Background

In 2006, Hillel adopted its Strategic Plan for the United States. The Strategic Plan outlines five key goals for achieving Hillel’s mission, “to enrich the lives of Jewish undergraduate and graduate students so that they may enrich the Jewish people and the world.” The Standards of Excellence provide a roadmap to help Hillels achieve their specific goals and therefore the larger mission of the Hillel enterprise. The Standards outline both a framework for success and specific methods to achieve these goals.

The Standards of Excellence have been used within Hillel as part of the Accreditation process since 1991. Hillel is now in a position to use the Standards beyond Accreditation, to set and evaluate the goals of local Hillels on a continual basis.

Structure

The Standards document is organized into five sections reflecting the five areas of Hillel’s Strategic Plan (Jewish Student Life, Human Resources, Campus Community, Operational Excellence, and Development). Each goal area is further divided by outlining standards, practices, and concepts, which provide further detail for Hillels to set and accomplish goals.

• STANDARDS — Each of the five areas of the Standards of Excellence has a number of standards, shared in the Standards of Excellence in bold. These suggest the overall standard or benchmark that is meant to lead to accomplishment in the given area of a Hillel.

• PRACTICES — Below the standard are practices. These practices are recommended ways to accomplish the given standard. The practices offer Hillels a great blueprint for action, even while every Hillel might not follow every practice.

• CONCEPTS — Each section of the Standards is labeled with a concept fundamental to Hillel’s work – like “Engagement” or “Jewish Opportunities,” “Governance” or “Development.” These sections have abbreviations that help us to differentiate the standards and practices. For example, “ENG” stands for “Engagement,” and “OPP” stands for “Jewish Opportunities.”

Using the Standards

A User’s Guide has been developed to provide local Hillels with tools to set and track their individual progress in achieving the goals of the Strategic Plan. This Guide provides concrete tools that can be used with Hillel’s key stakeholders (student leaders, professionals and lay leaders) to use the Standards as a roadmap for their work.

Updating the Standards

There is an ongoing process to update the Standards of Excellence so they reflect Hillel’s current strategy and definition of success. Hillel professionals and lay leaders from around the country are involved in the updating process and work together to ensure that the Standards remain a relevant document to all of Hillel’s stakeholders.

For more information on the Standards, please contact learning@hillel.org.


 Hillel's Standards of Excellence (PDF File 216 Kb)

 Standards User's Guide (PDF File 1.2 Mb)

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