Theory of change
Being a relatively small organization, with a strong desire to leverage our ability to bring about broad social change, we decided that our activities would focus on very specific populations in Israeli society. We realized that we could not work with the general public, and we must concentrate our efforts on people who themselves can be “agents of change” in various circles in the wider society. We drew inspiration from a business model that describes the “diffusion of innovations,” such as technological inventions, across society. The model identifies five major types of people when it comes to adopting new tools or ideas. There is the elite of the innovators themselves, who develop or discover innovations, and who constitute a small percentage of the general population. They are followed by early adopters, who are the key to reaching wider circles. After them come the early majority, who are less daring than the early adopters, but are still “ahead of the curve.” Once these are on board, the product or idea passes the point of no return, and the rest of society generally has no choice but keep up with the new trend. Of course, there will always be a group of opponents, dragging behind, who will never join of their own volition. The distribution can be seen in the following graph.
Bringing about effective change requires dedicated leadership.
To that end, the flagship Sustainability Leadership Fellowship Program was established in 1999 in order to develop a new generation of environmental leaders for Israel. It has already created a network of over 500 agents of change promoting sustainability in all fields and branches.
The Fellows Program reflects the multicultural character of Israeli society, including Jews and Arabs; religious and secular, residents of the center and the periphery.
The huge success of the Fellows Program can be seen in its popularity and prestige, the eagerness of the graduates to participate in alumni activities and in the cumulative effects of its graduates’ work in the field.
This success is proof of our conviction that the most effective strategy for achieving social change is through investing in people, who can productively combine reflection and action.
The Fellows Program creates a space in which to delve into transformational interdisciplinary learning, networking and strategizing.
Approximately 24 Fellows are trained in each cohort as agents for change, and emerge at the end of the program informed, enriched and committed, with heightened awareness and dedication to sustainability issues in general and to implementing their personal projects in particular.
The program persistently enlarges the growing circle of Friends of Heschel sustainability leaders for Israel.
The Unique Features of the Program
Combines between a number of diverse fields
Combines economics, social issues and environment, with input from different sectors, disciplines, professions and perspectives.
Offers a perspective representing comprehensive sustainability
Promotes alternatives for the existing realities, while questioning the current social and economic systems.
Combines head, heart and hands
Infuses rethinking and reframing of existing current realities while fostering a community dedicated to taking innovative actions which promote personal, social and systemic change.
Acts through critical pedagogy
Forces participants to venture outside their comfort zones, combines ideas with actions and examines success stories from Israel and around the world.
The Contribution of the Program
In 2016-2017 the Heschel Center conducted a thorough external evaluation with the Democratic Institute in Israel, of the Heschel Fellowship Alumni from cohort 1-16, with the purpose to learn about the program’s influence on its participants over time. The graphs below describe the summary of the impressive results.
A focus group of Fellows were used to test the questions that were to be part of the evaluation study. One of the questions this focus group reviewed revolved around how the Fellows Program had impacted the participants, with responses ranging from: During the validation process of the questions for the evaluation survey with a focus group of Fellows, this question of the contribution of the program to its participants had the standard range of: “no influence, little influence, some influence, great deal of influence,.”
The focus group responded that none of these responses reflected the response we received was that the highest category does not begin to sum up the actual change the program had brought about in their lives and at work.
Therefore, the evaluation expert added a ‘higher’ category: “revolutionary impact”. The result of the survey showed that 15% of all alumni chose this option as most accurately summing up their Fellows experience.
Heschel Fellows Alumni (Page still in Construction!)
Cohort 1:
Ahuva Goren-Winsdor:
An Environmental Psychologist. She is a social consultant to planning and design teams at municipalities, NGOs and Hi-Tech companies. Her work is focused on public participation in decision making and the improving design and planning to suit user needs. Over the past 20 years she has worked with the Ministry of the Environment, Tel Aviv-Yaffo Municipality (City Engineer Department), The Society for Preservation of Nature in Israel, the Jerusalem Foundation and the City of Jerusalem.
Prof. Noga
Kronfeld-Schor:
The Chair of the School of Zoology and the head of the Ecological and Evolutionary Physiology Laboratory at Tel Aviv University. She is a Fulbright, Rothschild and Alon fellow, and a Gutwirth Research Prize winner. She published over 100 papers which were cited over 3000 times and mentored over 50 graduate students and post-docs. Her research focuses on mechanisms and adaptive significance of biological rhythms (both daily and annual), light pollution, and ecology of thermoregulation.
Cohort 2:
Ahuva Goren-Winsdor:
An Environmental Psychologist. She is a social consultant to planning and design teams at municipalities, NGOs and Hi-Tech companies. Her work is focused on public participation in decision making and the improving design and planning to suit user needs. Over the past 20 years she has worked with the Ministry of the Environment, Tel Aviv-Yaffo Municipality (City Engineer Department), The Society for Preservation of Nature in Israel, the Jerusalem Foundation and the City of Jerusalem.
Prof. Noga
Kronfeld-Schor:
The Chair of the School of Zoology and the head of the Ecological and Evolutionary Physiology Laboratory at Tel Aviv University. She is a Fulbright, Rothschild and Alon fellow, and a Gutwirth Research Prize winner. She published over 100 papers which were cited over 3000 times and mentored over 50 graduate students and post-docs. Her research focuses on mechanisms and adaptive significance of biological rhythms (both daily and annual), light pollution, and ecology of thermoregulation.
Cohort 2:
Dr. Efraim
Davidi:
A lecturer and fellow researcher in Social and Labor History at Tel Aviv University; as well, he is a senior teacher at the Department for Social Work at Ben Gurion University in the Negev. Dr. Davidi fields of research and teaching are globalization, Israeli society and social movement’s history.