Wexner Foundation

The Wexner Foundation focuses on the development of Jewish professional and volunteer leaders in North America and public leaders in Israel. Founded by Leslie Wexner, CEO of Limited Brands and his wife, Abigail Wexner the headquarters are located in New Albany, Ohio with additional offices in New York City and in Jerusalem. In addition to the core leadership programs, the Wexner Foundation supports other Jewish charities on a local, national, and international level.

In the early 1980s Leslie Wexner, CEO of Limited Brands reached the conclusion that what the Jewish community and Israel needed most was stronger leaders. When established Jewish organizations showed relatively little interest in investing in the development of leaders, Les decided to take up the mission with his private philanthropy.

Originally Les founded two separate organizations to pursue this mission: The Wexner Heritage Foundation created the Wexner Heritage Program to strengthen volunteer leaders; and the Wexner Foundation created the Wexner Graduate Fellowship, for emerging professional Jewish leaders, and the Wexner Israel Fellowship, for mid-career Israeli public officials. In the 1990s Abigail Wexner joined Les in charting the Wexner philanthropic vision in their roles as chairmen. In 2003 the two foundations merged, and since then The Wexner Foundation has run all three programs as a unified organization under Abigail and Les's leadership. The Foundation has also added new programs to expand upon its mission of strengthening Jewish leaders. Since 2013 The Wexner Foundation has launched four additional programs: Wexner Service Corps (2013), Wexner Field Fellowship (2013), Wexner Senior Leaders (2014) and The Wexner Summits (2015).

The first of The Foundation's core programs was founded in 1985. Leslie Wexner and Rabbi Herbert A. Friedman, the former CEO of the National United Jewish Appeal, established the Wexner Heritage Program. This program's mission statement, according to the Wexner Foundation website, is "to educate Jewish communal leaders in the history, thought, traditions and contemporary challenges of the Jewish people."

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