UGS partnerships create learning opportunities, engage experts, and take our programs to the community.
Students engage in internships to develop applied, hands-on learning and to network with social justice organizations in Los Angeles. Our program in turn invites these organizations to bring real-world insight to our classrooms, and to include us as an educational resource for their communities.
Contact the Undergraduate Studies Internship Program at [email protected] for more information about our academic partnerships and contacts with these organizations.
826 LA
826LA is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting students ages 6 to 18 with their creative and expository writing skills, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write. With this in mind, 826LA provides after-school tutoring, evening and weekend workshops, in-school tutoring, help for English language learners, and assistance with student publications.
A Noise Within
A Noise Within’s mission is to produce world-class performances of the great works of drama in rotating repertory with a resident company; to educate and inspire the public through programs that foster an understanding and appreciation of history’s great plays and playwrights, and to train the next generation of classical theatre artists.
A Place Called Home
A Place Called Home provides a safe, nurturing environment with proven programs in arts, education, and wellness for the young people in South Central Los Angeles to help them improve their economic conditions and develop healthy, fulfilling, and purposeful lives.
Contact the UGS Internship Program for a referral to this organization.
The Actors’ Gang
In the last 31 years, The Actors’ Gang has produced over 100 plays in Los Angeles, in forty US states, and on five continents. The company was founded in 1981 by a group of young artists looking to build a theatre that would present relevant and vibrantly entertaining plays. Guided by Founding Artistic Director, Tim Robbins, the company provides a supportive environment for a diverse ensemble of artists and the development of their groundbreaking work.
Affordable Los Angeles Therapy
Affordable LA Therapy empowers, celebrates, and supports the diversity of Californians, providing them with the tools to happily thrive and effectively navigate this ever-changing and complex world.
Contact the UGS Internship Program for a referral to this organization.
Alexandria House
Founded in 1996, Alexandria House is a non-profit transitional residence and house of hospitality providing safe and supportive housing for women and children in the process of moving from emergency shelter to permanent housing. Located in the densely populated and ethnically diverse Mid-Wilshire area, Alexandria House also serves its broader neighborhood community by providing educational and enrichment opportunities for residents and neighbors alike.
Alliance for Children’s Rights
The Alliance for Children’s Rights protects the rights of impoverished, abused, and neglected children and youth. By providing free legal services and advocacy, the Alliance ensures children have safe, stable homes, healthcare, and the education they need to thrive.
ALS Association (Golden West)
The ALS Association’s Mission is to discover treatments and a cure for ALS and to serve, advocate for, and empower people affected by ALS to live their lives to the fullest. Their Vision is to create a world without ALS. The ALS Association Golden West Chapter proudly serves people with ALS and their families in 31 counties throughout California and in the state of Hawaii.
Alternative Action Programs
CEO Dennis M. Giroux began his career in the addiction field in 1972 working for the Clare Foundation of Santa Monica. In 1977 he formed Alternative Action Programs to provide substance abuse program management and DUI education and counseling services Los Angeles County. To date, AAP has served over 60,000 DUI cases.
APLA Health (Formerly AIDS Project Los Angeles)
APLA Health is a non-profit organization, whose mission is “to achieve health care equity and promote well-being for the LGBT and other underserved communities and people living with and affected by HIV.”
Anonymous Us
The Anonymous Us Project is a safety zone for real and honest insights regarding third-party reproduction (sperm & egg donation, and surrogacy). They aim to share the experiences of voluntary and involuntary participants in these new reproductive technologies while preserving the dignity and privacy for story-tellers and their loved ones. All stories are contributed anonymously because “anonymity in reproduction hides the truth, but anonymity in story-telling helps reveal the truth.”
A Step in the Right Direction
Located in Northridge, Los Angeles, California, A Step In The Right Direction offers addiction treatment intensive outpatient program, a partial hospitalization program, and an outpatient program that provides recovery education, support and ongoing treatment as clients move toward self-sufficiency, personal accountability, and growth.
Avenue 50 Studio
The Avenue 50 Studio is an arts presentation organization grounded in Chicana/o and Latina/o culture, visual arts, and the Northeast Los Angeles area. Avenue 50 seeks to build bridges of cultural understanding through artistic expressions. Avenue 50 develops programming to inform our community through innovative projects that connect artists, students, academics, and members of the community.
Back on my Feet Los Angeles
Back on My Feet, a national organization operating in 12 major cities coast to coast, combats homelessness through the power of running, community support and essential employment and housing resources.
Being Alive
Being Alive is a nonprofit client-driven organization focusing on the mental health and wellness of people living with HIV and AIDS. Their services to client-members include a variety of no-cost programs, such as; comprehensive emotional support, treatment education, prevention, advocacy, wellness, and social services. Their mental health program, Antioch Alive, is the only one of its kind anywhere throughout the world, offering extensively trained psychotherapy counselors in HIV.
Beyond Baroque
Beyond Baroque’s mission is to advance the public awareness of and involvement in the literary arts; to provide a challenging program of events which promotes new work and diversity; to foster a place in the community for the exchange of challenging ideas and the nurturing of new work; to support writers through readings, workshops, books sales, publication, access to archived material and performance space; to encourage collaboration and cross-fertilization between writers and artists in multiple disciplines with the goal of producing mixed media art; to use the literary arts as a foundation for increasing education and literacy in our community.
