Job Description

Springboard Fellow

Hillel at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Make your mark on Jewish student life by joining Hillel at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign as the Springboard Fellow. You will build one on one relationships with students, plan and execute engaging events and programs around campus, and help inspire students to make a commitment to Jewish life. Your work at the first Hillel in the world will help first and second year students and prospective students gain confidence about being independent Jewish adults for the first time.

You will help build Hillel’s presence on campus through tabling, programming in campus buildings, and meeting students where they are. You will help student leaders fulfill their passion for community and service through forming and maintaining interest and identity based communities on campus. You will help guide the decisions of the prospective students through high school, camps and youth movement recruitment. You'll wake up each day (or at least most) and be genuinely excited and enthusiastic about creating an inviting place that inspires students to explore, experience, and create vibrant Jewish lives. This is so much more than your average 9-to-5.

About The Springboard Fellowship

The Springboard Fellowship is a paid, two-year fellowship that brings recent college grads with raw talent, passion, and skills needed to reimagine and redesign Jewish student life to college campuses across North America.

Trained in Relationship-Based Engagement, Human-Centered Design and other entrepreneurial frameworks, you will be exposed to the most successful initiatives from across the Hillel movement. Fellows will work with students to imagine, create, and refine experiences for Jewish life that dramatically impact student engagement, efficiently and strategically apply and scale successful initiatives from across the movement, and give birth to cutting-edge ideas that have the potential to transform how Hillel and creates inclusive spaces for #AllKindsOfJewish.

We’re looking for people who embrace challenges, take risks, fail, and learn from the past, while maintaining their passion and sense of humor. Extensive Jewish education is not necessary — just an interest in creating a vibrant Jewish community, a commitment to learning, and the desire to make a difference in the lives of students.

What You’ll Do

GOALS:

• Empower students to live Jewishly by forming relationships with 180 individual students with limited involvement in Jewish life focusing on the underclassmen (freshmen and sophomores).
• Identify needs for identity and interest based micro-communities and create opportunities for students to engage within those micro-communities. Such micro-communities include but are not limited to: Jewish Greek life, Jewish residence hall life, arts and culture, volunteerism, social justice, etc
• Identify and create 16 opportunities per semester for Hillel’s brand to be visible on campus including tabling on the quad, presence at dorms, libraries and campus buildings, participation in the University programs and more.
• Develop Hillel’s online brand by defining Hillel’s social media presence and managing Hillel’s Instagram, TikTok and Facebook accounts.

WHAT YOU’LL DO:

• Meet with first and second year students from different cohorts and demographics on campus to engage them, identify their interests and connect to opportunities.
• Meet with students to help connect them with leadership roles, learning opportunities and immersive experiences provided by Hillel.
• Welcome students to campus through programs and help them build a network of support through coffee chats, multiple student meet-ups or large scale event planning.
• Work with the Engagement team to develop a creative vision for Hillel’s presence on campus (tabling, dorm activities, etc).
• Map out a plan to draw Jewish high school students to the University of Illinois through Hillel programming and engagement.
• Support engagement student interns with their work.
• Create social media content with students and staff.
• Staff Shabbat dinners, bagel brunches, holiday meals and services and other large Hillel events.
• Recruit for Onward Israel and Birthright Israel trips.

Who You Are

• You’re A Relationship-Builder: You thrive on meeting new people, understanding their interests, and forging meaningful connections.
• You’re A Collaborative Team Player: You enjoy working collaboratively with a team to solve problems and explore new initiatives.
• You’re A Passionate Learner: You love learning and continuously building up your Jewish knowledge.
• You’re An Innovative Educator: You believe in infusing education into captivating experiences that stimulate the imagination.
• You’re A Facilitator: You thrive in creating spaces for students to converse, share ideas, and explore and develop their own ideas on relevant issues.
• You’re A Recent College Grad: Whatever your degree, you are excited about Jewish life on campus and have experience as a participant and maybe even as an educator in a Jewish educational setting.
• You’re A Creative Thinker: You are constantly reimagining the ordinary, seeking ways to repurpose and improve things.
• You’re A Bold Visionary: Think big and creatively, viewing everything as a possibility and embracing a risk-taking, entrepreneurial spirit.

~You’re A Springboard Fellow ~

What You’ll Bring to the Job

• 0 -3 years professional work experience
• Bachelor's degree
• This is an in-person role location in Champaign, Illinois; remote work is not available for this position

• Strong entrepreneurial spirit. Things may not always go according to plan and you must be willing to take risks and learn your wins as well as your losses.
• Comfort and excitement to speak and engage with people you are not familiar with.
• Confidence initiating and running events, and comfort asking questions.
• Excitement to continue developing your own relationship to Judaism.

What You’ll Receive

• Competitive salary in the nonprofit marketplace. The salary range for this role is $46,000 in year one of the Fellowship, and the salary range is $48,000 in year two of the Fellowship.
• A comprehensive benefits package, including health insurance, retirement plan, Life, AD&D and Long Term Disability (LTD) insurances, Flexible Spending accounts, generous vacation/sick time, and parental leave.
• High-level professional development to help develop core skills in experiential education, including learning from some of the most innovative organizations in Jewish education today.
• $3,200 in professional development funds from the Springboard Fellowship to utilize over the course of two years.
• Intensive Jewish summer and year-long learning experiences that will provide you with the knowledge, passion, and critical tool kit to fuel your work building our Jewish communities.
• Mentoring and career coaching to help you during and after your Fellowship.
• A network of terrific colleagues from across the Hillel movement.
• Travel opportunities, both domestically and internationally, multiple times per year (if permitted).

About Hillel at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (Illini Hillel)

Illini Hillel is the first Hillel in the world Established in 1923 by Rabbi Benjamin Frankel, Illini Hillel strengthens the Jewish identity of 3,500 Jewish students at the University of Illinois. With one of the largest fraternity and sorority populations and over 1,000 student organizations on campus, the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign is one of the most social campuses in the country. That alongside the tier 1 research work on our campus makes our University attractive to Jewish students of all backgrounds. At Illini Hillel, we embrace the work-hard-play-hard culture of our campus by creating the perfect mix of fun social and deep meaningful Jewish programming and engagement.

Outside of campus life, our Jewish professionals enjoy the vibrant social life of the cities of Champaign and Urbana and the surrounding towns. University staff and Champaign's High Tech hub create a young vibrant community that meets and celebrates life in many ways. The Champaign Urbana Jewish Federation and Sinai Temple are our close partners in building a strong and welcoming Jewish community that serve over 2,000 Jewish community members beyond campus life. Additionally, Champaign-Urbana marks the perfect halfway point between some of the major cities in the Midwest - Chicago, Indianapolis and St. Louis.

About Hillel International

In 1923, Rabbi Benjamin Frankel started Hillel with humble means, a noble mission and a breathtaking vision: to convey Jewish civilization to a new generation. Today, Hillel International continues to enrich the lives of Jewish students and is the largest Jewish campus organization in the world at nearly 1,000 colleges and universities across North America and around the world. As Hillel evolves as an organization, the mission remains steadfast: to create lasting connections with every Jewish student that foster an enduring commitment to Jewish life, learning, and Israel and train them to become the next Jewish leaders.

Hillel is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to creating an accepting and inclusive environment for all.