Zelikow School of Jewish Nonprofit Management
Mission and Values
Our graduates lead the business of Jewish life. For over 50 years, the Zelikow School of Jewish Nonprofit Management has shaped the Jewish future by educating its leaders.
The Zschool is a transformative gathering place for nonprofit professionals interested in Jewish social innovation and leadership studies to learn and collaborate. We use creative problem solving to spark creative solutions to today’s Jewish nonprofit challenges. Our students are activists, intellectuals, artists, musicians, engineers, rabbis, social workers, educators, and policy wonks that include dual degree students studying at other universities as well as students concurrently enrolled in the cantorial, education and rabbinic programs of HUC-JIR.
Since our founding in 1968, as the School of Jewish Communal Service, we have maintained a distinguished reputation as a premier center for the education of Jewish nonprofit leaders. Our students and alumni are a community of difference makers with global reach and impact.
Our Values Approach to Education
Value your values
We like students who live values first. Nonprofit leadership is about repairing the world. It is a way to challenge the status quo and for you to make a career in making good happen.
Innovation with a purpose
We use creativity to identify and solve problems. For us, innovation is not a bunch of randomly placed sticky notes, it is a way to help you to design a more perfect world.
Practice makes perfect, almost
We believe there is a lot to learn from missing the mark. There is also a lot to learn by doing. Our internships and consulting projects provide a lab for you to practice and develop your nonprofit expertise with people who care about your career.
Network for good
We are in this together. Our students and 650+ alumni are a community of difference makers with global reach and impact. They affect change and you will too.
Sacred Roots
We embrace diversity, pluralism and are non-denominational. Our students come from a spectrum of backgrounds, knowledge sets, and geographies. You will find faculty who care and a place where Jewish wisdom and values are intertwined to reinforce our educational practices and the work we inspire in the nonprofit ecosystem.
The Zschool Method
We believe in a different way to school. “Zschooling” works best when students arrive with a willingness to:
- Get Lost (in it). Immerse yourself in the content.
- Chat (someone’s ear off). Express yourself! Talk it, type it, live it, and seek feedback with curiosity.
- Make (something bold happen). Bring into being by forming, shaping, or altering material.
- Think different (about it). Just because the course is over does not mean the learning is done. Keep challenging your own understanding.