pathways don’t guarantee a promotion, but they give early-career professionals something equally important: the ability to see where they’re headed and actively build toward it.

Route 128 outside Boston was once the country's leading tech hub, well before California's Bay Area became synonymous with the industry. So why did Silicon Valley pull ahead? Weather may have helped, but some scholars point to something else: how easily people moved between companies. Building on AnnaLee Saxenian's work, Ronald Gilson argued that the key difference is that California banned enforcing non-compete clauses in employment contracts, while Massachusetts enforced them. The result was a region with high employee mobility. Narrowly, one might think it’s bad for any given tech company to constantly “lose” talent to competitors. In fact, all companies in the region gain from a robust regional talent economy. Similarly, for Jewish nonprofits, if we want the best talent pool, then we can’t keep thinking of these talent development needs — from onboarding to professional development to management training and beyond — as something we do just within each organization or each organization type. Jewish nonprofits, overall, need to become a vibrant “region” of the economy where we all raise the bar with effective early-career support.

This list isn’t rocket science, but foundational practices done well can set a promising leader on a long trajectory in our field. Bring people in thoughtfully. Build their skills. Shepherd them toward what comes next. Do all this, and more, across organizational boundaries, for the good of all Jewish nonprofits.

Korn and Daroff suggest that our responsibility is to help a generation that has already demonstrated courage to develop the further skills that will allow them to lead. Of course, the most important actions for that growth can only be taken by the developing leaders themselves. But there are also concrete steps every organization can take to build a supportive context where that growth is more likely. The next generation is already leading and learning. Will our organizations actively heed Korn and Daroff’s call and make developing that new generation of leadership a top priority?

Bring people in thoughtfully. Build their skills. Shepherd them toward what comes next. Do all this, and more, across organizational boundaries, for the good of all Jewish nonprofits.

From onboarding to clear paths for advancement, here are four foundational practices that can set a promising professional on a long trajectory in the Jewish nonprofit field, and why no organization can do it alone.

Yes to making room for the next generation. Here’s how.

Deadline to apply for Cohort 3: August 31, 2026

Jewish nonprofits are only as strong as the people who show up to do the work — building programs, running events, and keeping communities connected. Onboarding Intensive was designed with that in mind: a program that pairs skill-building and leadership development with sector-specific learning and a peer network that lasts well beyond the sessions themselves.

To show exactly why early-career professionals say yes to this opportunity, we turned to our own team. Four Leading Edge associates are joining Cohort 3, and we asked them what they're most eager to learn, experience, and bring back to their work.

Conversations have been edited and condensed.

Yzabel Breboneria (Associate, Program) sees the program as a chance to finally see how all the pieces of the sector fit together.

"I'm excited to build a deeper understanding of the Jewish nonprofit sector," she explains. "Not just picking up acronyms and organizations, but getting a real feel for how everything connects and where my work sits within it. As someone who isn't Jewish, that context feels especially valuable. I want to walk away with a fuller, more grounded picture of the space I work in and the people I work with every day."

Emma Canter (Associate, Outreach & Engagement) shares that hunger for perspective, seeing the Intensive as a rare chance to step outside the daily grind.

"During our early career years, it can be easy to focus primarily on your own role or organization," she says. "I'm looking forward to stepping back and gaining a better understanding of the larger landscape."

Beyond the big-picture view, the chance to learn alongside peers is just as big a draw. Sammy Angelina (Associate, Operations) is looking forward to trading ideas with colleagues at a similar career stage.

"I'm most excited to learn from my fellow Jewish nonprofit young professionals," she says. "Everyone brings different experiences and viewpoints, creating a space where we can learn from, and teach, each other."

Yaffa Englander (Associate, Advancement) is counting on those same peer relationships to help shape her path forward, bringing what she calls "creativity and collaboration to this important work."

"I'm looking forward to learning from peers who are navigating similar experiences, gaining new perspectives on leadership and Jewish community building, and reflecting on the kind of impact I hope to have in the field," she shares.

Ultimately, Onboarding Intensive is about more than the curriculum. The real value shows up in the relationships formed along the way — a network of peers who understand exactly what it takes to navigate this sector, and who will still be a phone call away years from now.

For early-career professionals still on the fence, and for the managers wondering whether it's worth the time away from the desk: it is. Say yes.

Wondering whether it's worth the time away from the desk? It is. Say yes.

