A few years back, I wrote an internal concept paper that proposed a pseudo-census of the Jewish nonprofit sector. I wanted to do a rigorous, multi-phase research project that would not only tell us how many Jewish nonprofits exist in North America, but also how many people they employ, how many board members sit on their boards, and where they are. I dreamed of a map, a catalogue, a dataset with rows upon rows and columns upon columns of data. To those of you who are kindred spirits in data, who are reading this and can truly visualize that dream and are excited by it, I say to you: fingers crossed, one day! But not yet.

Honestly, I’ve wanted to do this for nearly a decade. I’ve been fortunate enough to have been part of every survey Leading Edge has launched to the field and to have supported hundreds of Jewish nonprofits through the survey tools we’ve built. In the early days of my tenure with Leading Edge, we were looking to understand what our “sandbox” looked like and today, over 85,000 survey responses later, I want to be able to contextualize our reach even more.

I first read Paul Burstein’s 2011 article “Jewish Nonprofit Organizations in the U.S.: A Preliminary Survey” in a graduate school class in 2015 (shoutout to the Hornstein program at Brandeis University!) and was intrigued by the methodology and the calculations — a third of our sector are synagogues, two-thirds fall under a national/umbrella entity, and there are more classifications of Jewish nonprofits than I was aware of at the time. A decade later, this study still sits at the center of the most-frequently-cited Jewish nonprofit sector estimates. Using IRS filings of 990s starting in 2009, Burstein provided a foundational analysis estimating around 9,500 Jewish nonprofits in the United States. 


In the early days of my tenure at Leading Edge, we used this number to help us get some sense of how many people are employed in the Jewish Nonprofit sector. First, we divided an estimate of total jobs in the US nonprofit sector (12.3 million, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2016) by an estimate of total nonprofit organizations in the US (1.6 million, according to The National Center for Charitable Statistics in 2016) to yield an average of 7.68 employees per nonprofit organization. Then we use Burstein’s 9,500 Jewish nonprofit organizations figure and assume that the Jewish nonprofit sector does not significantly deviate from the US national nonprofit average for average number of employees, with which we come up with an estimate of ~73,000 people working in the Jewish nonprofit sector.


In 2023, JPro (which, much more recently, joined together with Leading Edge) queried the field through national and umbrella organizations to get fresh counts for the number of organizations and employees in our field and calculated that there are 6,518 organizations and 121,178 employees. 


No estimate has been perfect for defining our “sandbox” but…

As large language models (LLMs) have become more powerful recently, I’ve wondered: could AI help test our estimates? As the fastest-growing technology to date (according to Forbes), it has experienced incredible diversification in its capabilities, which can sometimes feel overwhelming to keep up with. On Feb 2, 2025, ChatGPT added an exciting new feature — Deep Research — “an agent that uses reasoning to synthesize large amounts of online information and complete multi-step research tasks for you.” What fun!

When we first asked Deep Research to look into this, it returned an essay that relied heavily on… Leading Edge and JPro! It used our estimate, the one we were trying to test. But after some course correction, it made a new estimate, scrupulously excluding Leading Edge and JPro from its sources, and relying most on estimates of the component categories of organization types in our sector.

What was truly surprising, in this second round of results, was to see that we may not have been that far off all along! 


Here is a table that summarizes what Chat GPT - Deep Research was able to gather:

Assuming that there are uncategorized organizations and uncharacterized employees, we can conservatively estimate 10,000 orgs and 120,000 employees in the sector. ChatGPT is conservatively estimating an average of 12 board members per organization at 9,000 organizations which we adjusted for the 10,000 count to arrive at 120,000 board members, a cautious estimate. 


The journey of re-estimating the population of the Jewish nonprofit sector has not reached its conclusion. I still strongly believe that we need to conduct a rigorous, research-backed count of the sector as I dreamed it. After all, Deep Research can only base itself on the imperfect information publicly available to it on the internet. “Garbage in, garbage out,” goes the saying, and while the publicly available information isn’t “garbage,” it’s also quite far from comprehensive! We need more.

Still, this exercise of using AI to re-examine the sources we have can strengthen our confidence, to some degree, in some of our past assumptions. 

As we continue to gather data and refine our estimates, it is essential to contextualize our findings within the broader landscape of nonprofit organizations. A dual approach — leveraging research data while embracing innovative technology — can allow us to pave the way for a more informed, engaged, and impactful Jewish nonprofit sector. Imagine being able to know how large our tent truly is — and to know not only who they are, but where they are. 


One day, I hope to say that the sector is able to leverage resources and communal knowledge to enhance the lives of XXX,XXX of Jewish nonprofit professionals at XX,XXX organizations, as a fact and not an estimate. 


Until then, at least we have our robot friends.

Sometimes the simplest questions are the hardest to answer. For example: How many Jewish nonprofits are there, and how many people work in them?

Re-estimating the Jewish Nonprofit Sector: A Journey Through Data and AI

In the wake of Saturday’s devastating invasion and unspeakably savage mass murder in Israel, Jewish nonprofit organizations in North America are mobilizing to support Israel’s defense and resilience, and, at the same time, coping with additional needs and concerns arising in Diaspora Jewish communities and in their organizations. One of those concerns — not new, but significantly heightened in urgency — is physical security.

