The Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation announced today that it has selected 29 outstanding Jewish professional and volunteer leaders from around the world for the second cohort of the Schusterman Fellowship. The Fellows hail from Jewish and secular organizations in five countries across North America, Israel, Australia, South Africa and Europe. A full list of the new Schusterman Fellows is available at: www.schusterman.org/meet-fellows.

The Fellowship is an executive-level leadership program that features custom-built professional development experiences and supports Fellows in pursuing initiatives to address specific needs within their organizations. Through the program, the 29 Fellows will gain critical leadership skills, form a strategic network of peers and maximize their potential for fostering Jewish organizational and societal change.

“As we look to the second year of the Fellowship, our goal remains the same: to nurture and invest in talented individuals who we believe can take on critical leadership roles in the Jewish community, Israel and beyond,” said Lynn Schusterman, Founder and Co-chair of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation. “The Fellows are diverse in their interests and passions, yet they all see Jewish organizational leadership as a pivotal way to create positive change in the world.”

Fellows were selected through a competitive application process. Each Fellow will receive a personalized leadership assessment; participate in individualized and cohort-based learning; work closely with an executive coach to create a customized leadership development plan; receive a stipend to participate in leadership advancement programs; and create a plan to address a pressing challenge in his or her organization.

“The Fellowship is designed to work in partnership with existing best-in-class leadership development providers to match Fellows with opportunities that maximize their skills and grow their capacity to lead,” says Abby Saloma, the senior program officer overseeing the Fellowship program. “Our hope is to create a powerful ripple effect in which Fellows are able to apply what they are learning in real time to advance the missions of the organizations and communities they serve.”

In its second year, the Fellowship will build on successes and lessons from the first cohort, which is still in progress and has already seen several Fellows move into roles of increased responsibility. The Fellowship offers a new paradigm for leadership development in a global marketplace in which professionals show a stronger desire to align work with personal values, as well as a tendency to change jobs every few years. Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach that trains everyone on the same set of competencies, this program enables individuals to pursue opportunities that best meet their personal interests and professional needs.

The Fellowship is part of Schusterman’s broader efforts to work in partnership with other organizations and foundations to transform how the Jewish communal sector invests in professional and volunteer leadership. It reflects the Foundation’s belief that exceptional professionals and volunteers are key to building a strong ecosystem capable of growing the number of people actively engaging in Jewish life and drawing on Jewish values to create a positive impact.

For more details and to see the full list of 2016 Schusterman Fellows, visit www.schusterman.org/schusterman-fellowship