Two and a half years ago, the Jim Joseph Foundation launched an initiative to test new models of connection, learning and leadership development for mid-career professionals within the Jewish community. It has now been a year since we last shared our efforts to design cohort-based professional development experiences (CBE) to be more accessible and affordable for this demographic. We’ve been intent on learning about what components help create the most effective experiences, with our ultimate aim to understand how we can expand this work.  

Today our efforts with the Jim Joseph Foundation, in partnership with Gather Consulting and Conscious Builders, are growing. We’re scaling our work to offer more opportunities for mid-career Jewish communal professionals to learn, grow and support one another in trusted cohorts of colleagues.

A pilot cohort of the Chavurot initiative. Courtesy/Gather Consulting and Conscious Builders

Now called Chavurot: Expanding Professional Growth for Communal Leaders (Working Title), the initiative has been testing cohort models of connection, learning and leadership development to understand what makes these experiences so powerful and which design elements contribute to increased professional retention, support for career growth and feelings of connectedness and belonging.

Cohort members self-organize around who is in the group and the content they discuss, which varies from facilitation support (for facilitators and group practitioners), to event planning (for event planners), to personality/leadership assessments, to wellness and self-care needs. The initiative then helps them find facilitators or outside speakers to minimize the burden of scheduling and leading the professional development themselves. While the design is not as comprehensive as selective fellowship programs, we are finding they achieve many of the same outcomes and at a fraction of the cost. Cohort members are chosen based on roles (e.g., event planners, cohort practitioners), affinity (e.g., founders, solo consultants, etc.), or identity (e.g. race, gender, age, etc.), and are based a combination of factors: needs in the field, priorities of the funders, and demand for this kind of learning, connection, and nourishment. We’ve chosen cohorts based on an RFP model at one point, and will probably go that route again in the future.

We know cohort members have a hunger for connection, but they also value getting to choose for themselves how they want to learn, with whom and in what ways. They desire emergent content and are seeking a supportive container to be cared for and supported. We also see that there are not nearly enough cohort-based professional development experiences geared toward mid-career professionals rather than CEOs, that are bottom up, rather than top down. 

Evaluation results from the first year indicate that in addition to leading to serious professional learning, participation in these cohorts increased retention and professional confidence. Other learnings of note from the initial cohort include:

• The cohort experience affects most people positively both personally and interpersonally. Members report that the most significant aspect of the cohort experience is the relationships it fosters, and that it reduces professional loneliness.
• Cohorts provide a support network outside their organization, decrease their sense of isolation, and give professionals a sense of belonging. Ninety percent of Jewish communal professionals in the initiative report less isolation after participating in their cohort, and 94% said the cohort experience expanded their network. 
• Cohorts are run most effectively when trust is built within the group, there is transparency and momentum from the leadership and there is a high level of respect and appreciation for the facilitators.

When we wrote about cohort-based experiences a year ago, we discussed widening the aperture on what these kinds of programs could look like and who could participate. We are pleased to share that the Jim Joseph Foundation recognizes the value in this approach and recently provided a three-year grant to grow this work, which is fiscally sponsored by UpStart, a 501c3. 

“Mid-career Jewish professionals want to gain new skills and knowledge, have room for career advancement and connect with peers at similar career stages,” says Jim Joseph Foundation Chief Program Officer Josh Miller. “This is that critical phase when people often decide whether they are in or out of the Jewish professional world. Our field needs more opportunities that address this decision point directly. The grant to support Chavurot does this, with a focus on developing an experience that is at once effective and affordable, accessible and scalable, enabling us to positively influence thousands of professionals.” 

“Over the first year of this work, Gather Consulting and Conscious Builders have already produced impressive outcomes and shown a readiness to continue learning and improving on the model as they expand it. We’re excited to support their future efforts,” he says.

The grant is designed so that other interested funders can co-invest, with the opportunity for each funder to identify specific audiences of Jewish professionals who they would like to see benefit from this experience. This might include professionals in a specific career role, a specific geographic region, a specific organization type or some combination. For example, the initial round included cohorts of professionals including event planners who execute large-scale convenings for Jewish nonprofits; BIPOC (Black, indigenous, people of color) professionals who lead diversity, equity and inclusion efforts within Jewish organizations; and practitioners who design and lead cohort-based professional development programs.

Two-and-a-half years into this work, we are confident that our model has merit. There are a limited number of co-investment opportunities in this next phase, and we encourage interested funder representatives to join a webinar (Sept. 26 at 12PM PT) to learn more or to be in touch directly with us. Together, we can positively influence greater numbers of mid-career Jewish professionals than ever before, benefitting not only our talented and dedicated Jewish professionals but also the Jewish organizations they serve and the missions they seek to achieve.

Seth Linden is the founder of Gather Consulting and Gamal J. Palmer is the founder of Conscious Builders. Together, they lead Chavurot: Expanding Professional Growth for Communal Leaders (Working Title).