Last year, Leading Edge collected data on employees’ perceptions of physical security. We’ll be sharing a full report on our 2023 Employee Experience Survey data soon (which gathered data from 18,212 employees across 327 organizations), but in the context of this new crisis, here are some updates on physical security based on our 2023 numbers.

It’s important to note that this survey was conducted in May 2023, many months before the horrors of October. The current crisis makes the data newly relevant, but it is still a picture of the situation before it happened. That being said, here’s what we can see.

Most Jewish nonprofit employees work in person at least part of the week — making security a concern for a majority of the field.

To the extent Jewish nonprofit employees are vulnerable to attack on that organization, it’s because they work there in person. In 2023, we found that 86% of Jewish nonprofit employees work in person (i.e., outside their home) for at least part of the week. That figure was 76% in 2022. The increase may indicate an increase in post-COVID returns to the office.

A strong majority of in-person employees say their organization has a plan to respond to physical threats.

 We asked employees who work outside the home at least part of the week (15,673 people) two questions about physical security.

In 2023,  85% of those employees said their organization has a plan for how to respond to physical security threats. That figure was 84% in 2022, only barely different. Among those who didn’t respond “Yes,” most didn’t answer the question, with only 3% responding “I don’t know” and 2% responding “No.”

Most in-person employees feel prepared to act in the event of an attack — but one in seven do not.

In 2023, 75% of in-person employees said they feel prepared to act if faced with a physical security threat. That figure was 72% in 2022, only slightly different.

One in every seven in-person employees (14%) answered “No”, indicating that they do not feel prepared to act in the event of an attack.

In-person employees at social justice/advocacy organizations are especially likely to answer “no” to the security questions.

Leading Edge categorizes organizations into 15 organization types. This division is an art, not a science, and some categories overlap. (For example, some organizations have the services, functions, or agencies of a number of categories. For example, an organization might be both a Federation and a JCC, or a JCC and social services/human services agency. In these cases, we call the organization an “integrated community.”) But we find it to be a useful lens of analysis. Here’s the breakdown by type of organizations who participated in our 2023 survey:

When we look at how employees in different organization types answer the security question, it becomes clear that social justice/advocacy organizations have teams that are much less likely to feel safe compared with employees at other organization types. This type of organization represents 5% of organizations surveyed and also 5% of employees — one in twenty.

My organization has a plan for how to respond to a physical security threat — percentage of in-person employees answering “No”:

I feel prepared to act if faced with a physical security threat — percentage of in-person employees answering “No”:

We don’t know enough to have good theories about why this problem appears most severe in social justice/advocacy organizations, but this finding has also stayed the same from 2022 to 2023. 

Physical security affects more than security.

Writing about these physical security results last year, we noted that these physical security findings are relevant to more than security alone. “Compared with employees who do feel prepared to act in the event of a security threat, employees who do not feel prepared to act are much less likely to express confidence in their organization’s leaders,” we wrote at the time.

This year’s data shows this is still true — feeling prepared to act in the event of a security threat is strongly associated with confidence in the organization’s leaders in 2023. 

Furthermore, this year two more parts of the employee experience appear strongly correlated as well, which we did not see last year. What we call “employee enablement” (i.e., people feeling that they have supports and systems that make them able to succeed in their work) and “employee engagement” (feeling proud of the organization, wanting to stay there, motivated to do your best work, and likely to recommend the organization as a great place to work) are also strongly related to this feeling prepared to act in the event of a security threat. Feeling prepared for security threats apparently makes employees more engaged, enabled, and confident in their leaders.

This is a big deal, particularly regarding employee engagement, because engagement is the single most important metric for successful team cultures. And it makes sense that this vital concept would be affected by a sense of security. People can’t focus on doing amazing work if they don’t feel physically safe.

Before October 7, the reality and threat of violent attacks on Jewish organizations was relatively rare. Last weekend,  that changed. The world got an unforgettable, unforgivable, and agonizing reminder that what has been is not an indicator of what might be. 

We applaud efforts by leaders of Jewish nonprofits to ensure their people are safe. We pray those efforts are not tested, and we look forward to continuing to partner with everyone in the Jewish nonprofit sector as we navigate this painful time together and eventually find our way out of this place of darkness and toward new hopes and new possibilities. 

Survey data for a Jewish community on heightened alert.

Employee Perceptions of Physical Security in North American Jewish Nonprofits | Leading Edge

Employee Perceptions of Physical Security in North American Jewish Nonprofits

Here’s the TLDR: We paused Pulse Surveys, but now they’re back, and they’re improved! Get your organization started with a Pulse Survey today.

What if you were trying to get your blood pressure down, but you only had access to a blood pressure cuff to measure it once per year? 

Doesn’t sound like the best setup to me. And the same is true if by “your” you mean “your organization’s,” and by “blood pressure” you mean “employee engagement,” and by “down” you mean “up.”

