Springboard Fellow

Oregon Hillel - University of Oregon

Role Overview

Make your mark on Jewish student life by joining Oregon Hillel as the Springboard Innovation 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. This Fellowship offers a unique opportunity to shape Jewish student life at the University of Oregon by focusing on relationship-building, program innovation, and student engagement, ensuring students feel connected, included, and inspired by Jewish life on campus.

At the heart of this Fellowship is the mission to cultivate meaningful relationships and pathways that connect Jewish students to community, leadership, and purpose. You will engage directly with students, co-create programs, and implement strategies that make Jewish life on campus inclusive, relevant, and thriving. As a Springboard Fellow, you play a key role in strengthening student connections, supporting leadership development, and advancing Oregon Hillel’s mission to enrich Jewish life at Oregon’s flagship universities. 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:

• Build meaningful one-on-one relationships with 300–400 students across the University of Oregon, particularly first- and second-year students, transfers, and students not currently engaged in Hillel.
• Collaborate with interns, students and staff to design and implement 5–8 innovative programs and events each semester that engage students in Jewish life.
• Strengthen student leadership pipelines by mentoring and supporting students in leadership roles and peer-led initiatives.
• Contribute to long-term engagement strategy by piloting new initiatives, scaling successful programs, and helping Oregon Hillel expand its reach and impact on campus.

WHAT YOU’LL DO:  

• Meet individually and in small groups with students from diverse backgrounds to understand interests, build trust, and connect them to Hillel opportunities.
• Co-create and execute engaging programs, including Shabbat dinners, holiday celebrations, social and cultural events, and creative micro-programs, with students and staff.
• Support student leadership development by mentoring student leaders, facilitating peer-to-peer engagement, and helping students take ownership of programming
• Apply Student-Centered Design and other innovation frameworks to pilot new initiatives, evaluate impact, and iterate programs to maximize engagement.
• Collaborate with Oregon Hillel staff, including the Director of Engagement, to ensure programs are inclusive, relevant, and aligned with broader organizational goals.

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 Eugene, OR; remote work is not available for this position 

Skills and Competencies: 

• Strong entrepreneurial spirit and willingness to experiment, take risks, and learn from successes and failures.
• Ability to build authentic relationships with students from diverse backgrounds and interests.
• Creative problem-solving and innovation mindset, including applying Student-Centered Design to program development.
• Confidence in planning, facilitating, and evaluating programs and events independently and collaboratively.
• Collaborative team player with excellent communication skills and excitement to learn and grow professionally.
• Passion for Jewish life and curiosity to continue developing your own connection 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).