Onboarding Intensive was designed specifically for these professionals, integrating skill-building, leadership development, sector-specific learning, and community building into one dynamic experience. To show exactly why early-career professionals say yes to this opportunity, we turned to our own team.

Why Early Career Professionals Say 'Yes' to Onboarding Intensive

This Thursday is Tisha B’Av, the most mournful and reflective day of the Jewish calendar. It commemorates the destruction of the two ancient Temples in Jerusalem, as well as many other historical massacres and tragedies from Jewish history. Themes of the day include reflection on our personal and communal failures, warnings about the dangers of baseless hatred and infighting, and recommitment to treating one another with respect.

While some Jews and Jewish organizations may refrain from a normal workday, in deference to traditional observances of the day like fasting and reciting lamentations in synagogue, Tisha B’Av does not have traditional requirements of refraining from writing, electricity, or other creative labor, and many Jewish organizations (including Leading Edge) will remain open.

For teams or individuals interested in connecting Tisha B’Av with the vital work of building effective team cultures, here are five reflection questions. Use them for a Tisha B’Av meeting ice-breaker, for breakout group discussions, or just a moment of individual introspection.

The Talmud tells a story of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza, in which a host publicly humiliated an unwanted guest while honored rabbis in the room said nothing. Their silence, the story implies, helped set the destruction in motion. What could we do at our organization to support psychological safety, so that people know they can speak up when something is going wrong?

The Kamtza and Bar Kamtza conflict began with a misdelivered invitation, a small communications error that spiraled into conflict and, ultimately, disaster. On a team, internal communications should be transparent and multi-directional, with information shared consistently. What structures or habits could improve the clarity of our communications and project management?

Tisha B’Av insists that loss deserves attention. Teams experience losses too: colleagues who leave, programs that end, plans that fall through. What have we lost this year as a team? Are there practices or rituals we could use to honor or acknowledge it?

The prophet Jeremiah spent years delivering warnings that authorities didn’t want to hear. What systems do we have on our team, or what systems could we create, to ensure continuous, two-way feedback and genuine staff voice, with staff at all levels feeling ownership, trust, and safety to share unpopular ideas?

Destruction was not the end of the Jewish story. After the Temple fell, Jewish leaders rebuilt Jewish life in new forms, in new places, with new practices. When our team faces setbacks or failures, how can we respond with the right mix of reflection and resilience, and foster future risk-taking with both appropriate guardrails and a spirit of experimentation? 

However your team spends this Tisha B’Av, we hope the day offers a chance to reflect on how we show up with and for one another.

As Tisha B’Av invites reflection on loss and respect, explore five questions to strengthen team culture, psychological safety, and communication.

Team Culture Reflection Questions for Tisha B’Av

Nonprofit organizations across the country are navigating an extraordinarily difficult context. Many are contending with simultaneous and compounding pressures, including greater demand for their services and an increasingly challenging funding landscape. This report provide a clearer understanding of the pressures they are facing and the steadfast ways they’re responding to mounting challenges.

READ MORE AT THE CENTER FOR EFFECTIVE PHILANTHROPY

LISTEN AT COLD CALL - HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW

Essential Partners: America @ 250 Dialogue Guide

Jewish Federations of North America: Small Jewish communities face unique hurdles, need investment

Tiny Windows: That’s All: What The Devil Wears Prada 2 Teaches Jewish Institutions

Harvard Business Review: The False Alignment Trap

The Jewish Star: Met Council: AI should aid, not replace, workers

Andrés Spokoiny: The Problem with Jewish Values

Deloitte Insights: The board’s role in bolstering tech resilience

Forbes: Effective Versus Dysfunctional: What The Best Boards Do

World Economic Forum: Do corporate boards have a foresight problem?

Here’s what the Leading Edge team is learning about culture, executives, and boards this summer.

What We're Learning | Summer 2026

The best of what the Leading Edge team is learning about culture, executives, and boards.

What We're Learning

Many of us know the famous phrase “na’aseh venishma” — “We will do and we will hear” — often interpreted as “We will do and [then] we will understand.” It captures something true: that real understanding comes from experience, not abstract knowledge alone.

We associate that phrase with the dramatic moment when the Jewish people accept the Torah at Mount Sinai, amidst lightning and thunder — the moment that we commemorate this weekend with the holiday of Shavuot. 

