Professional Development

Graphic Recording: Leadership Strategies that Work

An infographic from AWP's 2012 conference entitled Risk and Resilience that describes leadership strategies that will make your work flourish.

Article: Creating High Impact Nonprofits

Conventional wisdom says that scaling social innovation starts with strengthening internal management capabilities. This study of 12 high-impact nonprofits, by Heather McLeod Grant, however, shows that real social change happens when organizations go outside their own walls and find creative ways to enlist the help of others.

Article: Managing Your Career in Jewish Communal Service

Four leading women professionals in the Jewish communal field describe moments that inspired their careers and choices that helped them flourish.

Report: Good Business: A Best Practices Guide to Retaining and Advancing Women in Jewish Communal Service

Concrete recommendations intended to help Jewish communal professionals maintain and improve job performance, stay in their current positions for longer, and increase job satisfaction.

Presentation: The Bay Area Initiative

AWP partnered with the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund, Walter and Elise Haas Fund, and Jim Joseph Foundation on 2 conferences that cultivated a network of women professionals in the Bay Area Jewish community

Article: Women In The Executive Recruitment Process

A leading executive recruiter suggests that if Jewish organizations want more qualified women candidates to compete for CEO positions, they need to give female senior managers the opportunity to develop the skills required of a CEO.

Article: Unprepared for CEO Transitions: Where Will We Find the Next Generation of Nonprofit Executives?

A study that shows how boards and CEOs need to begin addressing leadership transition right away, or they will find themselves scrambling and competing to recruit talented senior executives and to deal with the disruptions that these transitions can cause.

Article: Trust in Transition: The Story of Mayyim Hayyim’s Recent Executive Transition

Carrie Bornstein and Aliza Kline detail the true-life story about succession planning, and professional development from a women-led Jewish community organization, based in Boston, MA.

Article: Making Motherhood Work – With Work

Deena Fuchs talks about her experience as an executive and new mother, and how the flexible policies of the AVI CHAI Foundation help her balance it all.

Article: Women Speak Up

Men are five times more likely to submit Op-Ed articles to outlets than women. Katie Orenstein, founder of The Op-Ed Project and a partner of AWP's sought to change it by training women to get their voices into the public sphere.

How To: Dual Agenda Worksheet

Learn how equity connects to effectiveness and diagnose your own organization, using scholarship and worksheets by Lotte Bailyn and Joyce Fletcher.

Work on Purpose: Heart + Head = Hustle

Suggestions for aligning your heart and your head so that you can achieve “hustle” - those times in which you are driven by your personal purpose. Created by Echoing Green.

How To: Dual Agenda Exercise

Learn how equity connects to effectiveness and diagnose your own organization, using scholarship and worksheets pioneered by Lotte Bailyn and Joyce Fletcher.

How To: How (And Why) to Cross-Train Employees

Helpful explanation of cross-training, especially for small businesses, to discourage, “That’s not my job” type thinking in your organization and increase overall effectiveness and teamwork.

Sample Policy: UJA-Federation of New York Flexible Work Arrangements

UJA Federation of New York's policy provides guidelines for requesting and managing flexible work arrangements.

Sample Policy: T’ruah (Rabbis for Human Rights) – Parental Leave Policy

T'ruah, with less than 10 employees, and a budget of under $1 million, offers a policy that meets AWP's "gold standard" by offering up to three months paid parental leave to employees who've worked for three years or more.

Sample Policy: JDC – NYHQ – Parental Leave Policy

The JDC New York Headquarters, with more than 100 employees, offers a policy that meets AWP's "gold standard" by offering up to three months paid parental leave to employees who've worked for three years or more.

How To: Political Mapping Tool

A tool to map out individual and organizational “actors” involved in the formation and implementation of policy. This exercise helps identify who holds power, visualize relationships, and identify allies.

How To: Leveling the Playing Field Self Assessment

A set of questions regarding formal and informal positions in an organization, where you are personally in your life and career, your political portfolio, and what resources are available to you.

How To: Leveling the Playing Field Thinking Politically Stakeholder Map

An environmental assessment worksheet for managing change within your organization, developed by CLA (Cambridge Leadership Associates).

Graphic Recording: Leadership Strategies that Work

This graphic recording offers ideas on leadership strategies that will make your work flourish. It was created at an AWP convening of women leaders of Jewish organizations in Northern California.

Article: On The Verge of Real Change

An article identifying significant changes in Jewish women's leadership including an increase in the number of women executives in start-ups and new executive job descriptions with shared leadership responsibilities.

How To: Gender Assessment Tool

Questionnaire adapted from the surveys developed by the Johns Hopkins University Committee on the Status of Women and from the evaluation tool used by Working Mother magazine to select their annual “100 Best Companies for Working Mothers.

Article: How Research Fuels Change

Findings from AWP and the UJC's (now JFNA - Jewish Federations of North America) research on women's leadership in federations, and how that research lead to intervention and catalytic change.

Run Your Own Experiment

Leading a change experiment: You can lead a change experiment in your organization. Start with research to assess current conditions and decide where to target your efforts.