Jackie Congedo

A former journalist turned community advocate and bridge-builder, Congedo spent six years as the director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati, which works to ensure Jewish security by working in coalition across diverse communities to build a more just society for all people. In this role, she served as the chief architect of the Leaders in Light Institute, a leadership development program for civic influencers designed to address trends of extremism and polarization and to strengthen democratic practice and civil society. Congedo has served on various community boards and committees, including the National JCRC Directors Association, the National Jewish Council for Public Affairs Restructuring Task Force, the City of Montgomery Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, and the Cincinnati Regional Coalition Against Hate.  Prior to her work in Cincinnati’s nonprofit community, Congedo spent nearly a decade as a broadcast journalist, working for stations in Washington, D.C.; Lexington, Kentucky; and in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she specialized in enterprise and investigative storytelling. Congedo received a BA in journalism from the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism, where she graduated summa cum laude. A native Marylander, she has called Cincinnati home for more than a decade.