What We're Learning | Spring 2026
Here’s what the Leading Edge team is learning about culture, executives, and boards this spring.
Attracting Top Talent
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.
READ MORE AT SAPIR JOURNAL
CULTURE
Pluralism is a Jewish survival skill
If pluralism sounds hard, that’s because it is. But it is also joyful. And transformative. And deeply Jewish.
READ MORE AT EJEWISH PHILANTHROPY
Resilience Means Fewer Recoveries, Not Faster Ones
Skillful leaders don’t push their teams to bounce back faster. They create systems where bouncing back isn’t constantly required.
READ MORE AT MIT SMR
- 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
EXECUTIVES
The Paradox Of 2026: Change Fatigue And Leaders’ Thirst For Complexity
Change fatigue is everywhere—but leaders aren’t reaching for easy answers. In 2026, they’re building maturity, sensemaking, and capacity for complexity.
READ MORE AT FORBES
How AI Damages Work Relationships — and Where It Can Actually Help
We’re outsourcing the very moments that create connection. Here’s how to be more intentional.
READ MORE AT HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW
MORE
- 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
BOARDS
The Skills Board Chairs Need Now
They must juggle competing stakeholder priorities, adapt as new technologies upend strategies, and help a diverse group of directors find common ground.
READ MORE AT HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW
When a CEO–Board Partnership Actually Works (podcast)
What Every Nonprofit Can Learn from Girl Scouts USA (with Bonnie Barczykowski and Noorain Khan)
LISTEN AT JOAN GARRY CONSULTING
MORE:
- 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
About the Author
Leading Edge raises the standard for talent, culture, and leadership across the Jewish nonprofit sector. We work with professionals, executives, and board leaders to build stronger organizations and drive their missions forward.
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