SRE Network 2024-2026 Strategic Plan

This plan both expands our mission, reach, and capacity while also inspiring a refinement in our approach. Through conversations with our community, we came to a deeper understanding of both our impact and potential. Below is more on how we now define our three core offerings. 

• Network building: Fostering constituent relations, member learning sessions, an annual convening, network weaving, and funder engagement.
• Resource sharing: Lifting up field learning and research, providing strategic guidance to organizations, learning opportunities, public speaking, and thought leadership.
• Community Investments: Providing grants, technical assistance, investments in partnerships with experts, practitioners, and growing communities of practice.

Additionally, this plan:

• Introduces our updated model and theory of change.
• Enacts stronger member accountability and for membership to have more “teeth.” through the introduction of three engagement tiers. 
• Invests in more resources, including policies, training, and guides, specifically around equity and accountability.
• Elevates awareness around our existing services and resources. Clarity around our community investment and grantmaking process.

Since our launch in 2018, we have been busy seeding new projects, gathering and connecting committed partners, and releasing groundbreaking research and thought leadership. As we approached our 5-year milestone, we knew it was time to take stock and chart our course for the next stage of our work. This strategic plan has been an opportunity for us to engage in deep listening and reflection, to capture those learnings from the past five years and leverage them to even better serve our network and sector moving forward as we deepen and expand our work.

With our deep belief in the ripples that come from organizational change, we seek to include agencies of varying sizes, movements, and locations; people of all genders, sexual orientations, abilities, ages, and origins; professionals and volunteers, board members and community members; religious and secular, and the diverse racial and ethnic mosaic that makes up today’s Jewish community.

While SRE is specifically focused on creating change in Jewish workplaces and communal spaces, it is by no means limited to those who identify as Jewish. We aim to impact all employees, members of and participants in Jewish communal activities. We value the voices, input and action of anyone or organization that shares SRE’s goals. We hope the commitment, standards and resources we create will be relevant for and used by organizations beyond the Jewish community.

We envision a Jewish communal landscape that is safe, respectful, and equitable, where people are free from abuse, engage one another with dignity, and are treated fairly. This future is possible through a strong network, sharing of resources and community investments. See our full theory of change here.

Alongside being a network, we are a platform and a field builder. In addition to our regular online trainings and workshops and our annual Convening, we will introduce new learning communities which includes communities of practice and cohort learning.

Our current and future work is focused on these two areas:

• Gender-focused efforts to address harassment and inequity that include women as a primary target beneficiary population.
• Broader safety, respect, and equity (s,r,e) culture change efforts that support safety, respect, and equity for all. 

Both our gender-focused and broader s,r,e culture change efforts will continue to be guided by a multi-dimensional, intersectional understanding of identity, structural bias, and inequity. For the purposes of our work, we define women as those who self-identify as such, including cisgender and transgender women. We believe in the need to address both the needs of women and of all people. We understand gender to exist on a continuum and enthusiastically support the active participation and recognition of all gender identities and expressions in both our programming as well as our Jewish workplaces and communal spaces.

Our focus continues to be informed by our community. In reflecting on what we’ve heard, this plan brings more intentionality and precision into our work. This fall we are excited to share more details about our communities of practice which will focus on gathering organizations and leaders with aligned affinities.

Kol Hakavod/Congrats! We are so happy to hear this. We are always seeking stories of “wins”, both big and small. Case studies are what peer organizations request most often. Share your story through our community survey or by emailing info@srenetwork.org.

We encourage funders to join us through committing to being an active participant in creating healthier and stronger Jewish communal organizations. Some of the ways to get involved:

1. Have your foundation become a member of the SRE Network.
2. Actively participate in SRE Network member programming, trainings and events.
3. Share SRE Network resources and thought leadership with colleagues and peers. 
4. Power our work by becoming a funder of SRE Network’s catalytic work advancing safety, respect and equity.  

For more about the impact you can have by supporting our work, read this August 2023 EJP op-ed and reach out to us to connect.