Maimonides Fund, in partnership with the Constructive Dialogue Institute (CDI), is pleased to announce the launch of a new suite of programming to support viewpoint diversity and dialogue across differences within Jewish organizational settings. Inquiries may be made via a brief interest form by Friday, September 27, 2024.

In our highly polarized political climate, navigating differences in the workplace has become increasingly fraught. The Jewish non-profit sector faces a particular challenge. Many organizations in the Jewish community have missions to support the entire Jewish community – which may include people who hold views you fundamentally disagree with. However, creating spaces that are welcoming to Jews with varying political and religious beliefs – inside or outside the office – has become increasingly difficult.

Maimonides Fund and CDI are pleased to offer programming that weaves together ancient Jewish wisdom with modern psychology and culture change practices to equip you and your organizations with the tools needed to foster greater understanding and dialogue across differences in your organizations.
We are launching a suite of programming, tailored to the Jewish community, that includes the following:
● Leadership training for CEOs and senior leaders
● Online learning program for staff
● Facilitation training for staff

Leadership Training
Leaders play a critical role in modeling constructive dialogue and driving culture change in their organizations. We are offering a 1.5-day leadership training institute in NYC from October 30-31, 2024 for Jewish non-profit CEOs and up to two members of their senior staff to gain skills and strategies to improve viewpoint diversity in their organizations. These additional staff members should be members of your senior team who would be instrumental in executing this work.

The program will cover the following:
● Key psychological concepts to explain the roots of our ideological differences and skills to navigate difficult conversations more effectively.
● An exploration of the benefits and challenges of fostering viewpoint diversity in Jewish communal settings.
● Practical organizational culture change strategies to support viewpoint diversity at your organization.
● Tabletop exercises to practice handling challenging moments related to ideological differences that might arise at your organization.

Online Learning
Perspectives is an online learning program that distills rigorous behavioral science research into easily digestible concepts to foster openness to diverse perspectives and equip learners with the skills to engage in conversations across lines of difference. In partnership with a group of leaders from the Jewish community, CDI adapted its award-winning Perspectives program to include texts and examples relevant for Jewish non-profit settings.
Perspectives includes the following:
● 6 asynchronous online lessons (30 min each)
● 3 peer-to-peer conversation guides (30 min each)

Analytics
At the end of the engagement, you will receive an analytics report to understand the impact of the Perspectives program at your organization. It will include:
● Completion rates
● Satisfaction rates
● Individual impact (e.g., openness to diverse perspectives)
● Cultural impact (e.g., belonging and psychological safety)

Facilitator Training & Live Workshops
As part of the skill-building experience, CDI offers a 45-minute workshop before the blended learning program and a 1.5-hour capstone workshop after the program to solidify the learning experience.
We offer two options for delivering these workshops to your staff:
(1) External Facilitator: We have a roster of Jewish non-profit facilitators who can deliver these workshops in person to cohorts of up to 50 members of your staff. The first cohort is included in the cost listed below. If you have more than 50 staff who will be completing these workshops, additional sessions can be provided for an additional cost. Facilitators can lead up to three cohorts (of up to 50 participants) in one day. Each additional cohort costs $1,500. Sessions scheduled on a separate day will begin at $3,000 per cohort and cost an additional $1,500 per cohort beyond that.
(2) Internal Facilitator: Alternatively, we can train two members of your staff to deliver these workshops for your organization. Participating staff would also learn skills to facilitate difficult conversations more broadly and be able to champion these values internally at your organization. In order to be eligible to participate in our facilitation training, staff members need to have 5+ years of experience as a Jewish educator or facilitator. The below price covers the cost of two staff members participating in our 1.5 day facilitation training in NYC from December 2-3, 2024. Additional staff members can also attend our facilitation training for a cost of $3,000 per participant.

Price
The cost of participation in this program includes access to all of the resources listed above. We offer two pricing options:

Option 1: Internal Facilitators – $15,000

  • Leadership Institute for up to 3 participants (including lodging and meals; subsidies for travel are available upon request)
  • Facilitator training for up to 2 staff members (including lodging and meals; subsidies for travel are available upon request)
  • Online learning program access for one year
  • Analytics
  • Implementation support

Option 2: External Facilitator – $12,000

Includes everything listed in Option 1 but instead of having two staff members trained as facilitators, we will provide an external facilitator to deliver the two live workshops for up to 50 staff members.

FAQs
Please refer to our FAQ page for more information, and contact Ariella Saperstein, ariella@maimonidesfund.org, with any additional questions.

Interest Form
If you’re interested in joining the inaugural cohort of Jewish non-profits bringing this programming to their organizations, please complete this brief interest form by Friday, September 27, 2024.