Pulse Surveys from Leading Edge are short and fully customizable surveys you can use to get a quick sense of how your employees are doing, or to ask some specific question about their experience in the moment. It’s a much quicker, more nimble tool compared to our best-known survey, the Employee Experience Survey (EES), which Leading Edge has been offering once per year since 2016 (except for 2020; we’ll get to that below). 

The EES is a long, comprehensive (and amazing!) people analytics tool that gives you the complete workup of your people’s experiences at work. It’s like a full-body MRI for your workplace culture. It’s incredibly powerful, but it’s intense, and you can’t feasibly do it every weekday morning after breakfast. Pulse Surveys are like that quick home blood pressure check — focused, simple, and easy to repeat over and over again.

We first introduced Pulse Surveys in 2020 as a replacement for the EES that didn’t happen that year. In the midst of the crisis atmosphere of the onset of COVID-19, running the EES would have been too much of an administrative burden to both Leading Edge and the participating organizations, as we all scrambled to adjust to a whole new way of working. And, even leaving the administrative burden aside, the EES was a tool unsuited to the needs of that particular moment. Everything was in flux, different organizations had different immediate needs, and everyone’s needs were urgent and rapidly changing. 

So we created Pulse Surveys, and they were a better fit for 2020 — but they have also complemented the larger survey as a parallel offering as time has gone by. When we reintroduced the EES in 2021, the Pulse Survey remained an active option. Organizations have often used them as interim check-ups in between EES cycles, to gauge their progress in addressing the most important issues that their EES revealed. Others have used it in one-off ways, to check in with their employees just before or just after some major change, like going all-remote, going back to the office, declaring no-meeting Wednesdays, or instituting a new policy where everyone must refer to each other by a cryptic spy-movie-style nickname at work.

Last year, we paused Pulse Surveys so we could find ways to improve our process of administering them. And now, I’m so excited to report that they’re back! 

What’s new about Pulse Surveys since we paused them? Well, many small tweaks, but here are the two big pieces of news:

You’ll receive more and better sample questions to help you design your Pulse Survey.

Pulse Surveys now run on Culture Amp, the same platform we use for the EES. This makes it much easier to run more powerful analyses and compare your Pulse Survey results to your EES results.

Here’s what’s not new, and still great, about Pulse Surveys:

Still free of any cost to your organization;

Still includes tech support from our team to empower you to administer your survey with ease;

Still available up to four times per year;

Still helps you measure your organizational health in an ongoing way, like some kind of super-easy, pocket-sized sphygmomanometer. (And yes, that’s right, “sphygmomanometer” is the official fancy medical name of a blood pressure cuff.)

So that’s my pitch — if your organization has never done a Pulse Survey, or if you haven’t done one in a while, click yourself over to this page and check them out! We’re back, we’re even better, and my pulse is racing just thinking about it.

We paused Pulse Surveys, but now they’re back, and they’re improved! Get your organization started with a Pulse Survey today.

Pulse Surveys are Back — and Better Than Ever

Surveying employees and implementing changes based on survey results is a powerful way to create a better workplace culture. This article for eJewish Philanthropy, co-authored by Alena Akselrod of Leading Edge with Andy Paller of the JCC Association of North America, explains how the JCC Association is using Leading Edge's Employee Experience Survey to level up their benchmarking and improve the workplace experience across the JCC movement.

Given the JCC movement’s outsized labor force — particularly as JCCs of North America’s leaders juggle a deep commitment to their professionals, employees’ new expectations about working hours and locations and a tightening labor market — workplace culture increasingly is a critically important matter, not only in JCCs, but in organizations throughout the professional world, where culture often is neglected and undervalued.

For more than a decade, JCC Association of North America has surveyed JCC professionals as part of its JCC Excellence: Benchmarking surveys. The data collected, in addition to exploring interactions with JCC members, was designed to explore the quality of professionals’ own experiences in the workplace and identify the key drivers of staff satisfaction. To help JCCs across North America develop a truly strong, attractive culture, JCC Association leaders set about to deepen its existing relationship with Leading Edge. From its newest partnership with Leading Edge, JCC Association has garnered solid data about JCCs’ employees, the factors that most influence their happiness and sense of belonging at work, and their desire to remain employed at their JCC.

To help JCCs across North America develop a truly strong, attractive culture, JCC Association leaders set about to deepen its existing relationship with Leading Edge. From its newest partnership with Leading Edge, JCC Association has garnered solid data about JCCs’ employees, the factors that most influence their happiness and sense of belonging at work, and their desire to remain employed at their JCC.

To build a better workplace, survey your employees about their experiences

This article was originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

New data shows that Jewish communal workers don’t always feel prepared to respond to a physical attack on their workplace—and this feeling of unpreparedness relates to lower levels of trust they have in their leaders at work.

Jews are the most frequently targeted religious community in the U.S. for hate crimes, although thankfully the vast majority of these hate crimes are not violent. According to the ADL, there were 2,024 antisemitic incidents in the year 2020, and 327 of these occurred at Jewish institutions. Almost all were harassment or vandalism, while three of those 327 incidents at Jewish institutions were assaults. 

Even three attacks—even one—is worth taking precautions to prevent. But there are reasons even beyond the real-but-rare possibility of physical attacks for taking employees’ feelings of security seriously.

