November 5, 2023

By Nancy B. Greer
President & CEO

A strong Jewish community is built on strong relationships. And now, during times of crisis when our people are experiencing grief and trauma from the October 7 terrorist attacks, our collective strength is the foundation of our resilience and our capacity to respond.

Leadership is critical for harnessing communal energies and guiding them to shared purposes on a foundation of Jewish values. Your Jewish Federation gives high priority to educating and preparing leaders to step up to community service.

In partnership with Jewish organizations across our region, the second cohort of our Courageous Leadership Incubator is underway, bringing together 18 rising leaders to participate in a transformative journey. They will form and deepen relationships that will be seeds for enriching Jewish life and jump-starting initiatives for Jewish engagement for years to come.

Drawn from across the Puget Sound region, our participants are diverse in the backgrounds they possess, the experiences that shaped them, the strengths that drive their success, and the institutions with which they are involved.

Take a look at our Courageous Leadership Incubator brochure and meet our participants.

Thanks to our many generous donors, as part of the Incubator experience, participants will:

• Seek a Vision for the Future: Explore their own Jewish leadership style through individually tailored 1:1 coaching with a performance coach.

• Expand Confidence and Competence: Deepen their knowledge of organizational leadership on the board of a local Jewish organization in a non-voting capacity from October 2023 to June 2024.  

• Access Jewish Wisdom: Participate in a group experience to process, brainstorm, and navigate challenges together in Jewish Leadership Labs. 

• Build and Deepen Relationships: Learn from a supportive cohort who will process, brainstorm, and navigate challenges together, while experiencing a weekend retreat.

More tangibly, we hope that by entering into an emergent process of discovery together, participants in the Incubator will strengthen the connective tissue between people and organizations. They will facilitate the deepening of mutually supportive, trusting, and resilient relationships. 

The Courageous Leadership Incubator is just one of several ways your Federation is working toward our shared goal of ensuring Jewish continuity and making our region a magnet for Jewish life.

This vital endeavor takes shared leadership, because every leader brings unique qualities for turning a vision into reality. No one person can lead alone. There could be no more vivid demonstration of that reality than the work we are collectively doing now for our mishpacha at this time of crisis. It takes a strong community built on strong relationships.

 Am Yisrael Chai,