In 2023, SRE Network awarded over $1 million to 17 organizations through Fall Grants, Renewal Grants, and Strategic Grants. Learn more about the grantees below.
Fall 2023 Capacity-Building Grants
In fall 2023, SRE Network awarded a total of $365,000 in grants to eight organizations in the Jewish nonprofit sector. These Capacity-Building Grants provide grantees with financial support and technical assistance to help build their organizational capacity for safety, respect, and equity in the areas of (1) gender-focused efforts to address harassment and inequity, that include women as a primary target beneficiary population; and (2) broader culture change efforts that support safety, respect, and equity for all.
We are grateful to the 35 organizations that applied for this funding round and are so proud to be supporting the work of the following organizations.
Avodah
Avodah’s mission is firmly rooted in creating a more just and equitable world by developing new generations of social justice leaders informed by Jewish values and who inspire the Jewish community.
Through a one-year grant, Avodah will create salary bands and strengthen salary transparency that will help address pay disparities. Avodah management and the Avodah union will work in partnership to develop and roll out a new equitable compensation structure framework for all staff.
Cantors Assembly
The Cantors Assembly (CA) is the largest professional organization of Cantors in the world, comprising approximately 600 colleagues worldwide, concentrated primarily in North America.
Through a one-year grant, the Cantors Assembly will embark on a multi-session training with Ta’amod to address organizational behavioral standards.
Habonim Dror North America
Habonim Dror North America (HDNA) is a youth-led Progressive Labor Zionist movement whose mission includes creating Jewish leaders who will actualize the principles of social justice, equality, peace and coexistence in Israel and North America. HDNA runs summer camps and programs across Canada, the United States, and Israel.
Over the course of two-years, HDNA will continue its focus on training its staff and leaders to build a more respectful and equitable culture. HDNA will create an internal network of anti-racist trainers in partnership with Jews of color (JOC), anti-racist educators and subsequently implement anti-racist trainings and policies.
IKAR
IKAR is an LA-based faith community whose mission is to reanimate Jewish life and develop a spiritual and moral foundation for a just and equitable society. Fusing piety and hutzpah, obligation, and inspiration, IKAR is a dynamic, multi-generational community that fosters a yearning for personal, purposeful, creative engagement in Jewish life, particularly among young and disaffected Jews.
With a one-year grant, IKAR will expand its commitment to creating more welcoming and equitable workplaces and communal spaces by hosting internal anti-racism workshops, consulting with DEI experts, and providing educational opportunities for non-Jewish identifying staff.
Leading Edge
Leading Edge is an organization dedicated to helping Jewish organizations improve their workplace culture and leadership so that they can better achieve their missions. Leading Edge also supports professionals and board leaders in the Jewish nonprofit sector with ideas, connections, experiences, and tools
Through a one-year grant, Leading Edge will strengthen psychological safety within the organization by developing strong systems for two-way feedback and fostering belonging across multiple measures of difference such as gender, power, and marginalized identities.
The Rabbinical Assembly
The Rabbinical Assembly (RA) is the international association of Conservative rabbis, with 1,600 member Rabbis, worldwide.
Through a one-year grant, the RA will implement phase two of the key recommendations from their field partner Sacred Spaces to improve their ethics processes and practices.
Sixth & I
Sixth & I is a center for arts, entertainment, ideas, and Jewish life in Washington, DC, inspiring more meaningful and fulfilling lives through an unexpected mix of experiences that embrace the multi-faceted identities of those it serves. Sixth & I reimagines how culture, community, and Jewish life can enhance people’s everyday lives.
With a one-year grant, Sixth & I will support its internal Change Team’s ongoing efforts to shift the organization’s workplace culture, practice, and policies to better align with their mission through a lens of racial equity.
The Youngstown Area Jewish Federation
The Youngstown Area Jewish Federation is the central organization established to foster the welfare of the entire Jewish community of Youngstown, Ohio. It coordinates and plans for the future of the community and plays an instrumental role in providing for the social welfare, cultural, programmatic, recreational and fundraising needs of the region.