But here’s the thing: that’s not actually where it appears. “Na’aseh venishma” doesn’t come in parashat Yitro, when we get the Ten Commandments. It comes later in parashat Mishpatim, after the Israelites have heard a much longer, denser, more demanding reading of laws. And I don’t think it’s surprising that common usage has conflated the two. 

During the big lead-up to the Ten Commandments, the Israelites say something similar — "all that the Lord has spoken we will do" — but notably, they stop there. We will do. Not: we will hear (or understand). There is action, and perhaps intention. But there is not the sustained attention that leads to the deep understanding that correlates to integration into our lives.

That distinction — between intention and attention — has been on my mind. Intention is declaring what matters and then, often, moving on. Attention is actually giving ourselves to the work it takes to bring that intention to life. Intention can be easy, attention almost never is. And attention is where we begin to create meaningful change for ourselves and others

In his commencement speech to NYU’s class of 2026, Prof. Jonathan Haidt urged graduates to guard their attention fiercely. “Treasure your attention more than the people who want to take it from you,” he advised. “Never forget what it’s worth.” His argument: once you reclaim your attention, you can direct it toward what actually matters — which, in his telling, means doing hard things. Things that resist the quick fix, that have lasting rewards, that alter the way our worlds work.

At Leading Edge, we see a version of this in our work, as well. Years of data on the Jewish nonprofit workforce point to something consistent: what drives people at work isn't ease. It's meaningful progress on work that matters. It’s working in concert with those around us to accomplish something larger than ourselves. Doing those things is hard. Hard for leaders and employees both.

We're often tempted to think the opposite. We might think what will make us happy is less friction, fewer demands, easier paths. But that's not what the data shows. And it's not what Jewish tradition teaches either. We see in organizations that improving culture is hard. And it’s so meaningful to all involved when it happens.

Ten Commandments would have been simpler. Cleaner. Easier. But Jewish life does not stop there. Instead, our tradition gives us 613 ways to practice attention — woven into meals and calendars, work and rest, ordinary moments and extraordinary ones. Thankfully, there are far fewer things to think about in making our Jewish nonprofit organizations perform closer to the best versions of themselves. And doing so still requires a great deal of attention to make happen.

It’s customary to end a shiur (Torah class) with a quote from the Mishna in Makkot: “Rabbi Ḥananya ben Akashya says: God wanted to confer merit upon the Jewish people; therefore, God increased for them Torah and commandments…” The plain reading of this is transactional — more commandments, more “merit points” in heaven. 

But I think there's another way to read it: our tradition hints at how we might lead lives of genuine merit. Lives in which we spend our time and attention on things our communities and consciences recognize are worthy. Because our lives ultimately become what we pay attention to. The same is true for our organizations.

May the Shavuot holiday give you a chance for deep reflection and sustained attention. And may your work in the weeks beyond bring your attention closer to your intentions — not despite being hard, but because of it.

The Space Between Intention and Attention

The Space Between Intention and Attention (Shavuot 5786)

A grateful farewell to Dena Farber Schoenfeld

Over a decade ago, the newly-founded Leading Edge sought to create a CEO onboarding program for the Jewish nonprofit sector. Who did we call? A brilliant consultant named Dena Farber Schoenfeld. Working with us first as a key consulting partner, Dena spearheaded the creation and development of what became Leading Executives, our signature executive leadership development program. In March 2020, she joined the team full time as our Chief Program Officer, overseeing the evolution of Leading Edge’s entire suite of programs and tools since. 

With admiration and gratitude, we bid a bittersweet farewell to Dena, who has stepped down from her role at Leading Edge and back into a consulting role, where she will continue to bring her no-nonsense, all-excellence approach to leadership in the Jewish nonprofit field. And we are thrilled to share that in that capacity she will remain involved at Leading Edge, taking on a key role in planning JPro27. We’re deeply grateful to Dena for the profound and positive ways she has shaped Leading Edge, from our earliest beginnings to our new strategy focused on leveling up the entire sector, from our earliest career professionals to our board and executive leaders.

Welcome to the C-Suite: Dana Childress, Chief Program Officer

We’re excited to announce that Dana Childress has stepped into the role of Chief Program Officer at Leading Edge!

