The Wexner Heritage Program (WHP) is a two-year educational experience focused on Jewish learning and leadership training. Twenty outstanding and diverse Jewish volunteer leaders are chosen from a given city and create strong bonds of trust around the learning table.

The Wexner Foundation values pluralism and believes that our differences can be a source of richness and strength. The selection process reflects this commitment to diversity in terms of gender, religious denomination, sexual orientation, organizational affiliation, biographical background, socio-economic status, Jewish interests, and personality type. The Wexner Heritage Program creates a unique culture of mutual respect among each group, a spirit also reflected in its curriculum, faculty and staff.

Wexner Heritage groups from multiple communities come together for Summer Institutes, creating synergy across North America.

The program is designed to deeply immerse current and up-and-coming Jewish lay leaders in the text, thought, and leadership challenges of the Jewish People.

The dynamic curriculum is grounded in the wisdom of our tradition and in cutting-edge leadership learning. Seminars and Institutes reflect the following curricular components:

• Yesodot: Jewish Fundamentals: Exploration of the fundamental texts, ideas, and traditions underlying an active and committed Jewish life.
• The History of the Jewish People: The story of our people from Biblical times to the 21st century. The emphasis on the major issues, personalities and trends in Jewish history helps contemporary Jewish leaders to lead more effectively into the future.
• The Thought of the Jewish People: A study of the major texts and ideas that have shaped our people: Bible, Rabbinic Literature (Talmud, Midrash, etc.), Liturgy and Modern Jewish Thought.
• Leadership Learning: The Wexner Foundation’s conceptual and practical approach to exercising leadership, derived from Jewish and secular sources.
• Contemporary Issues: Confronting the complex challenges facing Judaism, the Jewish people, and Israel today, including peer consultation on real-time leadership issues.

Members are admitted to the program through a three-part process:

1. Nomination

The Wexner Foundation solicits nominations from Wexner Alumni and top professional and lay leaders representing the broadest cross-section of the Jewish community. Candidates must be nominated by one of these sources.

2. Application

Select nominees are invited to apply for the program. You will be asked to submit a written application that will be completed online. These applications are then reviewed and a group of finalists is chosen based on the applications.

3. Interview

Finalists are interviewed locally by a selection panel composed of Wexner Foundation staff, Wexner Heritage Alumni and other respected Jewish professionals and leaders. Following the interviews, the final group of 20 Members is selected.

Members are generally 30-to-45 years old and have personal, professional and communal lives reflecting leadership and commitment to the Jewish people, as well as significant potential for future growth as Jewish leaders.

Please note we generally do not accept those who are working as Jewish professionals in the community.

Potential candidates should reflect several of the following criteria:

• Demonstrated commitment to Judaism, the Jewish community and/or Israel.
• Innate vision for future possibilities, the ability to articulate the vision and the drive to make the vision a reality.
• Potential to be a significant driving presence within your organization or agency.
• Track record of leadership in Jewish communal life.
• Intelligence, curiosity and creativity.
• Strong socialization and communication skills.
• Emotional stability and personal integrity.

The nearly 2500 Alumni of the Wexner Heritage Program are top lay leaders at the local, national and international level. In the 35 cities where we have convened WHP cohorts, virtually every Jewish communal organization continues to be supported by our network. WHP Alumni see the need for a new organization and start it or initiate meaningful change within existing organizations. In short, they exercise transformative leadership.

Alumni pay their Wexner experience forward in a variety of ways. Some become presidents or chairs of synagogues, Federations, JCC’s, Hillels, day schools, and camps. Others serve on the boards of national organizations like JFNA, 70 Faces Media, the Foundation for Jewish Camp, International Hillel, the Shalom Hartman Institute, Pardes, Hadar, rabbinical seminaries, Prizma, and the JDC.

WHP Alumni support non-profits in Israel and internationally and also chair the American side of those NGOs. They have founded and supported many initiatives in the startup sector, including independent minyanim, Limmud, Jewish Film Festivals, and more.

While the Wexner Heritage program aims to transform Jewish lay leaders, our Alumni are in turn prepared and charged to go out and transform their communities and the Jewish world. They are bolstered by the Foundation’s network, staff, and our ongoing programs and platforms for Alumni.

While Alumni of the Wexner Heritage program are diverse, they share some important overarching values:

• Collaboration
• Inclusion
• A dedication to Jewish  tradition informing their communal work

In addition to benefitting from the support of other lay leaders who have been through this experience, WHP Alumni also have access to a network of Alumni of our programs for those who work professionally in the North American Jewish Community and the public sector in Israel. There are nearly 4000 Alumni across our programs, change agents motivated to make Israel, the Jewish World, and the world at large, a better place. Many of our affinity groups and gatherings now create synergies across all of our Alumni groups.

Learn more about our Alumni here.

Partnership is a core value of The Wexner Foundation, reflected in our goals, our programming and our community relationships.

In order to enable communities to co-invest in and leverage future leadership, we decided in the early 2000s to engage funding partners for the Wexner Heritage Program. These partners ensure the strength and vitality of their own communities by sharing the responsibility for educating the next cadre of Jewish communal leaders.

Every year we partner with three communities to launch Wexner Heritage cohorts on their Jewish leadership journeys. The Wexner Foundation and the local community funding partners share the expense of the two-year program, contributing $350,000 each toward the total program cost of $700,000.

Each community partnership is a unique collection of local stakeholders. Funders have included Jewish Federations, individual philanthropists, private foundations, community foundations and alumni of the Wexner Heritage Program, among others. This joint investment allows the program to be offered at no cost to participants. Community partners are asked to sign a letter of agreement in advance to secure their place.

As we look to the future to expand the reach of the Wexner Heritage Program, we have already confirmed our partnerships with communities for the next several years.