Every year, Leading Edge (my organization, which empowers Jewish organizations to improve their leadership, talent, and culture) conducts the Employee Experience Survey, open to any Jewish nonprofit that wants to improve their team’s work experience. This year, we heard from more than 12,000 employees at 257 Jewish organizations in North America. And, for the first time in 2022, we asked employees who don’t work remotely about their sense of physical security preparedness in the workplace. The most important finding about security from our data this year: Security preparedness isn’t just about security; it’s about trust in leadership.

We asked employees who work outside of their homes for at least part of the week about physical security. Most (84%) said their organization has a plan for how to respond to a physical security threat. And most (72%) agreed that “I feel prepared to act if faced with a physical security threat.” This is a good starting place for the field, but there is room for growth. In particular, some employees don’t know if their organization has a plan if faced with a security threat. There are also some employees who are aware that their organization has a plan, but they personally do not feel prepared to act in the event of a security threat.

Compared with employees who do feel prepared to act in the event of a security threat, employees who do not feel prepared to act are much less likely to express confidence in their organization’s leaders. They are much less likely to agree that their leaders will respond appropriately to reports of sexual harassment or discrimination. And they are much less likely to agree that their leaders communicate well and keep them informed. The differences between these two groups are large—they represent 17 to 20 percentage-point gaps in likelihood of agreeing with these statements.

Where are these employees who feel less prepared to act in the event of a security threat? They are in many places and types of organizations, but they are disproportionately represented at smaller organizations (especially teams of 10 or less); in the Northeastern U.S. and Canada; and in certain types of Jewish nonprofits, namely: foundations, community relations organizations, national/umbrella organizations, and especially social justice/advocacy organizations. Among social justice/advocacy employees, it's an outright majority of in-person workers who do not feel prepared to act in the event of a security threat. (In all these cases, the only employees who were asked this question were those who work in person every day; remote workers were not asked.)

More Jewish organizations—and more of their leaders—need to take physical security seriously, not only as a mandate to keep their teams physically safe (which is important, even when the likelihood of an attack is relatively low) but also as a way of demonstrating care and concern for their teams. Threats to the Jewish community are just as real emotionally and psychologically as they are physically; actions to address those threats should be as holistic as the threats themselves.

We remember when in January 2022 a hostage situation unfolded in Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas. Many Jews around the world felt personally implicated, and, in the days that followed, some employees at visibly Jewish organizations must have wondered: Could we be next? The Colleyville crisis ended with all the hostages alive, thank God, but it also called to mind other deadly attacks on synagogues from recent years in Pittsburgh, Poway, and Monsey. These vicious attacks provoked feelings not only of grief and outrage but also of vulnerability, both for Jews and for non-Jewish people whose work and lives intersect with the Jewish community.

Leaders of Jewish organizations—especially those with in-person workspaces that are visibly Jewish—have an opportunity to build trust by paying more attention to employees’ perceptions of safety. That means making people actually safer and making sure that people feel safer, including knowing exactly what they should do, personally, in the event of an attack.

In Hebrew, the word bitaḥon can mean both “security” and “trust”. When employees see that their organizations value, protect, and empower them with the bitaḥon of physical security, they are much more likely to feel the bitaḥon of trust as well.

Security preparedness is about more than security.

Physical Attacks, Preparation, and Trust in Leadership

Writing in the Forward, our own Alena Akselrod, Senior Program Director at Leading Edge, shares her experience of living through this moment as an American Jew who was born in Arkhangelsk, Russia.

“If anyone asks, you’re not Russian. You’re Moldovan.” That’s what my mother-in-law advised me a few days ago, as the world reacted with justified horror to the Russian military invading Ukraine.

She wants to protect me. Originally from Moldova herself (as is my husband), she’s relieved to be able to tell people truthfully that she’s not from Russia. She wants me to bend the truth by a thousand miles or so and use her line of defense, too.

But I shouldn’t need a defense. I shouldn’t need to lie about where I was born to feel safer in New York, where I live. I was born in Arkhangelsk, Russia. And I am not your enemy.

In the article, Alena shares her experiences coming of age as part of the community of Jews from the Former Soviet Union—a group comprising approximately a tenth of the North American Jewish community. She also challenges Jewish institutions and Jewish leadership to reflect on how they can show up for that community during this difficult time:

The Jewish community is centrally important to me. Will I, and the approximately 10% of that community that speaks Russian, be treated as if we are important to it? Will Jewish organizations and leaders stand up to proactively and explicitly make sure that support for Ukraine doesn’t turn into demonization of Russian people or Russian speakers everywhere? We know we belong here, and belonging entails solidarity; will Jewish institutions treat us as if we truly belong?

An American Jew Born in Russia: A Team Member's Personal Reflection

For people in the workplace, being in a different role from someone else is one of many factors that can lead to having vastly different experiences — living in different realities. What about CEOs and employees at Jewish organizations? How are our experiences the same or different?