After 15 years developing and leading talent acquisition at Teach for America, Dana first joined Leading Edge in 2021. She has served since then as a Vice President in the Program department, shepherding the development and rapid growth of Leading Edge’s programming around HR and talent professionals, organizational culture, board leadership, and more. Dana has also played a key role in shaping our emerging new strategy across this past year.

Now, as Chief Program Officer, she will bring her sharp insights and deep experience to bear in guiding the further evolution of Leading Edge’s programmatic interventions to raise the standard of performance for the field. 

We’re also thrilled to welcome to the team four new associates, hired and onboarded together as a cohort.

Spring brings meaningful transitions to Leading Edge: we're thanking Dena Farber Schoenfeld as she shifts back into consulting while staying closely involved, welcoming Dana Childress as our new Chief Program Officer, and introducing four new associates joining the team.

Comings & Goings, Spring 2026

Meet the people driving change at Leading Edge. Together, we're shaping the future of Jewish nonprofit leadership.

Our Team

As we approach Passover this year, I find myself thinking about time — not in years or milestones, but in moments.

In recent weeks, following the passing of my mother (z”l), I’ve had the opportunity to pause in a way that life rarely allows. And what has become most clear is something both simple (perhaps cliché?) and profound: A life of meaning is built not only in the extraordinary moments, but in the ordinary ones we so often overlook.

We tend to mark a life through its peaks: celebrations, milestones, the moments we photograph and remember. And those matter deeply. But alongside them live quieter memories: the way someone moved through a room, the way they prepared a meal, the small, repeated gestures and behaviors that shape the texture of a personality. It turns out that these “small” moments are often where meaning comes to life.

Judaism, in its wisdom, seems to understand this better than almost anything else I know. And Passover offers us a powerful model for how meaning is built across time.

We begin with the Seder, a peak experience. It is immersive, demanding, filled with story, ritual, and connection. It creates memory. It roots us in something larger than ourselves.

But Judaism does not stop there. We move next into the counting of the Omer, a daily, intentional practice of counting the days between Passover and Shavuot, between Egypt and Sinai, between liberation and commitment. Not grand, not elaborate. Just a small act, repeated each day, marking time and inviting reflection as we move through seven weeks.

And beyond that, we are asked to remember the Exodus every single day, woven into our most basic rhythm of the Shema in the morning and evening prayer.

Peak experience. Focused practice. Ongoing ritual.

This is a kind of “technology of meaning,” a way of ensuring that what matters most does not live only in extraordinary moments, but becomes part of how we live every day.

The same is true in our own lives. Meaning is found in the big moments we prepare for and celebrate. But it is also found in the accumulation of attention — in how we show up in the mundane, the repeated, the ordinary. Where we place our attention shapes what becomes meaningful. 

And attention itself is increasingly rare. To truly focus on another person. To do something with care and intention. To resist the pull of distraction and instead be fully present in a moment — these are not small acts. They are acts that create depth, connection, and ultimately, memory.

We carry more into each moment than is visible. Each person we encounter — at our tables, in our workplaces, in our communities — has their own unseen story, their own challenges, their own sources of strength. Recognizing this does not lower expectations; it deepens how we meet one another. It allows us to hold both humanity and excellence at the same time.

This feels especially important in the context of our work in the Jewish community. We spend so much of our lives at work, working alongside others toward shared goals. If that time is how we spend our lives, then it, too, should be a place of meaning.

Not because work replaces family or personal life — it doesn’t. But because we can create environments where people are seen, supported, and challenged to do work that matters. Where relationships are valued. Where excellence is pursued not at the expense of humanity, but alongside it, in the spirit of moving an important mission forward, together.

These are not competing ideas. They are reinforcing ones.

Passover reminds us that transformation — of individuals, of communities, of entire systems — does not necessarily happen in a single moment, even a powerful one. It happens across time, through repeated acts, shared stories, and sustained attention. It happens in how we live between the milestones.

This is a complicated moment for many of us — personally, communally, and globally. And yet, this is also our time: the days we are given, the moments we are living right now.

My hope this Passover is that we allow ourselves to notice them. To be present for the people in front of us. To bring intention to the ordinary. To find meaning not only in the peaks, but in the seemingly mundane practices that fill our days.

May this season invite all of us to connect more deeply: to our traditions, to one another, and to the moments that make up our lives. And may we, in doing so, continue to build lives — and a world — of meaning.

