Lay Leadership Initiative
Engaging volunteer leaders, funders, CEO search committees, and nonprofit boards in strengthening and optimizing the lay-professional partnership.
Professionals and lay leaders — board members, funders, and volunteer leaders — are the twin engines that make nonprofits soar.
When this partnership works, it can add tremendous value. When it doesn’t, it can be destructive. The Lay Leadership Initiative focuses on ways to support this partnership so that organizations can thrive.
Finding the leaders
An estimated 75% to 90% of Jewish nonprofits will need new CEOs within the next decade.
CEOsReportCEO Succession: Case Studies of Excellence from the Jewish Nonprofit Sector
These case studies offer a candid, personal look at the inner workings of CEO transition processes at six major Jewish organizations.
CEOsGuideCEO Search Committee Guide
Leading Edge partnered with a Senior Editor from Harvard Business Review to distill the most important elements of running a successful nonprofit CEO search.
Supporting CEO search committees
Ensuring the right CEO is in place is one of the board's primary duties. Executive transitions are a time of great opportunity and risk for organizations.
Supporting the board-CEO partnership
Relationships between boards and executives are critical to organizational success. They’re also frequent sources of tension, confusion, and misunderstanding. We’re exploring methods and models for improving them.
Learning more about the lay leadership pipeline
Organizations need great board leadership, but too many potential leaders don’t want to serve. We’re gathering data about who is sitting around the board table of Jewish nonprofits and how organizations can improve boards’ experience.
Related Resources
View the Resource Library
LeadershipReportThis report outlines practical steps lay leaders can take to help address the barriers keeping Jewish organizations from having the robust talent pipeline they need.
LeadershipReportThis groundbreaking report by the Bridgespan Group investigates why critical Jewish institutions are struggling to find the talent they need, particularly at the most senior ranks.
LeadershipArticleThe President & CEO of Leading Edge describes three initiatives that the organization is launching to tackle the leadership pipeline challenge: CEO Onboarding, Leading Places to Work, and the Lay Leadership Commission.
We, as board members, need to better understand the key responsibilities, the hard skills, and the core competencies that come with lay leadership positions. We need to better prepare for these roles and hold ourselves accountable to best practices that enable lay and professional leaders to maximize their potential.