Through a one-year grant, the Youngstown Area Jewish Federation will develop a new series of workshops and trainings to close the gender gap and deepen a sense of belonging, psychological safety, empathy, accountability, and dignity for all employees.
Grant Renewals
Footsteps
Footsteps provides comprehensive services to people who have chosen to leave their ultra-Orthodox communities, including social and emotional support, educational and career guidance, workshops and social activities, and access to individualized resources.
Gender Equity in Hiring Project
Gender Equity in Hiring Project works to build Jewish workplaces that tap into the best of talent and human potential and works to remove gender bias from hiring and employment processes in Jewish organizational life to help women rise to positions of leadership.
Jewish Women International (JWI)
Here for You: Jewish Women International provides a series of trauma-informed, survivor-centered trainings for JCC staff and works with JCC administration and security teams on policies and procedures that support survivors. Additionally, JWI is creating Jewish Coordinated Community Response Teams in each community.
Moving Traditions
Culture Shift: Moving Traditions will provide an opportunity to expand the current curriculum, focused on supporting teens in building healthy relationships in the overnight camp environment, to Jewish Youth Serving Organization programming and travel programs.
Sacred Spaces
Sacred Spaces provides Jewish institutions with the professional services necessary to develop robust policies and training to prevent opportunities for abuse and guide them responsibly when they occur.
Ta’amod
Ta’amod: Stand Up! transforms Jewish life by equipping institutions and individuals with the resources they need to build healthy, safe, equitable and accountable workplaces and communal spaces. Applying frameworks of Jewish wisdom and accountability, Ta’amod creates Jewish cultural shifts by helping communities live in alignment with their values.
Women’s Rabbinic Network
Women’s Rabbinic Network is the organization of Reform female-identified, nonbinary, genderqueer rabbis, supporting members and advocating for the physical, emotional, and financial health of all in the Jewish community.
Strategic Grants
Elluminate
As a catalyst for gender justice and social innovation, Elluminate envisions a world in which Jewish women are supported to pursue their leadership fearlessly and joyfully. Elluminate is a network of transformational Jewish women leaders, including visionary philanthropists and global change makers, whose entrepreneurship advances social change through willingness to take risks, and embraces bold ideas.
This one-year grant will support the “Women in the C-Suite” program and provide a peer-to-peer experience for Jewish Women CEOs from the US and Israel on a monthly basis. This unique initiative empowers participants to navigate the particular challenges of Jewish women’s leadership and to be their best selves.
Ta’amod
Ta’amod: Stand Up! transforms Jewish life by equipping institutions and individuals with the resources they need to build healthy, safe, equitable and accountable workplaces and communal spaces. Applying frameworks of Jewish wisdom and accountability, Ta’amod creates Jewish cultural shifts by helping communities live in alignment with their values.
The Rabbinical Assembly
The Rabbinical Assembly (RA) is the international association of Conservative rabbis, with 1,600 member Rabbis, worldwide.
This strategic grant offers an opportunity to begin the work suggested through a two-year assessment into the RA’s ethical procedures. The work will kick off with a collaborative writing retreat to develop a revised Code of Conduct and Va’ad HaKavod (Ethics Committee) Procedures.
United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ) (fiscal sponsor) for: #UsToo: How Jewish, Muslim, and Christian Women Changed Our Communities
The grant supported making the publication of Keren McGinity, PhD’s book, #UsToo: How Jewish, Muslim, and Christian Women Changed Our Communities available online free of charge through Open Access. The publication examines the relationship between sexual harassment, gender, and multiple religions, highlighting the voices of women of different faiths who found their voices and used them for the betterment of their communities.
Learn more about SRE Network's ongoing commitment to advance a Jewish communal landscape where safety, respect, and equity efforts are properly resourced to support long-term, transformative change.
If you have questions about SRE's Community Investments, please email info@srenetwork.org.