BIENESTAR
BIENESTAR is a unique non-profit social service organization dedicated to positively impacting the health and well-being of the Latino community and other underserved communities in Southern California. BIENESTAR is an expert voice on emerging health issues. Key to its success is health education and awareness regarding HIV/AIDS, substance abuse, and drug prevention. It primarily targets the Latino gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender segments of the community.
Boys and Girls Club of Venice
The Boys & Girls Club of Venice is one of over 4,300 Boys & Girls Clubs nationwide. Upholding national guidelines for program content, delivery and quality, a growing number of Boys & Girls Clubs now provide programs over three million youth across the country and in military bases overseas. Their staff and programs come together to create stability, consistency, and a sense of physical and emotional safety for their members. Their youth development professionals serve each day as positive role models who provide ongoing caring relationships with their youth. They work to develop moral character and instill a sense of belonging, competence, usefulness, and influence. Staff members make the Club feel like home, fostering a family atmosphere, and creating a sense of ownership for members.
Brave New Films
Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films are at the forefront of the fight to create a just America, and we want you to join us. Using new media and internet video campaigns, Brave New Films has created a quick-strike capability that informs the public, challenges corporate media with the truth, and motivates people to take action on social issues nationwide.
Brave Trails
The Brave Trails Mission is to provide lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning youth and their allies, ages 12-20, innovative, impactful summer camp programs that foster meaningful relationships and develop 21st-century skills to become the leaders of tomorrow
Bridge Program
More than half of adults say the expense of a college education is “a big problem.” For adult students living on a low income, this problem and its barriers might be too big to tackle. Students in the Bridge Program may have found a solution – access to higher education through Antioch University Los Angeles. Each week, Bridge students attend class to begin college, to earn up to 15 transferable units of university credit, and to study philosophy, literature, art history, writing, and urban studies – all free of charge. Bridge students complete the nine-month program without borrowing or spending a penny on books, tuition, school supplies, or bus tokens to get to and from class.
Canoga Park Salvation Army Adult Rehabilitation Center
This is a six to twelve-month program that provides residential substance abuse treatment for men, age 18 to 60 years, including ex-offenders. Applicants must be sober, drug-free, and willing and able to participate fully in the program which includes twelve-step and spiritual program meetings. Participants cannot be receiving GR benefits, Social Security Disability (SSDI), or unemployment benefits. There are no geographic restrictions.
California African American Museum
California African American Museum researches, collects, preserves, and interprets for public enrichment the history, art, and culture of African Americans with an emphasis on California and the western United States.
California Reinvestment Coalition
CRC builds an inclusive and fair economy that meets the needs of communities of color and low-income communities by ensuring that banks and other corporations invest and conduct business in our communities in a just and equitable manner.
Contact the UGS Internship Program for a referral to this organization.
CASA Court Appointed Special Advocates
CASA of Los Angeles improves the lives of children in the dependency system by pairing them with trained volunteer advocates. CASA seeks to reduce and reverse the effects of child abuse and neglect. Nowhere in the nation is the problem greater than in Los Angeles County, where 30,000 children who have been abused or neglected are under the jurisdiction of the Dependency Court. One-third of these children are age 0-5; infants and toddlers are the fastest-growing group of abused children. CASA will serve 6,000 children in FY2016, including 1,000 with intensive advocacy services.
The Center for the Study of Political Graphics (CSPG)
CSPG collects, preserves, and exhibits posters relating to historical and contemporary movements for social change. Through its varied programs, CSPG is reclaiming the power of art to educate and inspire people to action.
Century Housing
Century Housing finances affordable housing developments throughout California. From acquisition loans to bridge and construction loans, Century has worked for more than 18 years to provide tax-credit developers and infill developers with innovative loan solutions and responsive service.
Cesar Chavez Foundation
The mission of the Cesar Chavez Foundation is to enrich and improve the lives of farmworkers and Latino families outside the workplace by meeting their essential human, cultural, and community needs.
The Center for Early Education
The Center for Early Education, a socio-economically and culturally diverse independent school for children, toddlers through grade six, strives to graduate students who are joyful, resilient, life-long learners. The Center embraces a philosophy of education that combines a nurturing, inclusive learning environment with an increasingly challenging academic program that addresses the developmental needs of each child.
Challengers Boys and Girls Club
Lou Dantzler’s group of boys has become the first of more than 35,000 boys and girls to walk through its doors and become part of what has come to be called the “Oasis of South Central Los Angeles.”
The Children’s Partnership
The Children’s Partnership (TCP) is a California–based national children’s advocacy organization committed to improving the lives of underserved children where they live, learn, and play with breakthrough solutions at the intersection of research, policy, and community engagement. Since 1993, TCP has been a leading voice for children and a critical resource for communities across California and the nation, working every day to champion policies that provide all children with the resources and opportunities they need to thrive.
Chrysalis
Chrysalis is a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating a pathway to self-sufficiency for homeless and low-income individuals by providing the resources and support needed to find and retain employment.