Every year (with the exception of 2020), Leading Edge conducts an Employee Experience Survey. Our primary purpose for the survey is to provide a people analytics tool that helps Jewish nonprofit leaders and managers better understand their workplace culture. With questions ranging from mission alignment to internal communications and from management practices to psychological safety, the survey gives an in depth look into the world of work. With more and more organizations opting to take part in the survey every year, Leading Edge is able to glean insights into Jewish nonprofit professionals’ experiences. 

This year, however—for the first time—we piloted an additional CEO Survey just for top-most professionals: CEOs, Executive Directors, and other equivalent titles. (For the sake of brevity, I’ll refer to them simply as CEOs.) Since the CEO’s experience leading their organization is notably different from the rest of the professional team’s experience, this survey focused on the CEO experience only. 

Understanding how top leaders experience their work is vital for boards, funders, CEOs themselves, and the field at large. We have seen consistently over time that trusted leadership, and high leadership performance, are factors that are both variable and strongly correlated with organizational success. Leadership really matters! That’s why we wanted to take this deep dive into how CEOs in Jewish nonprofits experience their work, their relationships with their senior teams, their board relationships, and their perspectives of their most common strengths and struggles. 

So now that we have both surveys, we can ask, and answer, this question: what’s different, and what’s the same, about how CEOs and their employees are experiencing work in our sector? And what does that mean for our field?

Here are two areas where CEOs and employees in the sector seem to be strongly aligned in their experiences:

Most CEOs and employees feel their organizations have been taking meaningful steps regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). 72% of CEOs agree that “My organization is taking meaningful steps to address diversity, equity, and inclusion,” while 70% of employees agree that “My organization demonstrates a genuine commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.” It would be better if these numbers were higher, but they do represent a strong majority. It’s important to remember that “meaningful steps” isn’t the same as saying, “mission accomplished”. Even as 72% of CEOs say their organizations are taking meaningful steps on DEI, 68% of CEOs also say (in response to a different question) that DEI is “a growth area” at their organization. This practice is very much a work in progress in our field.


Most people feel their organizations are understaffed. This is something we have seen every year in the Employee Experience Survey data and, unsurprisingly, find a shared experience between CEOs and employees. Forty-four percent (44%) of CEOs agree that “Our organization has the staff we need to fulfill our mission,” compared to 42% of employees who agree that “There are enough people to do the work we need to do.” This finding is straightforward, but important. In the midst of a shifting workforce and the redefinition of work, organizations may lose valuable employees due to understaffing and overworking. Running a lean organization may not be all it's cracked up to be and will likely lead to even more of an overwork issue as the most put-upon and stretched employees search for more balanced opportunities elsewhere.

Here are two areas where CEOs and employees diverge:

CEOs have a harder time  unplugging. It’s no surprise, but it’s still worthy of note—leadership is very demanding! Only 32% of CEOs say “I have enough opportunities to disconnect from work,” compared to 55% of employees—a 23% gap. Honestly, both of these numbers should be much higher than they are if we want organizations to achieve their best performance. Turnover, burnout, and languishing have real costs—human costs, financial costs, and social costs to the mission. But for leaders, the problem seems to be especially acute. Leaders, boards, and funders should take seriously the need to allow top leaders to have time to disconnect to mitigate potential burnout. 

There is also an equity angle here. In our report released this summer, The Gender Gap in Jewish Nonprofit Leadership: An Ecosystem View, we found that the perception that you cannot be a top leader and a primary caregiver at the same time is one of five “keystone” causes of the gender gap in top Jewish leadership. Everyone needs time outside of work just for the sake of their mental health and well-being. It is also worth noting that leaders who do not take breaks or unplug are setting a harmful example for their employees and the next generation of leaders. 


CEOs feel like they’re getting things done. Employees? Maybe not as much. Ninety percent (90%) of CEOs agree that “Most days I feel that I      am making progress with my work,” compared to 78% of employees—a 12% gap. Both numbers are relatively high, which is another piece of good news for the field. Feelings of daily progress are incredibly important. Every year, in our Employee Experience Survey report, we analyze what differentiates people who want to stay at their organizations from people who want to leave their organizations, and this year feelings of daily progress is one of the vital factors for retention. Ninety percent (90%) of employees who said they want to stay at their organization for two years or more also reported feeling that they make daily progress in their work. Among those who want to leave their organizations within two years, just 44% said they make progress each day at work (a 46% gap). Other research also shows the importance of progress to employee engagement. The fact that CEOs are more likely than employees to feel they are making progress should prompt CEOs to explore this more. It’s tempting to assume that others experience work the same way we do, but this question shows that for many CEOs and employees, there may be a disconnect. Some CEOs may therefore be missing opportunities to figure out how to remove barriers to their employees getting things done, in ways that would benefit everyone. 

There’s more to be said. There are other similarities, and other differences, between the perspectives of CEOs and employees at Jewish nonprofits. To explore them, I hope you’ll read both survey reports! (Find them at leadingedge.org/resources.) And if you’re an organizational leader whose organization has not yet participated in our surveys, consider joining us for the Employee Experience Survey and CEO Survey in 2022! Registration will open in January. Getting this type of feedback from your staff gives you information to support building a better workplace culture. Data and information are just means to that end, but you can’t get to what should be until you understand what is.

