Institute for Nonprofit Executives

Leading New York Together

Nonprofit executives play a critical role in shaping New York’s future. They solve complex problems, create opportunity, and consistently deliver on mission — even in unpredictable conditions. The challenges of the past few years have highlighted how much is expected from those in leadership roles and how critical it is to expand our networks across diverse communities.

That is why UJA-Federation of New York (UJA) and the Association for a Better New York (ABNY) believe it’s critical for nonprofit executives to work together to continually stay up to date on the latest leadership skills, business management acumen, and reflective practice to meet today’s challenges.

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Addressing today's complex challenges requires collective action and solutions, which reinforces the need for us to learn together from across diverse communities.

This elite leadership program equips senior nonprofit leaders with advanced leadership skills, expands their professional networks, and addresses pressing contemporary challenges, including antisemitism, racism, and polarization.

New York-based CEOs, executive directors, and C-suite executives from nonprofit organizations are invited to apply to Leading New York Together: Institute for Nonprofit Executives. The Institute, offered in conjunction with Columbia Business School’s Tamer Executive Education, is taught primarily by Tamer Center faculty, and combines the latest research on best practices with proven teaching quality.

The program is a combination of overnight retreats and individual sessions over a six-month period led by Columbia University. It is designed around three leadership domains: leading self, leading others, and leading organizations. Peer learning is core to the program, as is a blend of lectures, small group activities, and simulations. Through this program, you will learn the framework and gain the tools needed to meet the challenges you face today and in the future.

Upon completion of the program, participants will receive a certificate from the Columbia Business School Tamer Institute Executive Education.

Session topics may include:

Values-Based Leadership
Leading with authenticity and a strong set of values is a timeless and worthwhile pursuit. Participants produce their own “values hierarchies” and learn how to use them as an individual tool. At the end of the session, discussion focuses on how individual values hierarchies can produce greater organizational performance and employee commitment.

Leading Change 
Ensuring that the structure of nonprofit organizations is consistent with its strategy almost always requires substantial organizational change. This session provides a roadmap for implementing change in ways that permit organizations to realize their strategic goals without inflicting undue human and financial costs.

Leading Inclusively
Research shows that employees who work in more inclusive climates report higher levels of commitment, satisfaction, perceived organizational support, willingness to engage in citizenship behaviors, and a lesser likelihood of leaving the organization. We will discuss how to implement these types of employee practices and the importance of how this work is undertaken so that longer-term changes to the organizational climate can occur.

Negotiations
Whether one likes it or not, managers of nonprofit organizations (more than the managers of firms) are required to negotiate to get things done. Moreover, research on nonprofit management clearly establishes that inadequate negotiating skills are one of the major drawbacks to effective leadership. Participants will learn frameworks and concepts for analyzing different kinds of negotiating situations and for determining the costs and benefits of varied negotiating strategies and tactics.

Leading Organizational Culture
In this session we’ll identify how an effective organizational culture affects performance through increased commitment and contribution and improved collaboration. We’ll discuss how leading culture is different from leading other parts of the organization and identify best practices for leading culture. We’ll finish by practicing a process that can be used to identify values for a team, department, or organization.

Mediation and Navigating Difficult Conversations
Navigating difficult conversations can be challenging. Yet having real dialogue and meaningful exchange is necessary for interpersonal learning, growth, and positive change. In this session, we’ll learn and practice strategies for approaching difficult conversations with courage and curiosity, particularly when communicating across cultures and identity groups.

Equity and the Myth of Merit
This session examines one of the core paradoxes of meritocratic beliefs that can lead to inequality. It provides leaders with a set of tools to design against these beliefs and this paradox with a framework called “Going to the M-A-T” (Merit, Accountability, and Transparency).

Strategic Communication
There is a secret to successful communication, something that separates the good presenters from the great ones, the decent negotiators from the pros, and the average writers from those who get results. That secret is a three-pronged approach to communication that can be summed up in one word: AIM. This session focuses on (A) analyzing an audience, (I) identifying an intent, and (M) making messages memorable.

Self-Management and Leadership
To lead others, people must first be able to manage themselves. This session draws on recent advances in self-management to help executives become more effective.

Making Strategic Choices
In this session, participants will discuss the challenge of making strategic choices and then be introduced to a strategic choice-making process. Participants will walk through the steps of the process using a case/example organization’s strategic issue.

