Our Vision for Advocacy

We learn in order to act, engage in collective and individual action to make change, and support others as we lift our voices to advocate and make change together. Without action, the big ideas behind our work won’t create the change we seek. The Gender Equity in Hiring Project is engaged in a number of advocacy efforts to create and leverage change across our community. We invite you to exercise your advocacy muscles and join us as we act, together.

We’re committed to positive change around equity writ large, and gender equity specifically. We do this by using our voices and our relationships, as we work toward our shared goals.

We believe that anyone and everyone can become an advocate for gender equity.

Advocacy begins with humility and empathy, grounded in curiosity, and by cultivating a community immersed in the work together. We do this by gathering to share stories, to work together in common cause, to engage in learning, and to do the complicated work of listening to each other. This takes time, energy and effort, and it is work that begins but does not end. We consider advocacy to be a stance, not a goal; a way of being, not a box to check.

Taking action together to create change makes our voices more powerful, and makes our efforts have greater impact toward the change we seek.

Our Advocacy Work

Please find here information about our working groups, resources and toolkits that support our emerging advocacy efforts.

Learn more about why pay transparency is a vital first step toward pay equity, how to advocate for pay transparency in your workplace or community, and gather helpful resources from our Pay Transparency Toolkit as you work on this powerful equity issue. Visit our Pay Transparency Resource Page here

We believe that the Jewish community has a responsibility to support all employees ethically and responsibly, even and especially upon their termination from employment. We will are compiling a comprehensive set of resources and checklists for both employees and employers, to support them as they navigate these processes, helping them to consider the ethical parameters of their obligations, and to help them to understand the process of termination in the context of compassion and alignment with Jewish (and organizational) values. If you are interested in learning more about this work, click here.

Titles matter. Research indicates that not-for-profit leaders in organizations with smaller budgets often hold an ED title, but in larger organizations are holding CEO titles. Women who hold C-level titles earn more money, earn more respect, and have an easier time advancing into positions in larger organizations. This group has worked to understand how these transitions are made, what makes them possible, offer support for those interested in making the transition, and understand how these transitions affect our larger Jewish communal ecosystem.  Navigating available research is useful, but coaching and support from colleagues who have worked through this or are engaged in making this shift now is most helpful as we create a professional community and lift each other in the process. If you are interested in learning more about this work, click here.

Hiring is a process that requires careful and thoughtful deliberation, alignment with organizational vision and much more. The best hiring processes are also much more, especially in mission and vision driven organizations. They build community as they bring a diverse and inclusive set of constituents together to represent communal values. And at the same time, they are opportunities for sacred discernment, for the committee and for the community, as that values clarification takes root in individual practice on the way to communal choice. We are laser focused on improving a series of outcomes around the work of the hiring committee, both toward equitable hiring and toward the experience and impact of the committee on the individuals who serve. If you are interested in learning more about this work, click here.

References, recommendations and referrals often pose real, meaningful challenges. We are obligated to protect our workplaces, jobs, and our constituents. At the same time, we may be protecting ourselves and our reputations. We are also bound by our obligations to each other, viewing the practice of giving references through the lens of our Jewish values, beliefs and texts, all while adhering to the law. We aspire to respond to this challenge ethically, equitably and guided by responsible ways of working. Together, we hope to shift the way we engage with references, recommendations and referrals as individuals who are parts of and representative of community. At the same time, we aspire to shift practice in our Jewish organizations, concretely and practically. This conversation invites participants to take risks supported by colleagues, and will invest us all in the process of making personal and structural changes the way this work is done. If you are interested in learning more about this work, click here.

Including information on family leave policies in job postings may increase the likelihood that a candidate–especially someone who may be considering or need parental leave specifically–will apply for a job. And yet, many non-profits don’t include this information, even when it exists. This creates a lack of transparency in the hiring process that may tell a particular story about an organization. Prospective employees do ask and get information: might it be possible to shift this to being written into and documented in policy that is shared in job postings? This conversation is not advocating for family or parental leave but simply doing the work of bringing it into the hiring process, and recognizing that improved communication and transparency around these benefits increases the likelihood that the position will be appealing to prospective candidates. If you are interested in learning more about this work, click here.

In the fall of 2022, GEiHP convened a group of 10 organizations grappling with how to embed equity in our work, via sliding scales and equitable fees. Each organization held as a value that our designs for budgeting and planning for earned income must be informed by clear and consistent, organizationally aligned approaches to equity as a value. Each organization shared overlapping beliefs that equity is offering what is needed, to make things fair, rooted in the understanding that equity is synonymous with fairness and justice. Equity demands that we build systems of trusting each other to pay what we can, to be willing to give and to receive, and to see all of us as one whole, working together to build a more equitable world.

While each participant shared different sets of concerns and perspectives, we aspired to craft individual organizational sliding scales and fee structures that would enable those to pay what it might take to sustain and grow the work while others needed support. We all demanded a basic need to share clearly with our constituencies the actual price points for our goods and services, that then constitutes a balanced exchange for the learning, experiences and resources that we are creating. In this way, we aspire toward a world that is more equitable, and organizations that are working in alignment with their vision, engaged with their constituency in a spirit of integrity. Click here to learn more about our fees, or visit any one of our program pages to see our values in action.

Visit our Pay Transparency Resource Page here.