A life of meaning is built not only in the extraordinary moments, but in the ordinary ones we so often overlook. This Passover, may we bring intention to the ordinary, be present for the people in front of us, and find meaning in the moments that make up our lives.

Moments, Memories, and Meaning: A Passover Reflection

Jewish nonprofits have a rare opportunity to expand their talent pool — but attracting top candidates requires offering more than mission alone. Rachel Kay (Leading Edge Board Member and SVP & Chief People Officer, Hearst Corporation) argues that what high-performing early-career professionals want most is “option value”: roles that open doors through skill-building, mobility, and future opportunity. Drawing on private-sector models, she outlines how organizations can strengthen recruitment and retention by positioning roles as launchpads and, more ambitiously, by collaborating across the field to function like a larger, more competitive employer.


McKinsey & Company: The State of Organizations 2026: Three tectonic forces that are reshaping organizations

Theblinddontmingle: Are We Actually Doing Better? A JDAIM Reality Check

The Curiosity Shop: Brené and Adam on What They Will Never Agree On

eJewishPhilanthropy: Strengthening Israel means strengthening its leaders

Algemeiner.com: Jewish Communal Institutions Failed the Oct. 7 Test — Mergers, Consolidations, and Closing Some Institutions Is One Answer

Harvard Business Review: When Senior Leaders Lack People Skills, Transformations Fail

The Center for Effective Philanthropy: State of Nonprofits 2025: What Funders Need to Know

NPQ: The Board Is Not the Boss—and More Thoughts on Its Role

MIT SMR: How Design Became a Boardroom Bystander

Here’s what the Leading Edge team is learning about culture, executives, and boards this spring.

What We're Learning | Spring 2026

In 2016, JPro was in an era of transition, and brought in Ilana Aisen as CEO. Ilana refined and bolstered JPro’s identity, expanded and developed its team, and shepherded the organization into an important and successful hub of growth, connection, and community for Jewish communal professionals. She became known in the field for her wisdom, insight, creativity, and powerful ability to inspire and build community across the full range of Jewish communal organizations.

Together with Gali Cooks, Ilana had the vision, the mission-focus, and the humility to lead JPro into a new era by becoming one organization with Leading Edge at the beginning of 2025. Over the past year, her leadership as part of the Leading Edge executive team has been immensely valuable. Her voice and vision were vital parts of making JPro25 the largest and most inspirational JPro conference ever. Her influence within the team, as we came together and learned what it meant to continue this work as one, was crucial, in delightful ways. Her leadership legacy, and the values and identity of JPro, are now forever part of what Leading Edge will carry into the future.

As of this month, Ilana is departing from the Leading Edge team to open an exciting new professional chapter as a consultant and coach. She will continue to be a fierce advocate for the people and organizations that power the Jewish communal field and support Leading Edge in various ways. She can be reached at ilana@ilanaaisenconsulting.com. 

In fall 2024, Leading Edge was on the precipice of immense change. We were readying ourselves to join forces with JPro, we were about to embark upon a strategic planning process, and we were in the midst of growth and expansion. That’s when we brought on Robb Lippitt as Interim COO. With his record of success and experience spanning for-profit business and Jewish communal philanthropic and lay leadership, Robb has brought incredible insight, decisive clarity, and strategic focus to Leading Edge. He successfully led our 2025 strategic planning process, and now we are proud to announce that Robb has taken on a new and non-interim role: Chief Strategy Officer at Leading Edge.

The word “interim” implies that there should be an antonym called “outerim.” Alas for the caprice of English, no such word exists, so we can only say to Robb: Welcome (again) to Leading Edge, now as a “stam” (regular) member of the Leading Edge executive team!

Last month, we announced that Aviva Jacobs would be joining us at Leading Edge as Chief Impact Officer, and she has officially begun! There are also several other team members who have recently joined the Leading Edge team. 

Here (alphabetically) are four new team members to meet (including Robb, because he has been interim up to now), among the amazing people who are Leading Edge:

Leading Edge honors Ilana Aisen’s legacy as she departs for new ventures, and introduces the powerhouse of talent who've recently joined — including a formerly interim leader who's now a “stam” (regular) member of our executive team.

Comings & Goings on the Leading Edge Team

Good nonprofits Boards do more than give money and rubber-stamp the budget; they provide energetic and strategic leadership. But most Boards don’t spend the time and effort to improve their performance. And Board development typically happens one Board Chair at a time, or one organization at a time, at most.