City of Culver City Volunteer Program
There’s a deep tradition in Culver City of volunteering and donating to those in need and to the city as a whole. That caring spirit creates a strong community that benefits everyone. Volunteering is a highly rewarding experience that is scientifically proven to help you lead a longer, healthier life!
CLARE Foundation
CLARE Foundation is a nonprofit organization and trusted community resource, providing effective and affordable alcoholism, substance abuse and behavioral health treatment and prevention services for nearly 50 years. Experienced, compassionate, and specially trained staff help women and men find an end to the pain and suffering that is at the heart of addiction and discover hope in recovery. At CLARE you will find 24-hour residential treatment as well as a variety of outpatient programs that integrate the Twelve Step principles and ten other evidence-based approaches, designed to meet each person’s needs and circumstances.
Cliffside Malibu
Cliffside Malibu has created an exclusive sanctuary for recovering drug addicts and alcoholics by limiting their enrollment and by offering a myriad of cutting-edge treatments. Their state-of-the-art treatment methods are also paired with the talents of acupuncturists, herbologists, massage therapists and holistic medicine practitioners. Their private and secluded Malibu housing provides expansive oceanside views and exclusive access to exciting outdoor undertakings like horseback riding, surfing, and hiking.
Coalition for Responsible Community Redevelopment
CRCD’s mission is to better sustain, coordinate, and improve local planning, development, and community services that address the needs of low-income and working-class residents and small businesses in South Los Angeles.
Contact the UGS Internship Program for a referral to this organization.
Communities for a Better Environment (CBE)
Founded in 1978, CBE’s mission is to build people’s power in California’s communities of color and low-income communities to achieve environmental health and justice by preventing and reducing pollution and building green, healthy and sustainable communities and environments
Community Build Youth Center
Community Build is a non-profit community development corporation established in 1992 in response to the conditions that led to the Los Angeles Civil Unrest of 1992. Its youth outreach prioritizes comprehensive and wrap-around services for at-risk youth, out-of-school youth, foster youth, youth offenders, gang-involved youth, and first-generation college-bound youth.
Community Career Development
Community Career Development, Inc. (CCD), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, has served the Los Angeles community since 1972. Committed to its motto, “Empowerment through Employment,” CCD contracts with the City and County of Los Angeles Workforce Development Boards to operate the Wilshire Metro, Compton and South Los Angeles WorkSource Centers/America’s Job Centers of California. Co-located with the State of California Employment Development Department, CCD provides free employment services to 20,000+ adult and 500+ youth job seekers each year, while ensuring that veterans and their program-eligible family members receive priority service. In addition to job seeker services, CCD provides business solutions and workforce development assistance to local employers.
Community Corporation of Santa Monica
Community Corporation of Santa Monica (“Community Corp.”) is a non-profit organization that restores, builds, and manages affordable housing for people of modest means. Founded by community leaders in 1982, Community Corp. has pioneered the development of architecturally significant and environmentally sustainable affordable housing. It has built or restored more than 90 properties throughout Santa Monica, creating nearly 1,700 affordable homes and transforming the lives of more than 4,000 people every year. Their work contributes to the distinct character of Santa Monica, making it a more inclusive, caring, and environmentally sustainable city.
Community Partners Los Angeles
Community Partners accelerates ideas into action for the common good in Los Angeles. They offer Fiscal Sponsorship, Intermediary Work, and Knowledge Sharing services to nonprofits.
Contact the UGS Internship Program for a referral to this organization.
Constitutional Rights Foundation (CRF)
CRF is a non-profit, non-partisan, community-based organization dedicated to educating America’s young people about the importance of civic participation in a democratic society. Under the guidance of a Board of Directors chosen from the worlds of law, business, government, education, the media, and the community, CRF develops, produces, and distributes programs and materials to teachers, students, and public-minded citizens all across the nation.
Create Purpose Worldwide
Create Purpose applies the proven methodology of STEAM using Project Based Learning principles within Tijuana orphanages. This approach teaches children life skills that help them overcome poverty and pursue their purpose. Abandoned children depend 100% on the goodwill of others to provide for their needs. The goodwill Create Purpose provides comes in the form of professional mentorship and learning programs that also would not be possible without the support of others.
Critical Mass Dance Company
CMDC teaches a heart-centered movement practice called Dance from the Heart. Dance from the Heart is comprised of 7 steps, which are simple to learn and anyone can do it! No prior dance training is needed.
Contact the UGS Internship Program for a referral to this organization.
Critical Resistance
Critical Resistance seeks to build an international movement to end the Prison Industrial Complex by challenging the belief that caging and controlling people makes us safe. They believe that basic necessities such as food, shelter, and freedom are what really make our communities secure. As such, their work is part of global struggles against inequality and powerlessness.
Contact the UGS Internship Program for a referral to this organization.
Cultural Survival
Cultural Survival supports a movement of empowered Indigenous Peoples organizing their communities to engage the international processes, national policies and human rights bodies to respect, protect, and fulfill their rights. The organization is Indigenous-led and has a diverse board of directors bringing experiences from the Indigenous and non-Indigenous worlds to inform their perspectives and scope of work.