As we rapidly approach the end of the calendar year, we wish for you a 2022 of great work life, great life away from work, great colleagues (and enough colleagues), and a workplace culture where everyone feels and knows that they are included and belong.

Originally published at eJewish Philanthropy.

The poet John Keats once wrote, “Nothing ever becomes real ‘til it is experienced.” And he was right. It’s one thing to hear a story about, say, flying over your bike’s handlebars while mountain biking in Israel, but trust me, doing it is so different from hearing about it that it’s another reality entirely.

The Job Multiverse: How similarly do CEOs and employees experience work?

The annual* Leading Edge Employee Experience Survey is a people analytics tool that helps Jewish nonprofit leaders and managers better understand their workplace culture. It’s designed to capture as much of the employee experience as possible in order to help organizational leaders identify their strengths, challenges, and growth opportunities. The survey asks questions ranging from management practices to internal communications, from mission alignment to confidence in leadership, and much more. In addition to the robust data set that organizations gain access to, Leading Edge continues to support participating organizations on their journey to become even better places to work by offering one-on-one consultations, ongoing technical support, and curated resources and best practices.

*Leading Edge didn’t run the Employee Experience Survey in the Spring of 2020. Organizations were facing a pandemic, office closures, cancelled events, potential budget shortfalls, and other challenges. We chose to offer a quicker, simpler, self administered Pulse Survey instead to help leaders stay informed on how their teams were doing and what were their most immediate needs. (The Pulse Survey remains available, both for organizations that don’t take the Employee Experience Survey and for those that do, as a supplement to it.)

At Leading Edge we believe that prioritizing employees as key stakeholders is an essential part of creating dynamic, healthy, and thriving organizations. With that in mind, the primary purpose of the survey is to help organizational leaders do just that—by asking the right questions and then providing individual support and field-wide resources.

As more and more organizations opt into taking the survey every year, Leading Edge is also able to distill themes, trends, correlations, and other insights that can inform the entire field about how to create the kind of workplace experiences that will help attract, retain, and develop talented people. This is what you can look forward to reading in the survey report this fall.

Since 2016, more than 35,000 people working across over 300 unique organizations have taken the survey.  In 2021, more than 17,000 people working for 221 organizations received the Employee Experience Survey. (This figure counts the 200+ professionally staffed Hillel campuses across the globe as one unit, and Hillel International as another unit.) More than 11,000 people responded. Sixty percent (60%) of the 2021 participating organizations have taken this survey at least once before, and 40% took it for the first time. More than 80 organizations have taken the survey at least three times.

A broad range of Jewish organizations take the Employee Experience Survey, including JCCs, Federations, human service organizations, social justice organizations, camps, umbrella organizations (like denominations, Jewish Federations of North America, JCC Association, etc.), and more.

Employees of every rank and job function are strongly encouraged to take the survey, with one exception: CEOs. (By “CEOs” we mean the top professional leader of the organization, including those with other titles.)

In past years, CEOs have taken the survey, and they’ve told us that some of the questions don’t apply to them. So many questions about employee experience relate to the supervisor, but the CEO’s supervisor is a board of directors. That’s a very different dynamic and experience.

This year, in order to capture the unique experience of top leaders, we offered some CEOs a chance to pilot a new CEO Survey with questions specifically geared towards their experience as top leaders, instead of the Employee Experience Survey. We’re preparing reports for both surveys so that the field can benefit from insights about both experiences (leader and employee) in our sector.

What does Leading Edge do with the survey results?

The first thing we do is provide an interactive set of results to the leaders of the participating organizations. Using the platform of our survey partner, Culture Amp, organizations can look through their results in countless permutations, looking at different answers, themes, subgroups, and trends, and browsing action ideas for how to improve people’s experiences in the items they identify as growth areas. We then provide a set of two one-on-one consultations, at no cost, to each organization to help them understand and interpret their results (it’s a lot of data!) and help them create action plans to build on strengths and address challenges.

While organizations are busy working through their results, Leading Edge analyzes the aggregate results from the survey to see what sector-wide trends and insights can be gleaned that can help the entire sector improve workplace culture and people’s experiences working at Jewish organizations.

What kinds of findings will be in the Employee Experience Survey report?

Here are some (not all!) of the topics we’ll cover:

How do 2021 responses differ from 2019, and what can that tell us about the effects of 2020 and the pandemic on our sector’s workplace experience?

What aspects of employees’ experience most strongly correlate with “engagement”? (By engagement we mean a combination of pride in the organization, feeling motivated to do great work, recommending the organization as a great place to work, and wanting to stay with the organization in the future.)

What key workplace differences are driving people to want to stay at their organizations—or leave them?

How do employees feel about their organizations? Their managers? Their leaders? 

How psychologically safe do employees feel? How cared for?

Do people feel like they belong? Do they feel the organization demonstrates good DEI practices? 

Do employees understand how pay works at their organizations and feel their salary is fair?

In addition to insights about all this and more regarding the entire range of participating organizations this year, we’ll include tips for improving common experience issues, true stories from the field, and more. To get an idea of what’s to come, you can read the most recent previous report (2019) here. 

What about demographics? Isn’t this like a census of the field?