What if Board development happened across the whole Jewish community?

That is what is now beginning to unfold across more than 60 Jewish nonprofit organizations, where over 1,500 Board members have begun participating in a coordinated, multi-year effort to strengthen Board leadership, governance culture, and Board–CEO partnerships across the North American Jewish community.

The program is called the Board Leadership Accelerator, offered by Leading Edge with the support of The Marcus Foundation (established by the late Bernie Marcus, co-founder of The Home Depot, with his wife Billi). The Board Leadership Accelerator is the largest coordinated Board leadership effort ever undertaken in the Jewish communal field, and reflects a growing recognition across the sector: Boards are central to organizational performance, yet the community has invested surprisingly little in systematic, scalable approaches to Board leadership.

National research from BoardSource has repeatedly documented gaps between expectations and realities for many nonprofit Boards. In Leading with Intent, a survey of nonprofit governance practices, nearly half of CEOs rated their Boards as average or below average on understanding Board roles and responsibilities. Leading Edge’s own research on Jewish nonprofit Boards echoes these findings, with many executives pointing to challenges around accountability, strategic governance, fundraising expectations, and planning for CEO succession.

Taken together, these studies indicate a nonprofit-sector-wide problem: Boards are being asked to perform increasingly complex governance work, but Board leadership development remains fragmented, episodic, and too often absent.

The Board Leadership Accelerator is testing the premise that governance can be strengthened more effectively when organizations across a whole community learn and improve together, using shared data, shared language, and shared infrastructure. Over a 24-month period (2026–2028), participating organizations are engaging in a common process that includes:

Standardized measurement of Board experience and effectiveness,

Cohort-based learning among peer organizations,

Targeted coaching and in-depth follow-up programming, and

Supportive consultations to help each organization create and implement a Board Development Plan.

All these interventions are being crafted with the Jewish communal context in mind, for maximum relevance to participating organizations. The program also includes repeated assessments and a full arc of support from early 2026 through early 2028. The goal is helping Boards clarify expectations, improve decision-making, strengthen leadership roles, and build healthier governance cultures, while building a core peer group of lay leaders who are passionate about Board performance across the Jewish community.

“This program is a huge step up in scale, intensity, and reach,” explains Gali Cooks, President & CEO of Leading Edge. “The Jewish community’s largest previous Board leadership initiative was the Board Member Institute, operated first by Boardified, which later became part of Leading Edge. That program trained approximately 200 Board members over several years. The Board Leadership Accelerator will scale that impact, in this pilot cohort alone. Many of those more than 1,500 Board members sit on multiple Boards, as well, so there is real leverage here. Best of all, it spans quite a spectrum in the Jewish community, from left to right and religious to secular.”

Leading Edge estimates that there are about 10,000 Jewish nonprofits in North America, with about 30,000 Board members, many of whom serve on more than one Board. The Board Leadership Accelerator’s pilot cohort (1,500+ participants) will therefore directly reach about 5% (1 in every 20) of Board members in the nonprofits serving the Jewish community. Assuming the program continues to future cohorts, the Jewish community may yet achieve an unprecedented level of Board training and governance quality, offering an example other sub-sectors and communities might want to adopt and adapt.

What if Board development happened across the whole Jewish community? That is what is now beginning to unfold across more than 60 Jewish nonprofit organizations, where over 1,500 Board members have begun participating in a coordinated, multi-year effort to strengthen Board leadership, governance culture, and Board–CEO partnerships across the North American Jewish community.

Board Development at Scale: Improving Nonprofit Governance Across the Jewish Community

Leadership

As former CEO and now Venturer at GOJO (inventors of Purell®) and a venture investor in Israel, Joe Kanfer has built and sustained a culture of excellence. In the Jewish nonprofit sphere, he has served in lay leadership roles including Chair of the Jewish Federations of North America, Chair of JESNA (Jewish Education Service of North America), Founding Chair of Honeymoon Israel, and Board service with many Jewish organizations. He also provides philanthropic leadership via the Lippman Kanfer Philanthropies.  

With this breadth of experience, Joe is exceptionally well‐positioned to steward the Leading Edge Board at a moment when the sector is wrestling with generational, geopolitical, technological, and economic change, and is facing not only challenges but also real opportunities. We spoke with Joe about his background, his vision for Leading Edge, and the future of the Jewish nonprofit sector. 

