American Jews have long been disproportionately represented in the nonprofit sector, with 16% of American Jews working for nonprofits, according to a 2021 Pew study, filling roughly 4% of the nonprofit workforce despite making up an estimated 2.4% of the American population. But a new study indicates that American Jews may be pulling away from the wider sector over antisemitism and discrimination.

“A lot of Jews choose to work in the nonprofit industry because it really reflects their Jewish values and aligns with their desire to make the world a better place,” Sharon Leslie, founding executive director of the newly launched Blue Compass, which combats antisemitism in the nonprofit sector, told eJewishPhilanthropy.

The survey, “Jewish Professionals in Secular Nonprofits,” released by Blue Compass yesterday, found that over a third of Jewish nonprofit workers working for non-Jewish nonprofits have considered leaving their jobs, that nearly 40% of workers have witnessed antisemitism at work and that 41% feel uncomfortable expressing their Jewish identity at professional events.

These statistics are grim compared to other fields. According to a 2024 Clal study, 48% of Jewish nonprofit workers reported perceived antisemitism compared to 37% across all fields, and nearly twice as many nonprofit workers contemplated leaving their jobs than those in other fields. The 150-person study surveyed workers across seniority levels, organization sizes and focus areas at non-Jewish nonprofits.

A core value nonprofit workers are passionate about is inclusion and belonging, Leslie said, but “unfortunately, Jews have been left out of that paradigm. That’s what makes it so painful. Jewish professionals are encountering antisemitism in spaces that they love, that say that they explicitly value inclusion and belonging.”

Twelve percent of participants believed that their workplace provided tools and resources for dealing with antisemitic statements or behavior. Additionally, 24.8% of respondents said that their workplaces didn’t have policies to protect them in the ways their workplaces protected other marginalized groups.

This is occurring at a time when Jewish employees report dealing with increased Jewish stereotypes and misconceptions at work. Employees reported feeling that peers expect them to speak for the entirety of the Jewish People, that they are asked to justify global events and that they face false assumptions about their beliefs based on their last name or heritage.  

The idea for Blue Compass, which launched this month, came in the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attacks, when Leslie began feeling uncomfortable in the healthcare and nonprofit sector, where she’d worked for over two decades.

“I started to talk to more people in different areas of focus, and I kept hearing the same thing: themes all around isolation, people being expected to speak for [all Jewish] people, all the way to harassment on Slack,” she said, referring to the workplace communications platform. “When I looked around at our infrastructure in the Jewish community, it became clear that no one was actually specifically supporting this group [of nonprofit workers].”

Blue Compass believes “in a really strong and vibrant nonprofit sector,” Leslie said, “and we believe that no one should have to choose between the work they love and their identity in the world.”

Blue Compass self-funded the study and received seed support from the Laura and Gary Lauder Family Foundation and private donors, a micro-grant from the Natan Foundation and fiscal sponsorship from Mediators Foundation.

“This isn’t just an issue for the Jews to solve,” Leslie said, but “screaming from the rooftops that antisemitism is bad” has been unproductive these past few years. Instead, the message that Leslie believes needs to be sent to non-Jewish nonprofits is that targeting antisemitism is not only the right thing to do, but “nonprofits are their most impactful when their staff is focused on the mission of the organization, so if you have a polarizing and divisive work environment, [workers are] going to be much less effective in the work [that they] do.”

Losing the Jewish talent pool would be a massive hit to the industry, Leslie said, but so many feel alone in this battle. More than three-quarters of participants — 76% — said they were interested in affinity groups. The report recommended that Jewish communities and the non-Jewish nonprofits Jews work for need to focus on building community, resources and support for Jewish employees.

The Jewish community can get “our side of the bridge strong,” Leslie said, by supporting Jewish professionals through training, peer connection and opportunities to exchange best practices, which Blue Compass plans to provide with their national affinity network and resource hub, which will launch soon. Meanwhile, non-Jewish nonprofits should focus on integrating antisemitism into inclusion frameworks and better recognizing and responding to antisemitism. Workplaces should work to address complex identity issues by holding constructive dialog with nuance by bringing “complexity back into the conversation,” Leslie said.

Jewish employees are passionate about their workplaces and their missions, she said. “They want their missions to be successful, and they want there to be a strong and vibrant nonprofit sector. They just are really struggling in it.”