Contact the UGS Internship Program for a referral to this organization.
Culver City Adult School
The Culver City Adult School is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) and thereby ensures a high quality of classes and services through the implementation of a continuous improvement plan. It is their goal to provide high-quality education and enrichment opportunities to adults, high school students and children. Adults can learn English as a second language, earn their high school diploma or equivalency or take personal interest courses. High school juniors or seniors can take classes to make up credit. Culver City Adult School believes in the life long learning process, and as an adult school, they encourage their community to be a part of that process through the offering of varied classes and programs.
Daniel’s Place
Daniel’s Place assists individuals ages 18-28, who are experiencing a mental health need, and who may or may not be experiencing homelessness. Daniel’s Place believes that community and a comfortable social environment are the beginning of a sense of belonging and the path towards wellness and recovery.
Didi Hirsch Community Mental Health Center
Didi Hirsch transforms lives by providing quality mental health and substance abuse services in communities where stigma or poverty limit access.
Discover the Edge
Discover the Edge is a strengths-based training and development company that has been coaching and teaching entrepreneurs and business teams to produce amazing results since 2005. Their mission is to improve the quality of life for everyone through the transformation of the marketplace.
Downtown Associated Youth Services Committee (DAYS)
For over 45 years, DAYS Long Beach has served low-income, under-served families in Long Beach, California. Through free educational programming and youth development activities, DAYS is a mainstay in the community. DAYS Long Beach supports achievement by providing children and families with opportunities to develop skills, apply concepts they have learned, and build positive relationships.
Downtown Women’s Center
DWC is nationally recognized as a prototype for unique and effective programs serving homeless women and ending homelessness. Their services include meals, personalized case management, an on-site medical clinic, health workshops and screenings, computer literacy, government benefits advocacy, support groups, job counseling, and self-expression classes.
The Drama Therapy Institute of Los Angeles
The Drama Therapy Institute of Los Angeles (DTILA), is in its 27th year. The Institute offers a drama therapy program that meets all NADTA requirements for being a Registered Drama Therapist. The faculty provide a unique individualized approach with small classes and a history of service to the drama therapy and psychotherapeutic community. DTILA also offers a week-long program in Europe that is celebrating its 14th year. Qualified students may receive work-study grants, scholarships, or internships.
Dream Resource Center (UCLA Labor Center)
Since its founding, the Dream Resource Center has emerged as a national source for innovative research, education, and policy on immigration issues. Its work is critical to ensure immigrant youth continue to be at the forefront of the national conversations that directly impact their lives and families. The Dream Resource Center believes that young people deserve the right to learn, be healthy, and pursue their dreams – regardless of immigration status.
East LA Women’s Center
The mission of the East Los Angeles Women’s Center is to ensure that all women, girls and their families live in a place of safety, health, and personal well-being, free from violence and abuse, with equal access to necessary health services and social support, with an emphasis on Latino communities.
Eastside Cafe
Eastside Cafe is an autonomous community space located in El Sereno California. They are an autonomous community space that is sustained by community members and collectives. They offer a space for members of the community to engage, have events, classes, meetings, workshops, and organize.
East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice
EYCEJ is an environmental health and justice nonprofit organization working toward a safe and healthy environment for communities that are disproportionately suffering the negative impacts of industrial pollution.
EmpowHer
EmpowHer Institute is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to empower marginalized girls by providing education, training, and mentorship to enable them to seek fulfilling and productive lives.
Environment for the Americas
Environment for the Americas is present across the Americas and the Caribbean, working with biologists and educators to raise awareness of threats to our planet and to bring practical conservation solutions to communities throughout the region. They strive to bridge the communication gap between scientists and the public and to bring diverse faces to International Migratory Bird Day events, programs, and training.
Esperanza Housing
Esperanza Community Housing Corporation works to achieve comprehensive and long-term community development in the Figueroa Corridor neighborhood of South-Central Los Angeles. Community residents of all ages and ethnicities are the foundation of Esperanza’s grassroots work.
Executive Service Corps of Southern California
Executive Service Corps (ESC) empowers their nonprofit clients, helping them achieve their missions through high quality, affordable coaching, and consulting delivered by executive-level volunteers. Through consulting services, institutes, and customized leadership cohort programs, ESC’s team of highly-trained consultants volunteer their knowledge, experience, and expertise to help nonprofits face their most pressing challenges—and impact the lives of those who depend upon them every day.
Family Services of Santa Monica
Family Service of Santa Monica was established in 1925 and provides a range of services to more than 1,200 children, adolescents, and families a year. Services include counseling and psychotherapy, a teen parenting program, school-based counseling services, A Reflective Parenting Program, Evidence-Based and Early Intervention programs, group workshops, and training programs for graduate students.
FingerPrintCom
Fingerprint Communications is a boutique full-service public relations and marketing agency with headquarters in New York and Los Angeles, with regional capabilities across the country and strategic partnerships internationally. Specializing in lifestyle, entertainment, hospitality, fashion, and consumer markets, FingerPrintCom focuses on traditional and digital media coverage, special events, talent relations, and product placement.