The report will present the demographic makeup of the people who took the survey. This is in no way a census, poll, or scientific study of all the people who work in the Jewish nonprofit sector as a whole. Participating organizations are not a random sample. Organizations that opt in to take the survey are prepared and eager to improve their employees’ experiences and willing to commit to acting on what they discover. Which organizations are ready to take that step is not a randomized group, and therefore that group of Jewish organizations can’t be assumed to be representative of all Jewish organizations. 

Additionally, when it comes to trends over time, the group of participating organizations is not the same from year to year. This makes it difficult to assert overall longitudinal trends for the sector. This doesn’t mean we can’t draw  some conclusions about the field. Indeed, we believe we can glean many insights into the state of work and workplace culture for the Jewish nonprofit sector. When we see recurring themes year over year, or a common set of challenges facing most participating organizations, we can start to look deeper at these emerging trends. No spoilers here—you’ll need to read the 2021 report for more on this.

When will we get to see the final report?

This autumn. While you’re waiting, browse our Resource library and learn all about how organizations can become Leading Places to Work.

Later this year, Leading Edge will release a report sharing insights from the 2021 Employee Experience Survey. We want to share some thoughts in advance about what our annual survey report can—and can’t—tell us about the Jewish nonprofit sector as a whole.

What to Expect When You’re Expecting (to read the Employee Experience Survey Report)

Published in NonProfit PRO on January 26, 2021.

When our reality is changing at a normal (and dare I say predictable) pace, we can map it out with some level of detail to help us understand the environment and the players — but in complex and quickly-changing circumstances, trying to create a detailed map will become the equivalent of putting on blinders. It’s a surefire way to miss vital features of the shifting landscape around you. In complex times when navigating constant uncertainty, identifying a few simple principles to act as our North Star can be valuable in guiding our response no matter what changes lie ahead.

In that spirit, here are three bedrock principles I’ve been thinking about recently as candidates for the only rules that can meet this moment. I like to call them the three commandments.

Here’s the paradox: In simpler times, a complex framework is helpful, but in complex times, simplicity is key.

The 3 Commandments: Simple Rules for Complex Times

Flexible Hours. To support employees who are unable to work normal hours, consider allowing them to adjust their schedule to accommodate personal or family needs. If employees are able to work more productively late at night or on the weekend when they can focus, this should be an option. While many organizations are already doing this informally, it’s helpful to be as explicit as possible so that employees don’t feel pressure to check and respond to email at all times. Leaders and managers can also suggest that employees list work hours in their email signature, block off working and non-working on their calendars for coworkers to see, or put up an out-of-office message if they are not working during the typical work day.


Reward Hard Work. It’s important to also recognize and reward employees who may be taking on a larger-than-usual share of the workload. There are a variety of ways to do this. Send a card to say you’re grateful and appreciate their efforts. If folks are working remotely, consider sending a small gift to employees’ homes to show the organization’s gratitude. Just expressing to employees that their hard work is acknowledged and noticed can go a long way towards improving morale for those who are going above and beyond. 


Prioritize. With many staff working remotely, communication can be difficult. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and lose track of what’s most important. Weekly check-ins or team meetings can help staff determine which tasks and projects are most important for the week. This way, even if staff are working flexible hours they know what is expected of them and can work to achieve short-term goals. Managers can also create a template to mark the status of each task or project with a green light, yellow light, or red light, assigning a color to help an employee visualize what is on track, paused, or removed.


Safe Spaces. While 2020 has proven to be eye-opening for many around issues of racial justice, discrimination in the workplace has long been known to communities of color. Research has shown a trend with mental health concerns resulting from workplace discrimination. Managers should consider appropriate ways to address equity within their organization and provide a space for people to talk about it. A human resources or talent professional can reach out to employees offering the opportunity for discussions about issues relating to racial justice. Some staff may want to meet privately while others might prefer sharing their thoughts among a group of individuals facing similar challenges, where they can speak openly and offer support. The manager organizing the discussion should be mindful to listen and let participants do the majority of the talking. Another option is to form a book club focused on DEIJ-related books as a way to spark discussions about racial justice in the workplace. 


Time off. Employees may be less willing to speak up if they need to take time off to deal with mental health. But organizations should consider that those struggling with mental health issues often need rest, away from the computer, the same way that those dealing with physical ailments do. Think about offering mental health or wellness days, in addition to PTO days for employees to utilize if needed. These could take the form of organization-wide “Rest and Recharge Days” where the entire organization shuts down for a few days, or “Summer Fridays” where the whole organization is off on Friday afternoons. No matter what policy you implement, ensure that senior leaders set the example to help normalize the practice. Otherwise, employees may not feel comfortable taking advantage of the new policy. 


Re-think Meetings. The way that meetings are structured and scheduled can have an impact on how employees feel throughout the day. One suggestion is to end all internal meetings at 50 minutes past the hour to allow for at least a 10 minute break between calls/Zoom meetings. This may help to avoid dreaded Zoom fatigue. Another option is opening internal meetings with a scale of one to ten in response to “How are you feeling at this moment?” so that employees have the opportunity to speak up if they are not feeling well and others can offer support. 


