Leadership development for alumni in the North American Jewish communities and the State of Israel.
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The Wexner Foundation is proud to offer Wexner Summits: The Network in Action. These Summits offer platforms for select North American and Israeli Alumni across five of our programs to engage in deep dialogue, learning and problem-solving. As with all Wexner Summits, regardless of topic, an underlying purpose is to connect Wexner Alumni to other extraordinary leaders across the Jewish world and Israel, drawing wisdom, insight and new collaborative possibilities from our network. We generally launch one summit a year and conclude a second summit in that same calendar year.
Allowing our network of leaders in the Israeli public sector and in both the professional and volunteer ranks of Jewish life in North America to leverage one another, Wexner Summits empower and mobilize a cadre of change agents who work in teams over the course of a year to address major challenges facing the Jewish people and Israel.
Program Overview
We aspire to advance:
- A deep sense of community based on real knowledge and understanding across differences in worldview and experience.
- An abiding commitment to the principle that our Alumni have much to learn from each other.
- The empowerment of a cadre of change agents
Summits are by application and include our most effective and robust Alumni.
Staff
Angie Atkins, Director of Wexner Heritage Alumni and Summits
Expectations
Participants will include leaders in the Israeli public sector and in both the professional and volunteer ranks of Jewish life in North America. The active part of our Summits requires a commitment to a year of work, book-ended by participating in two gatherings: one at the launch and the other at the conclusion of the year. During the intervening year, participants double down with strategic partners to advance work that speaks to the challenge of this Summit. In most cases, that is just the beginning.
Current Summit
The Wexner Summit on Climate Change will convene Alumni to advance their work on mitigation, adaptation and preparedness — individually, professionally, philanthropically, communally, and systemically, with an emphasis on larger systems. Additionally, the Summit will welcome new collaborations amongst participants.
The objectives of the Summit are as follows:
- To inspire and affect action in the main areas of activity to fight climate change:
- Adaptation
- Economic leverage
- Mitigation and sustainable living
- Political advocacy/policy
- Preparedness
- To leverage the influence of Wexner alumni to lead their communities and circles of influence to address climate change with more urgency and impact.
- To contribute to efforts to make the Jewish community in North America a leading voice in the American climate change movement, and to make Israel a leading voice and model for the world.
History
To date there have been six Wexner Summits fostering substantive action:
- (Re)Imagining the Israel-North American Jewish Community Relationship (launched 2016)
- Social Justice (launched 2016)
- Civil Discourse (launched 2017)
- Accelerator – for those robust projects from the first 3 Summits electing to continue after their obligatory year of work (launched 2019)
- Gender Safety and Equity (launched 2019)
- Leadership Skills (launched 2020)
For the most recent Summit on Leadership Skills, we selected 170 participants from across our network to acquire and strengthen skills that are of use in their leadership efforts in the Jewish community and/or the Israeli public sector. A presentation to Summit participants by Harvard Business School Professor Dutch Leonard can be viewed here.
Leveraging Jewish Leadership
To see what Vice President Rabbi Jay Moses says about The Wexner Foundation’s leveraging our most precious Jewish leadership resource through these Summits, click here.
Work Examples
To see examples of the kind of work participants will be engaged in, click here.