First Congregational Church of Long Beach
First Congregational Church of Long Beach, a congregation of the United Church of Christ, is a community of seekers who care for each other as they explore what it means to be people of faith. They embrace a liberal theology and we are committed to social justice – working to bring about God’s realm of peace to our world. We celebrate diversity, welcoming folks from varied life experiences. There is a place for you here. Come and join us!
Food Forward
Food Forward rescues fresh local produce that would otherwise go to waste, connecting this abundance with people in need, and inspiring others to do the same.
Foothill AIDS Project
FAP offers a full spectrum of programs and services that empower clients in three counties to manage their own long-term health goals. Integrated treatment and chronic care management, paired with stable housing planning and outreach, provide many tools for people living with HIV/AIDS to live longer, healthier, and more stable lives.
Friends of Ballona Wetlands
Friends of Ballona Wetlands’ mission is to champion the restoration and protection of the Ballona Wetlands, involving and educating the public as advocates and stewards.
Frog Tutoring
Frog Tutoring provides one-on-one, in-home private tutoring customized to the needs of the student. Specializing in math and science (though they can provide assistance in all disciplines), Frog Tutoring offers quality tutoring to students of all ages. Frog tutors are current students and graduates from local universities. They are skilled in adapting to each student’s unique needs and making the learning process fun!
Fusion Academy & Learning Center
Fusion is much more than an accredited private middle and high school for grades 6-12 – it’s a revolutionary community of learning where positive relationships and one-to-one classrooms unlock the academic potential in every student and create opportunities for emotional and social growth.
Garden School Foundation
Garden School Foundation provides in-depth garden-based education to youth at Title I schools in Los Angeles, strengthening connections between food justice, environmental stewardship, and community health. By using the full transformative potential of school gardens as teaching sites they nurture a healthy and mindful generation of children that care for their bodies, their communities, and the earth.
Contact the UGS Internship Program for a referral to this organization.
Gentle Barn
The Gentle Barn rescues animals from severe abuse and neglect who are too old, sick, lame, or scared to be adopted into homes. Gentle Barn is a sanctuary to horses, donkeys, cows, pigs, sheep, goats, turkeys, chickens, llamas, peacocks, emus, cats, and dogs. Once rehabilitated, the animals help give hope and inspiration to children with the same stories.
Global Girl Media
GGM develops the voice and media literacy of teenage girls and young women, ages 14-22, in under-served communities by teaching them to create and share digital journalism designed to improve scholastic achievement, ignite community activism and spark social change.
Contact the UGS Internship Program for a referral to this organization.
Greater Los Angeles Agency on Deafness
The mission of the Greater Los Angeles Agency on Deafness, Inc. (GLAD) is to ensure equal access of the deaf and hard of hearing community to the same opportunities afforded their hearing counterparts. The organization’s general purposes and powers are directed around the promotion of the social, recreational, cultural, educational, and vocational well-being of its deaf and hard of hearing constituents.
Grow Good
Since 2011, GrowGood has been working with the Salvation Army to develop a garden-based program for the residents of the Bell Shelter that uses healthy food and gardening as a catalyst for healing. Their 1.5 -acre farm consists of an orchard of 71 fruit trees, 14 raised vegetable garden beds, a 1/2 acre area of in-round row crops, and a California native plant garden filled with over 300 flowering, drought-tolerant plants. GrowGood’s vegetable growing areas and trees are all connected to a state-of-the-art Netafim drip irrigation system.
The Growing Place
The Growing Place is a full-day, non-profit child development program committed to providing young children with exceptional quality education. It is a learning community sustained by a close collaboration of parents, teachers, and students. The Growing Place believes that children are competent learners, capable of engaging fully with ideas and the world around them.
H.O.W. House
H.O.W. House provides a low-cost, sober living environment and recovery services to individuals with a chemical addiction. Their services give these individuals a safe, sober, supportive atmosphere in which to strengthen personal recovery and prepare for a healthy reentry into society.
Haven House Addiction Treatment Center
The mission of Haven House Treatment Centers is to provide a complete wrap-around continuum of treatment for clients struggling with addiction and co-occurring mental health disorders. Their mission is borne from empathy and understanding of the devastating effects of addiction as well as the great hope and certainty they place in the healing process. To carry out their mission Haven House offers the most effective evidence-based therapies provided by the leading experts in the field.
The Help Group
Founded in 1975, The Help Group is the largest, most innovative and comprehensive nonprofit of its kind in the United States serving children, adolescents and young adults with special needs related to autism spectrum disorder, learning disabilities, ADHD, developmental delays, abuse, and emotional challenges.
Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU)
The HACU National Internship Program’s mantra is “Opening Doors of Opportunity, Abriendo Puertas de Oportunidad” because they believe that HNIP can be the formative experience by which you can grow both personally and professionally. Federal agencies and corporations partner with them because year after year HNIP recruits some of the brightest and most talented students from across the country. Join the more than 11,000 program alumni who have benefited from the exposure to industry, professional development, and mentoring and networking opportunities.
