“Getting Out Ahead of the Changes”: Incoming MSOLI Student Magda Dorosz on Expanding Jewish Nonprofit Leadership

“It all started with Covid,” Magda Dorosz says of her journey to Hebrew Union College’s Zelikow School of Jewish Nonprofit Management. Facing the challenges of the past five years — from the global pandemic to the war in Ukraine, the October 7 attack on Israel, and the ensuing conflict in Gaza — Magda Dorosz, Executive Director of Hillel Poland, asked herself a pivotal question: “How do I want to prepare myself and the organization for future changes?”

“I started looking into what was out there in terms of professional development that could equip me with new and better skills to be a leader who gets out ahead of the changes,” Dorosz says. That search led her to Hebrew Union College, where she will spend the next year as a student working toward the Masters of Science in Organizational Leadership & Innovation (MSOLI) – a 14-month program for working professionals that blends virtual and in-person learning and is accessible to students worldwide.

For Dorosz, Hebrew Union College is the latest stop on what has been an unexpected career arc in Jewish communal life. Growing up in Wroclaw,her connection to Jewish life began when she discovered that her grandfather was a Jewish soldier in the Red Army who had survived World War II. A Birthright trip deepened that connection and led her to serve as Birthright coordinator in Poland. She was offered her current job when Hillel International made its decision to open a branch in Warsaw. “I didn’t come to that position with any previous experience of running a Jewish organization, and most of the people that I work with didn’t have that experience either, because there wasn’t really a place to get that experience in Poland.”

Hebrew Union College is a place where Dorosz can build on the experience she has gained on the job. The key elements that drew her to MSOLI included classes about fundraising — which she says “is a constant challenge for us” — and the course on Managing in Times of Crisis. Dorosz also cites the program’s emphasis on meeting with, and learning from, representatives of other Jewish organizations in Israel, the U.S., and elsewhere in the diaspora. “The opportunity to interact with those professionals is something I cherish – being able to get different perspectives and see how things are done in different communities around the world, and get ideas on how to translate that work and transform what we do in Poland.”

Dorosz says participating in the Zelikow School of Jewish Nonprofit Management’s inaugural leadership conference in New York this summer also was invaluable for her and her peers as they learned how to respond to crises in their own communities.

Dorosz notes that the knowledge she gains studying, while continuing in her full-time job, will benefit not only her as a leader, but also her colleagues at Hillel in Poland. “For me, as the executive director, to go back and continue to learn is certainly modeling the behavior for my staff.” And the example she is setting, Dorosz concludes, will also have the long-term benefit of driving further growth of Jewish communal organizations. “In Poland,” she says, “we don’t have a lot of options for real education to become a Jewish professional. So in a sense, I am paving the way for them if they want to do it in the future.”