Women’s Advancement

Article: Creating Change in the Federation System

Shifra Bronznick's piece discusses the report on gender bias in the Federation system, including practical strategies for making change in the Jewish community.

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.

Report: Centering on Professionals: The 2001 Study of JCC Personnel In North America

A survey of JCC professionals finds high rates of job satisfaction but concerns over advancement and compensation. While the proportion of women in senior positions has grown, women's salaries significantly trail men’s salaries.

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

Report: The Jewish Sector’s Workforce: Report of a Six-Community Study

A major study of American Jewish communal professionals finds that instituting mentoring programs, creating family-friendly policies, and eliminating gender bias would improve recruitment and retention.

Template: 12 Steps to a Successful Search

BoardWalk Consulting has prepared a template to guide you through the 12 Steps to a Successful Search.

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.

Report: The Promise of Future Leadership: Highly Talented Employees in the Pipeline

Catalyst's longitudinal project follows the careers of graduates of leading business schools and has discredited a number of prevalent myths that suggest the gender gap in corporate leadership exists because of women’s choices and actions.

Report: Anatomy of Change: How Inclusive Cultures Evolve

A study by Catalyst asks, how do you make a seriously male-oriented organization more inclusive, so both women and minorities can advance? The study is the fourth in Catalyst’s Engaging Men research series. Through in-depth focus groups, it identifies the critical factors necessary for creating inclusive organizations.

Article: A Modest Manifesto for Shattering the Glass Ceiling

What will it take to shatter the glass ceiling? According to Debra Meyerson and Joyce Fletcher, it's not a revolution but a strategy of small wins - a series of incremental changes aimed at the subtle discriminatory forces that still reside in organizations.

Infographic: Work is Not a Place, It’s a Thing You Do

Infographic detailing statistics of how flexible work programs improve the lives of employees.

Article: Winning the Talent War for Women, Sometimes It Takes a Revolution

In 1991, Deloitte & Touche got a wake-up call about its efforts to retain women professionals. While it was recruiting almost as many women as men, the company had a much higher turnover rate for women.

Article: Off-Ramps and On-Ramps: Keeping Women On The Road To Success

Are women really “opting-out” of the workforce as last year’s media uproar suggested? New data in the form of an article and report says “absolutely not,” at least not in the way the stories indicated.

Article: Liberals Are That Way Too?

An editorial by Rabbi Debbie Bravo calling out the Union of Reform Judaism on it's predominantly male leadership team and calling on the leadership to be true to it's values and promote gender equity.

Presentation: Conference for Change – Agenda and Program

Program and agenda, along with participant bios, for 2007's Conference for Change.

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.

Article: A Simple Suggestion to Help Phase Out All-Male Panels at Tech Conferences

An article in The Atlantic urging men in technology to take a pledge not to participate on all-male panels; inspired by AWP's Men as Allies initiative.

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.

Article: How Jewish Workplaces Can Right Gender Disparities

This article offers solid arguments for formalized flexible work arrangements as a key strategy for advancing Jewish women professionals, based on the experiences of Renanit Levy and Rachel Jacoby Rosenfield.

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.

How to: Negotation Tactics for Success

This helpful worksheet is adapted from the work of Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever, in their book, Women Don't Ask.

Article: Nice Girls Don’t Ask

A brief and instructive article for managers on negotiating with women employees.

How to: It Pays To Ask: Negotiating Conditions for Leadership Success

Business and professional organizations often operate in ways that can place women at a disadvantage. This article offers instructive insight on how negotiating is different for women.

How To: Sample Exercise for Rabbinical Search Committees

Tools for organizations who are considering hiring a female rabbi.

Article: Gender Bias Is a Fact of Communal Life

An article demonstrating the lack of gender equity in the Jewish communal world, pointing to a national conference sponsored by the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute as an example of gender bias to be addressed. Written by Steven Cohen and Shaul Kelner it references their eight studies of gender equity in the Jewish communal world.

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.

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.

Report: Creating Gender Equity and Organizational Effectiveness in the Jewish Federation System: A Research-and-Action Project

This report, based on nearly a hundred interviews with federation lay and professional leaders, explores the causes and implications of the gender imbalance, and then recommends strategies for 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.

Paid Parental Leave

AWP has joined with advocates nationwide to advocate for paid family leave. The United States remains the only industrialized nation without a paid leave program for employees who need time off to care for a new baby, sick child, spouse or partner in need, or elderly relative.