Participant Criteria
Applicants are sitting executive directors, CEOs and other C-suite executives of nonprofits in New York City, Long Island, and Westchester.

Applications are available here and should be submitted by July 1, 2025. Candidate interviews will be scheduled on a rolling basis. 

Participants must be able to attend the opening retreat and all scheduled sessions. When you apply, please hold the dates on your calendar. 

Program Fees
$500, which includes the retreat, all sessions, meals, and materials.
This program is nearly fully subsidized. However, if the fee is a barrier to your participation, please contact Lyn Light Geller at . Additional subsidies may be available.

Dates and Locations
Opening Overnight Retreat
Monday, December 8 - Tuesday, December 9, 2025
Crotonville Conference Center, 1 Old Albany Post Road, Ossining, New York 10562 

Full-Day Sessions:
9:00 am – 5:00 pm 
Columbia University Business School campus
614 W 131st St, New York, NY 10027
February 3, 4,  and 5 
May 12, 13, and 14,


COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY FACULTY TEAM 
Directors
Joel Brockner is the Phillip Hettleman Professor of Business at Columbia Business School and is well known for his work in management of organizational change, organizational justice, managerial judgment, and decision-making. Joel is the recent winner of several lifetime achievement awards for his research and writing, including one from the Academy of Management and one from the American Psychological Association.

Modupe Akinola is the Barbara and David Zalaznick Professor of Business at Columbia Business School and faculty director of the Bernstein Center for Leadership and Ethics. Professor Akinola examines how organizational environments — characterized by deadlines; multitasking; and other attributes, such as having low status — can engender stress, and how this stress can have spillover effects on performance.  In addition, Professor Akinola examines workforce diversity, specifically the strategies organizations employ to increase the diversity of their talent pool. She also explores biases that affect the recruitment and retention of minorities in organizations.

Program Director
Gwen Shufro is the senior director for Tamer Center Executive Education at Columbia University Business School. In this role, Gwen is head of executive education programs for nonprofit professionals.

Joel, Modupe, and Gwen will be with Leading New York Together: Institute for Nonprofit Executives throughout the program. Each time we meet, they will include a brief session that weaves the program together.

To apply, submit the application by July 8, 2025.  A representative from the UJA Talent Development Team will reach out to you regarding next steps in the application process, including setting a time for an interview.

For more information, contact Lyn Light Geller at or 212.836.1616.

Addressing today's complex challenges requires collective action and solutions, which reinforces the need for us to learn together from across diverse communities.

This elite leadership program equips senior nonprofit leaders with advanced leadership skills, expands their professional networks, and addresses pressing contemporary challenges, including antisemitism, racism, and polarization.

New York-based CEOs, executive directors, and C-suite executives from nonprofit organizations are invited to apply to Leading New York Together: Institute for Nonprofit Executives. The Institute, offered in conjunction with Columbia Business School’s Tamer Executive Education, is taught primarily by Tamer Center faculty, and combines the latest research on best practices with proven teaching quality.

Leadership

Quenia Abreu, President & CEO, The New York Women's Chamber of Commerce
Larry Scott Blackmon, CEO, The Blackmon Organization
Sharon Greenberger, President & CEO, YMCA of Greater New York
Gary Jenkins, Chief Administrative Officer, Urban Pathways
Hindy Poupko, Senior Vice President, UJA-Federation of NY
Steven Rubenstein, Chairman / President, ABNY / RUBENSTEIN
Deborah Miller Sakellarios, Managing Director, Robin Hood
Anderson Torres, President & CEO, RAIN
Mark Treyger, CEO, JCRC-NY
Valerie White, Senior Executive Director NY, LISC NYC

 

Quenia Abreu, President & CEO, The New York Women's Chamber of Commerce
Larry Scott Blackmon, CEO, The Blackmon Organization
Sharon Greenberger, President & CEO, YMCA of Greater New York
Gary Jenkins, Chief Administrative Officer, Urban Pathways
Hindy Poupko, Senior Vice President, UJA-Federation of NY
Steven Rubenstein, Chairman / President, ABNY / RUBENSTEIN
Deborah Miller Sakellarios, Managing Director, Robin Hood
Anderson Torres, President & CEO, RAIN
Mark Treyger, CEO, JCRC-NY
Valerie White, Senior Executive Director NY, LISC NYC