What’s the “Big Why” that motivates you to be engaged in the Jewish nonprofit world? 

My “why” starts not in the nonprofit world but in Jewish life. I fervently believe that Jewish wisdom, and what I call “the Jewish operating system” is something that can promote human flourishing. I believe Jewish wisdom can contribute to a better world. 

Is there a particular piece of Jewish wisdom that comes to mind for you as especially important to the current moment? 

We’re at a point in time when “dan lekhaf zekhut” — giving others the benefit of the doubt — is critically important. Honoring multiple truths is a basic tenet of Judaism. The story of Hillel and Shammai, the announcement by God that both of their opinions, though widely different, have elements of truth, and the way Hillel would listen to, grapple with, and repeat the views of the school of Shammai teaches us that to respect diverging and dissenting opinions goes a long way toward finding the best solutions. 

It is this process that is important. It’s one thing to admit that there are different views, it’s quite another to give others the benefit of the doubt and really listen to them. After all, we’re a people that calls upon ourselves first and foremost to “shema,” listen.  

But then, at the end of the day, after listening and processing, we still have to move on. Once we’ve heard, we still have to choose a path. We learn that the path of Hillel was most often chosen because he was a good listener, because he started by giving others the benefit of the doubt. 

When you think about your role models, either in business or in Jewish life, who stands out and what did you learn from them? 

My role model was my uncle, Jerry Lippman, who got me involved in Jewish life. He was a 10th-grade dropout, had dyslexia, and couldn’t read Hebrew. But he had a Yiddishe neshama [Jewish soul] and that expressed itself not only in a love for the Jewish people and a love for Israel, but a love for others outside the Jewish community as well. He treated everyone with respect. And he wasn’t afraid to say that it came from his Jewish values. He used to say, “Everything I learned, I learned from someone else.” That was his translation of Pirkei Avot [6:6] for the general population. In our company that he founded, he made everyone feel important, and he openly and proudly credited Jewish wisdom and Jewish ideas.  

Thinking back to when you were new to leadership, what has changed between your leadership style then and your leadership style now? 

I think in my early days, my energy sometimes caused me to move too quickly, and not to be the listener that I just expressed a few minutes ago. I was young, and I got involved very early. I was already running a company in my early 20s, and I was leading a Jewish day school that was in some financial difficulty. And I sort of thought I knew everything.  

But over time I learned the power of leading with a team, what I call the “leadership molecule.” 

If you’re thirsty, oxygen won’t do you any good and hydrogen won’t do you any good, but put them together your thirst will be quenched. I learned that in leadership, no one’s the Moshiah [messiah], no one is the unicorn who can do it all. It really requires leading with a trusted team of people with complementary skills. 

Nonprofits and for-profit businesses have many differences, but they have commonalities as well. Are there lessons you learned in the business world that feel relevant and important for the Jewish community at this moment?  

I honestly will tell you: I don’t see much difference. People are people. We want meaning in our work. We want to accomplish something relevant. We want to belong and work together. The business world and the nonprofit world converge in their needs to perform with excellence and to succeed and be self-sustaining.  

What first motivated you to get involved with Leading Edge? 

I have always been a believer in building what I call “foundational capability.” The Jewish communal world has extraordinary institutions filled with people who want to do amazing things. The question is, how do we bring more innovation and excellence to the whole field of nonprofit Jewish work? How do we capitalize on and harness the talents of so many committed Jewish professionals so that the whole Jewish nonprofit field is greater than its parts. What foundational capabilities does it take to do that? The Leading Edge mission uniquely understood that. It seemed like a tremendous opportunity to enable that talent. Leading Edge is about leverage — we are taking what’s already there and multiplying impact. And Leading Edge is in a unique position to advance the whole system. We’re not only about building better, more vital organizations. We’re about building a field within which professionals can navigate, find their passions, use their expertise, find meaning and grow. Leading Edge presented an unusual opportunity to contribute to Jewish life.  

As you enter your chairship — understanding that it takes a “leadership molecule,” not just one person — what kinds of impact do you personally hope to make on the organization? 