Hodgson Law Group
Hodgson Legal, headquartered in the Los Angeles area, provides legal services to individuals and companies in the global marketplace. The firm serves clients in the United States and helps many of those clients grow their business in overseas markets through our network of international legal affiliates, covering markets such as China, Canada, Japan, Mexico, Europe, and Latin America. Our firm serves as a trusted advisor to foreign business owners, entertainment companies, and individuals with U.S. operations.
Holistic Chamber of Commerce
Founded in October 2010, the Holistic Chamber of Commerce is an international trade organization for professionals, practitioners, business owners, and resource providers, as well as a community coming together in support of a cause. They are Member-focused through their ever-expanding online presence, and network of members and local chapters. They make it easier for consumers to learn about and access holistic, natural and eco-friendly products, services and solutions
Home at Last
Provides complimentary social work and counseling services to Transitional aged youth (18-25) living in group homes, as well as homelessness prevention and rapid rehousing services.
Contact the UGS Internship Program for a referral to this organization.
Homeboy Industries
Homeboy Industries provides hope, training, and support to formerly gang-involved and previously incarcerated men and women allowing them to redirect their lives and become contributing members of our community. Each year over 10,000 former gang members from across Los Angeles come through Homeboy Industries’ doors in an effort to make a positive change. They are welcomed into a community of mutual kinship, love, and a wide variety of services ranging from tattoo removal to anger management and parenting classes. Full-time employment is offered for more than 200 men and women at a time through an 18-month program that helps them re-identify who they are in the world offers job training so they can move on from Homeboy Industries and become contributing members of the community – knowing they count!
I H8 Exercise
www.ih8exercise.com is a new site for the 80% of Americans who aren’t working out regularly, or at all. They show you how to get started, how to keep going, and (they hope) how to hate it a little less.
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is a nonprofit, nongovernmental human rights organization made up of roughly 400 staff members around the globe. Its staff consists of human rights professionals including country experts, lawyers, journalists, and academics of diverse backgrounds and nationalities. Established in 1978, Human Rights Watch is known for its accurate fact-finding, impartial reporting, effective use of media, and targeted advocacy, often in partnership with local human rights groups.
Indie Clear
IndieClear specializes in Script Clearance Reports for independent film. IndieClear’s principals have more than twenty-eight years of experience performing entertainment industry research. This includes over fourteen years of script clearance reports for independent features, studio feature films, short films, cable & television movies, episodic dramas & sitcoms, animation, web series, and graphic novels.
Inner-City Arts
Providing access to the arts and the endless possibilities they offer, Inner-City Arts is an investment in the youth of Los Angeles. Creating a bridge between the studio and the classroom, Inner-City Arts’ unique approach to arts education measurably improves academic and personal outcomes for children and youth, including those students with Limited English Proficiency who are at risk of academic failure.
Inner City Struggle
InnerCity Struggle has worked with youth and community residents since 1994 to promote safe, healthy, and non-violent communities in the Eastside. They organize youth and families in Boyle Heights, unincorporated East Los Angeles, El Sereno, and Lincoln Heights to work together for social and educational justice. InnerCity Struggle provides positive after-school programs for students to become involved in supporting their schools to succeed. InnerCity Struggle has empowered students to reach their family’s dream of college. The work of InnerCity Struggle demonstrates that youth and parents working together are a powerful force for improving their communities and making real change.
Institute for Religious Tolerance, Peace and Justice
The Institute for Religious Tolerance, Peace and Justice was founded to promote religious tolerance, coexistence, and interfaith dialogue. By promoting interfaith dialogue and universal respect for different faiths, they seek to minimize the conflicts that are shaped by religion and employ religion as their excuse. They seek to disarm the religious intolerance that is often the cause and underlying root of oppression and warfare.
IDEPSCA
IDEPSCA roots trace back to 1984 when a group of students and parents met in Central Park in the City of Pasadena to confront racism, educational inequalities, and the lack of affordable housing. Stories of joy, struggle, and hope became mirrors for IDEPSCA’s educational and organizing processes.
Jenesse Center
Offering 35 years of life-saving services, Jenesse Center Inc. is a nationally recognized nonprofit domestic violence prevention and intervention organization. Jenesse works locally, nationally, and globally to shine a light on violence against women, girls, men, and boys and advocates the basic human right for all people to have peace in their homes and relationships.
Jewish Vocational Services (JVS)
JVS helps people of all faiths and backgrounds navigate the changing job market, overcome barriers to employment, and keep their dreams intact. Since their founding in 1931, JVS have continually adapted and expanded their services to address the evolving needs of the workforce, responding to economic, social, and cultural changes with innovative programs and partnerships. By empowering people to become economically independent, JVS enhance the quality of life for individuals, families, and their community.
Jovenes, Inc.
The Mission of Jovenes, Inc. is to help homeless youth and at-risk families become productive and integrated members of the community. Jovenes, Inc. provides comfortable, stable housing, access to life skills training, employment support, and other community-based services in a safe, nurturing environment. Believing anyone can prosper given the right conditions, they deliver opportunities for personal growth and provide hope, comfort, and support where once there was none. Jovenes, Inc. empowers those they serve so that they can develop healthy relationships and make meaningful contributions to the shared community.
