[6][7] The college was initially affiliated with the University of Manchester before becoming an Israeli school fully accredited by the Council for Higher Education in Israel.

[9][10] In the early days of the school, after Hartman was asked by the Jewish Agency to accept an Ethiopian-Israeli student to the law school, he arranged for scholarships for needy Ethiopian immigrants, and over 1,000 Ethiopian-Israeli students have graduated from the institution, including Pnina Tamano-Shata, the first Ethiopia-born woman to join the Knesset and become a government minister.

[12] In 2013, the college established Ro'im Rachok, a 4-month training course which prepares young adults with autism for service in the Israel Defense Forces.

[15] Ono Academic College and the Center for Israeli Legal Studies at Columbia Law School hosts visiting faculty from Israel, sponsors lectures and offers fellowships and exchange opportunities.

[19] In an attempt to integrate students from different population groups, the college offers a creative writing project in Arabic and Hebrew, a weekly phone-in program to establish rapport between secular and Haredi women, and a talk program led by Jewish and Muslim religious leaders to discuss ways of bridging the conflict.