Coverage Uncovered. Make sure your employees know exactly what kind of mental health services are covered under your policies. Sometimes navigating coverage questions can be a barrier to taking advantage of the available options. Make it easy for employees to access insurer-provided therapy and support. Consider a lunch and learn, HR office hours, or even a thorough memo to help explain what is available, how to find providers, and how folks can access everything. Include time for questions and answers so that employees can have all of their concerns addressed. 


“Walk-in-my-shoes.” Sometimes we don’t know the full story of what a team member is working on or going through. Make space for folks to share what’s hard for them during their work days along with any visible or invisible challenges. This could be done during a sharing circle at a team lunch, on a Slack channel where team members share what they are struggling with in real time, or any other forum that works for your team. To make sure that folks feel safe and comfortable to share, have the leadership share first to establish a safe and brave space. 


Accountabili-Buddies. An “accountabili-buddy” is an accountability partner who you speak with daily or weekly, where you support each other and hold each other accountable. It could include anything from fitness check-ins, making sure they are taking mental health days, keeping up with work goals, or sticking to a professional development plan. An “accountabili-buddy” is a great way to make sure your employees have someone to lean on during stressful moments and to have at least one person to check in with to make sure they are doing OK. Set up “accountabili-buddy” pairs for a specific period of time (1-3 months, 6 months, etc.) and make sure that the two individuals are not in a supervisor-supervisee relationship. 

Other Resources. Management can explore local resources to find a counselor that teaches coping skills or wellness strategies. Leaders can also consider scheduling a singular training or a series of training sessions to help improve staff morale, self-care, or well-being. A counselor may be available for one-on-one sessions, if the organization wants to offer this resource. Even sharing a list of online resources, recommended mental health professionals, or free online courses could be helpful. Think about bringing in experts to run workshops or guest speakers on various mental health topics. Consider paying for a meditation or exercise app to share with staff that would help them manage their mental health.


Manager Discussions. Leadership can offer managers-only meetings for senior leaders or middle management focusing on the challenges of managing teams during this time. These groups can be helpful and supportive environments. Meetings can also provide an opportunity for learning mindfulness and stress management techniques tailored for managers, which could reduce stress, increase focus, and set positive examples for their teams.


Listen to Staff. Provide a list of resources for any issues that haven’t been explicitly addressed already. For example, a list of hotlines for mental health or domestic violence could be helpful to staff who may not feel comfortable sharing these personal aspects of their lives in the workplace. Additionally, there may be a spoken need among several staff for more support around a particular issue, like homeschooling their children. Be open to what staff say their needs are, and think about how to address needs that may be unspoken.


Here are some additional tips to support mental health and encourage well-being at your organization:

Have a “rest hour” everyday in the afternoon when meetings cannot be scheduled

Have walking meetings instead of Zoom calls to encourage fresh air and movement

Play a quick game at the start of your next meeting to bond as a team and to have some fun

Have a quick coffee date or lunch break with a coworker just to chat (not about work)

Buy a small plant to put on your desk at home or in the office

Take a few hours (or a day) off from social media

Have your team take a personality test; understanding that everyone has different strengths can help your team work well together

Ask everyone on your team to share their stress styles in order to gain a better understanding of how each person responds to stress; this makes it easier for coworkers to support each other

Encourage staff not to read their emails during a 2-hour block each day, or to set specific times for checking email during the day 

Set up calendar invites for a stretch break every few hours - employees stretch on their own but the invite serves as a reminder to get up and move

The current work environment presents many challenges that may be impacting health and well-being. Employees are juggling childcare needs with job responsibilities, caring for sick friends or relatives, struggling with isolation, and more. This list provides some ideas and suggestions to support your people and their mental health.

Supporting Employee Mental Health

Alena Akselrod is Vice President, Outreach and Engagement at Leading Edge, where she strengthens connections across the Jewish nonprofit sector and expands access to the organization’s resources, insights, and partnerships. Alena has been at Leading Edge since 2016 and has brought a unique blend of strategic relationship-building, data expertise, and systems thinking to her work—previously serving as Senior Director of Data Strategy, where she led the organization’s fieldwide surveys and data initiatives.

Her portfolio is rooted in problem solving, data storytelling, and thoughtful collaboration. She has overseen the sector’s largest employee engagement surveys, providing actionable insights to hundreds of organizations and thousands of professionals. In her current role, she builds on these relationships to foster deeper engagement and more responsive support across the field.

Alena grew up in Brooklyn after emigrating from the Former Soviet Union in the mid-1990s. Her passion for working with youth launched her Jewish nonprofit career, spending 13 years supporting Russian-speaking Jewish (RSJ) immigrant families at a JCC in South Brooklyn.

She holds an M.B.A. in Nonprofit Management and an M.A. in Jewish Professional Leadership from Brandeis University. Alena is an MBTI certified practitioner, a proud Wexner Graduate Fellow & Davidson Scholar, and a JCC Association Merrin Teen Professional Fellow.

Vice President, Outreach and Engagement

Alena Akselrod

Alena Akselrod is Vice President, Outreach and Engagement at Leading Edge.