Justice by Uniting Creative Energy
Justice by Uniting in Creative Energy (J.U.i.C.E.) was founded in 2001 in the Rampart District of Los Angeles. They are a non-profit hip hop collective that meets every Saturday from 12-4 pm at the MacArthur Park Rec. Center. Their program is free for all age groups. J.U.i.C.E. teaches visual arts workshops, paints legal graffiti murals in the community, records and produces music, emcees, bboy/bgirl on a large hardwood floor to live DJs. They create unique opportunities for underserved young artists to showcase their work, network with peers and professionals, and engage with their communities in a positive manner through the arts.
Kalu Yala Entrepreneurial Internships
At Kalu Yala, students and young professionals are given the opportunity to apply their passions in the real world. They work as part of their first civic institution, the research, and development team. Team members utilize their studies in the search for best practices in sustainability and quality living. Unlike other education programs, Kalu Yala insists on exploration.
KAOS Network Leimert Park
KAOS Network offers a way for the artistically talented and art enthusiasts of South Los Angeles to enjoy trans-media and multimedia art disciplines being offered in this vibrant community. KN creates a warm and open environment where everyone can participate and engage the material outcome of the work being presented. Often, at some basic level, this can be credited to the art and artist being a cultural asset to the community.
Kidsave
Kidsave works to create change so older forgotten orphanage and foster kids grow up in families and connected to caring adults.
Kingdom Day Parade
Congress for Racial Equality in California CORE-CA places a heavy emphasis on building self-esteem and the nurturing of test-taking ability among African American Cohort students who have become increasingly excluded from admission to College and University and 21st-century jobs and business development opportunities. CORE-CA collaborates with all elements of the public and private sectors to achieve these goals.
Contact the UGS Internship Program for a referral to this organization.
Korean Immigrant Workers Alliance
KIWA’s mission is to empower Koreatown’s low-wage immigrant workers for dignity and respect in the workplace and community and to work together with other communities to realize a vision of a just Los Angeles. One of the nation’s most established workers centers, KIWA is one of few community groups that organize both Korean and Latino workers. Their vision is to bring together workers, community members, and students in a broad, multi-ethnic coalition.
LAANE
Founded in 1993, LAANE (Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy) is a nationally recognized advocacy organization dedicated to building a new economy for all. Combining dynamic research, innovative public policy, and strategic organizing of broad alliances, LAANE promotes a new economic approach based on good jobs, thriving communities, and a healthy environment.
The Lambda Literary Foundation
The Lambda Literary Foundation nurtures, celebrates, and preserves LGBT literature through programs that honor excellence, promote visibility, and encourage development of emerging writers.
La Ventana Addiction Treatment Centers
La Ventana Addiction Treatment Centers’ innovative approach to addiction treatment is designed to address the underlying causes that may contribute to challenges faced by those struggling with eating disorders, substance abuse, alcoholism, and co-occurring mental health issues. Their individualized approach offers a continuum of care including Residential Detoxification, Day Treatment, Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP), and Structured Client Housing.
Las Encinas Hospital
At Las Encinas Hospital, a wide range of behavioral healthcare treatment options are offered for patients with psychiatric, chemical dependency, or co-occurring disorders. Psychiatric services include inpatient, partial hospitalization, and intensive outpatient programs. Chemical dependency treatment is available for adults and includes inpatient detox, rehab, residential treatment, and intensive outpatient programs.
Las Fotos
Las Fotos Project is a community-based nonprofit organization that inspires teenage girls through photography, mentorship, and self-expression. Offering year-round programming, they provide girls with access to professional cameras, quality instruction, and workshops that encourage them to explore their identity, build leadership and advocacy skills, and strengthen their social and emotional well-being.
Contact the UGS Internship Program for a referral to this organization.
LA Commons
LA Commons engages communities in artistic and cultural expressions that tell their unique stories and serves as a basis for dialogue, interaction, and a better understanding of Los Angeles.
Contact the UGS Internship Program for a referral to this organization.
LA Community Health Project (LACHP)
LACHP’s mission is to improve the health and well being of people affected by drug use in Los Angeles, to increase access to health care, empower people to protect themselves, and educate each other to reduce harm in our communities. LACHP combines direct services, advocacy, outreach, education, and research collaborations to fulfill this mission.
LA Waterkeeper
LA Waterkeeper’s mission is to protect and restore Santa Monica Bay, San Pedro Bay, and adjacent waters through enforcement, fieldwork, and community action. They work to achieve this goal through litigation and regulatory programs that ensure water quality protections in waterways throughout L.A. County. Their Litigation, Advocacy, Marine, and Water Quality teams conduct interconnected projects that serve this mission.
Leimert Park Beat
Leimert Park Beat is the news and social network for Leimert Park and the surrounding neighborhoods
Contact the UGS Internship Program for a referral to this organization.
Lifeworks
LifeWorks is a youth development and mentoring program at the LA Gay & Lesbian Center. They offer one-on-one, peer, and group mentoring opportunities for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning youth ages 12-24. Their goal is to help LGBTQ youth to realize their goals and dreams with a safe space, positive and affirming role models, and workshops & activities that are fun and educational.