Leading Edge has a fabulous professional staff. The ten years since inception under the powerful leadership of Gali Cooks has been a case study in how a new organization can achieve its founding mission and also, in the face of extraordinary challenges in the Jewish world, dramatically expand its scope and impact. And Leading Edge has an outstanding Board with enormous experience and the courage to tackle the big issues. The last three years under the insightful and I might say exquisite guidance of Daryl Messinger has seen the realization of Leading Edge as the central address for talent and culture in the Jewish nonprofit field. My job is to maintain this extraordinary momentum and be a catalyst, an agent that helps Leading Edge help the Jewish nonprofit field reach potential. It will be my job to lead the Board in a way that makes sure that the Board supports the staff and contributes to both strategic and generative thinking. There’s a lot of talk these days about reacting with “resilience,” but the concept I find more compelling and proactive is “emergence.” I want to see us continue to emerge as the dynamic organization that drives the field forward. And that means keeping one eye on accomplishing the strategies that we set and the other eye on innovating to meet the constant change in the environment. 

Leading Edge is now ten years old. What is the most important change or trend that the Jewish community has seen over this past decade that will shape our future? 

I’ve been around long enough to know that generational change sneaks up on us slowly, but it’s there. The last ten years have seen different experiences with Israel and the attendant stresses, the surfacing of antisemitism and challenges to our safety and the ongoing challenge of maintaining Jewish coherence in an open society. But we have also seen more entrepreneurism in existing and new organizations, an increase in access to Jewish learning, more and more tailored opportunities to participate. The chance to create richer Jewish life is real. Ḥiddush, the Jewish call to innovation, needs to be central to our work. The Tosefta teaches that every Jew is born to add at least one new insight, ḥiddush, in their lifetime. Leading Edge is clearly doing its part. I hope to add mine.  

On January 1, 2026, Joe Kanfer became Board Chair at Leading Edge. Joe brings to his new role a distinguished record of entrepreneurial leadership, philanthropic innovation, and deep commitment to Jewish communal life.

A New Atom in the “Leadership Molecule:” Meet Board Chair Joe Kanfer

This leadership term is just the latest in a series of high-profile governance roles in the Jewish community for Daryl, not to mention her previous private sector career. Daryl has chaired and/or served on the Boards of many Jewish organizations, including (most prominently) chairing the Board of the Union for Reform Judaism, as the first woman to serve in that role. 

As her term of service draws toward an end, we sat down with Daryl to reflect on the eventful past three years at Leading Edge.  

What is your “Big Why” as a leader in the Jewish nonprofit world? 

I want to see Jewish organizations thrive and grow, in order to create great Jewish spaces, and to make a better world. That’s why I choose to devote my time and energy and resources to primarily Jewish organizations. 

When you think back on your term as Board Chair of Leading Edge, what moments make you feel proudest? 

I’m most proud of the way we showed up during these last two years of tremendous pain and suffering in Israel, with a spike in antisemitism across the country, and a real need for folks who are working in our sector to have clarity and professional direction. I’m very proud of the organization and how we responded in what has been a very fraught time.  

At the same time, I’m amazed at how much we accomplished in a very difficult period. You know, I started my term and we had just acquired Boardified. And we have now launched our Board Experience Survey and are launching a new Board offering in early 2026, the Board Leadership Accelerator.  

We furthered our understanding that with talent, you can’t just focus on the C-suite.  For organizations to really achieve their missions, it is not enough to identify and attract great leaders.  Organizations need to create a culture where people want to work and have an appreciation for talent at every level. I’m thrilled that we were able to combine with JPro, a storied organization, so that we could truly serve as the central address for all talent, culture and leadership. And that occurred at the beginning of this year, and in no time flat we were in the throes of JPro25, and had an awesome conference. So all of those things, I think, are a testament to this organization. 

What does it feel like to look back on that level of growth and change? 

We need to stop from time to time and appreciate how much progress this organization has made since I became Board chair three years ago. I had to take a medical leave in April. And when I came back in early June, I was blown away by how much progress had happened. This organization was just humming. And it’s a lot of change, and change, let’s face it, is hard. You know, the Board has continued to evolve, but more importantly, so has the professional team. Everyone has really stepped up and taken on new responsibilities, and broadened their portfolios in ways that I don’t think any of us would have necessarily envisioned three years ago. 

From 2023 through 2025, Daryl Messinger has served as Board Chair of Leading Edge, shepherding the organization through a period of expansion, challenges, and changes.  