LGBTQ Pathways to Jewish Leadership
Would you like to take a leadership role in a Bay Area Jewish organization – as a board member, a senior staff member, or a volunteer leader?
Would you like to be an LGBTQ leader with strong roots and a solid foundation in the Jewish community? Would you like to be mentored by an experienced LGBTQ Jewish leader? Would you like to find a supportive cohort of up-and-coming young LGBTQ Jewish leaders to grow and make change with? If so, the LGBTQ Pathways to Jewish Leadership program is for you!
LGBTQ Pathways to Jewish Leadership is a program done in partnership with the Federation’s LGBT Alliance, Keshet, and a Wider Bridge. This 10-month program is designed to provide participants with the critical leadership skills and local knowledge necessary for effective leadership in both Jewish and LGBTQ contexts, with an especial emphasis on the challenges, opportunities, resources, and workings of the Bay Area Jewish community.
Circuits is a second generation initiative that connects young LGBTQ Jewish leaders with networking and skill-building opportunities. The program is presented by the LGBTQ Pathways to Jewish Leadership alumni and the LGBT Alliance, providing those committed to expanding their leadership skills with access to change agents and networks as they continue on their Jewish journey.
Background
The Bay Area is home to the third-largest Jewish community in the U.S. and to a huge and diverse LGBTQ population, including a great many LGBTQ Jews. And, yet, there are few out-and-proud LGBTQ Jewish leaders in the region’s organized Jewish or LGBTQ worlds.
How it works
Each of the participants will be paired with an experienced mentor, someone who knows the ins and outs of the Bay Area Jewish community and how LGBTQ Jews do and don’t fit in. Additionally, participants will be introduced to other influential LGBTQ, Jewish, and LGBTQ Jewish leaders, learning from their unique experiences and creating an opportunity for dialogue, networking, and future collaboration.
Program elements will include:
- Identity and History: How Do We See Ourselves as LGBTQ Jews? How Do Jewish and LGBTQ History Intersect? What Issues Do We Face?
- Personal Leadership Style (Characteristics That Define Us, Constrain Us, Empower Us)
- Leading Organizations Through Change (Lifecycles of Development, Growth, and Decline)
- Start-Ups in the Jewish Community: What Does It Take and How Do You Do It?
- An Evening with our Veteran Leaders: Passing the Mantle to the Next Generation
- Conflict Management/Negotiation/Resolution & Cross-Cultural Communication: Building Consensus, Learning How to Listen and to Address Diverse Audiences
Through engaging in this 10-month process of exploration and learning – organized sessions, mentoring, relationships with other participants – each aspiring leader will discover a unique way of being involved with the Jewish community as an out lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer person, or staying rooted in the Jewish community while working in the non-Jewish LGBTQ world. Either way, you’ll gain more confidence, skills, knowledge, and support for developing your unique LGBTQ Jewish vision and putting it into action.
Nominate or Apply
Apply or nominate someone for Pathways today.
Read what others have to say
Pathways program in the news
Paving the way for next generation of LGBT leaders – j.weekly
US Jewish groups seek to increase LGBT affiliation – Jerusalem Post
Nurturing LGBTQ Jewish Leaders – Bay Area Reporter and ejewishphilanthropy
Mosaic on KPIX (CBS5) featured our program in April 2014:
