Springboard Fellow at Hillel of Buffalo

Springboard Fellow

Hillel of Buffalo

Role Overview

Make your mark on Jewish student life by joining Hillel of Buffalo 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 . At Hillel of Buffalo, you’ll be part of a close-knit and growing Jewish community in a city that blends big-campus opportunity with the warmth of a place where people truly put down roots. With Buffalo’s vibrant culture, strong academics, and unbeatable access to nature and city life alike, this role offers a uniquely meaningful setting to build Jewish connection and belonging.

In this role, you’ll create meaningful and diverse opportunities for Jewish expression, mentor student leaders, and help shape a lively, pluralistic Jewish community on campus. You’ll bring creativity and ambition to everything from relationship-building to innovative programming and marketing strategies that meet students where they are. As an integral member of our team, you’ll play a central part in advancing Hillel’s mission to enrich Jewish student life and empower the next generation of leaders.

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: 

• Actively contribute to Hillel of Buffalo by engaging 180 students each year though meaningful engagement
• Maintain Hillel of Buffalo’s social media presence by making consistent weekly posts to promote engagement opportunities 
• Advise Hillel of Buffalo’s Leadership team, greek council, social engagement interns and other student cohorts and ensure that they meet their engagement goals
• Establish yourself as a trusted role model for students at the University at Buffalo
• Develop deep relationships with university student life staff and the Buffalo Jewish community. 
• Use design thinking and innovative engagement strategies to prototype new programs, build creative partnerships, and reach under-engaged student communities across campus

WHAT YOU’LL DO:  

• Meet Jewish students (including first year, queer and greek students) where they are at to engage them, identify their interests and connect them to opportunities at Hillel and throughout their campus. 
• Meet with students to help them create opportunities for their peers to deepen their connections to Hillel and Jewish life. 
• Map out a plan to strategically build one-on-one relationships with 180 students currently not engaged in Jewish life.
• Plan and facilitate weekly meetings with different student leadership cohorts. 
• Recruit for and facilitate Jewish learning opportunities. 

 

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 Buffalo, NY; remote work is not available for this position. This is not a typical 9-5, some weekend work is required. Weekly schedules will be determined in partnership with your supervisor.  

• 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.
• Confidence initiating and running programs, and comfort asking questions.
• Ability to collaborate across university student life departments 
• Comfort and expertise with digital marketing and social media platforms 
• Willingness to admit what you don’t know, and excitement to learn in those areas.
• Creative problem-solving.
• 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 - $48,000  in year one of the Fellowship, and the salary range is $48,000- $50,000 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 of Buffalo

Hillel of Buffalo is an exciting, accessible, multi-faceted hub of Jewish student life that enhances students’ success with opportunities to gain professional life skills, to learn, grow, and make a difference in ways they find meaningful- all within a culture of acceptance and inclusivity that celebrates the cultural, religious and social aspects of Judaism.

The Hillel offices and lounge is on campus, centrally located in the UB Commons, right near Starbucks for easy coffee conversations with students. The staff offices are furnished to accommodate students who stop by to meet with friends, chat, have a snack, attend a program and much more. Of the total enrollment of 30,000 at University of Buffalo, there are approximately 1,500 Jewish students on the beautiful campus in Amherst, NY. Hillel of Buffalo also welcomes Jewish students from the many local colleges and universities in Western New York, including Buffalo State College, Daemen University, and Canisius University.  

A flagship institution in the State University of New York system, University at Buffalo is the largest and most comprehensive campus in the 64-campus SUNY system. UB is a premier, research-intensive public university dedicated to academic excellence. Its Research, creative activity and people positively impact the world. Like the city we call home, UB is distinguished by a culture of resilient optimism, resourceful thinking and pragmatic dreaming that enable it to reach others every day.

Buffalo’s Jewish Community consists of 10,000 people, nearly 10 synagogues, a robust Jewish Federation, two large Jewish Community Center campuses and a Jewish day school.  Most of the Jewish population now resides in the Buffalo suburb of Amherst, which is home to UB’s main campus, and, which Money magazine named in 2019 “the best place to live in NY state.”  There are many reasons to move to the Buffalo metropolitan area, including restaurants, breweries, hiking, access to two Great Lakes, world-renowned symphony orchestra, a top-rated art museum, several drama companies, and two major league sports teams. Plus, it’s where Buffalo wings were invented!