Los Angeles Black Worker Center
The mission of the Los Angeles Black Worker Center is to increase access to quality jobs; reduce employment discrimination; and improve industries that employ Black workers through action and unionization. The center seeks to promote economic and racial justice, peace, and prosperity for all of Los Angeles by developing policies and corporate practices that perpetuate equality in the labor market and end inferior jobs in the Black Community.
Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA-CAN)
The mission of the Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA CAN) is to help people dealing with poverty create and discover opportunities while serving as a vehicle to ensure they have voice, power, and opinion in the decisions that are directly affecting them.
Los Angeles County Arts Commission
The Los Angeles County Arts Commission fosters excellence, diversity, vitality, understanding, and accessibility of the arts in Los Angeles County, encompassing 88 municipalities and 137 unincorporated areas, and provides leadership in cultural services. The Arts Commission funds 364 nonprofit arts organizations through a two-year $9 million grant program, runs the largest arts internship program in the country, coordinates the LA County Arts Education Collective, manages the County’s civic art policy, and produces free community programs.
Los Angeles Eco-Village
The Los Angeles Eco-Village is located in the Koreatown area in the city of Los Angeles, California and it intends to demonstrate processes for lower environmental impact and higher quality of living patterns in an urban environment.
Los Angeles Ecovillage Institute
LAEV is a resource center for small ecological cooperative communities. It is an education, training, outreach, and development center for people who want to be part of resilient and regenerative communities.
Contact the UGS Internship Program for a referral to this organization.
Los Angeles Food Policy Council
The Los Angeles Food Policy Council (LAFPC) is a collective impact initiative, working to make Southern California a Good Food region for everyone—where food is healthy, affordable, fair, and sustainable. Through policy creation and cooperative relationships, their goals are to reduce hunger, improve public health, increase equity in our communities, create good jobs, stimulate local economic activity, and foster environmental stewardship. In particular, the LAFPC aims to connect environmental sustainability and local agriculture with efforts to expand access to healthy food in historically disenfranchised communities.
The Los Angeles LGBT Center
The Los Angeles LGBT Center has the mission to empower people to lead full and rewarding lives without limits based on sexual orientation and gender identity, by providing the highest quality educational, cultural, and wellness programs to residents of Los Angeles County.
Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority
LAHSA’s mission is to support, create, and sustain solutions to homelessness in Los Angeles County by providing leadership, advocacy, planning, and management of program funding.
Los Angeles Music & Art School
The Los Angeles Music and Art School (LAMusArt) is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit arts organization whose mission is to provide the community of East Los Angeles with equitable and affordable access to multidisciplinary arts education programs. LAMusArt aims to provide East LA youth with creative paths to creative futures by means of arts education.
Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust
Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust’s mission is to grow healthier, safer and stronger communities by creating small, accessible urban parks and gardens that help remedy the critical lack of green and recreational spaces in greater Los Angeles’ underserved neighborhoods, and to ensure participation and collaboration among low-income residents throughout the process of envisioning, building and managing the parks and gardens we create.
Los Angeles Ronald McDonald House
Ronald McDonald House Charities of Southern California expresses its mission through its programs, which include six Ronald McDonald Houses in Bakersfield, Inland Empire, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Orange County, and Pasadena. We also operate two Ronald McDonald Family Rooms at CHOC Children’s Hospital in Orange and CHOC Children’s at Mission Hospital. Importantly, they are also one of very few Ronald McDonald House Charities chapters across the world that operates a cost-free, medically-supervised Camp for children with cancer and their families, Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times.
Los Angeles Urban League
Since 1921, the Los Angeles Urban League (LAUL) has been at the forefront of the civil rights movement, identifying and addressing issues that are of concern to African Americans and other minorities in Los Angeles and throughout the state of California. As the premier organization in advancing equal opportunities through an innovative programmatic slate, their mission is to provide resources to aid individuals in the following areas: Workforce Development, Entrepreneurship and Business Development, Personal Development, Education, and Youth Development.
Machine Project
Machine Project is a storefront space in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles that hosts events about all kinds of things we find interesting – scientific talks, poetry readings, musical performances, competitions, group naps, cheese tastings, and so forth.
Mayme Clayton Museum
MCLM’s vision is to serve as a world-class cultural institution dedicated to educating audiences about the legacy of African and African-American creativity, genius, and resilience. To this end, MCLM seeks to facilitate an ongoing discussion about the diversity of the American experience and to use its collection as an instrument of friendship and healing, bringing people together through interconnected cultural heritage.
Contact the UGS Internship Program for a referral to this organization.
McIntyre House
McIntyre House offers a unique, challenging, and highly effective rehabilitative experience for men seeking recovery from alcoholism and drug addiction. Set in a safe, stable, and supportive home-like environment, they are committed to providing each client with the very best opportunity for personal growth and recovery.
Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA)
The MRCA is dedicated to the preservation and management of local open space and parkland, watershed lands, trails, and wildlife habitat. The MRCA manages and provides ranger services for almost 73,000 acres of public lands and parks that it owns and that are owned by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy or other agencies and provides comprehensive education and interpretation programs for the public. The MRCA works in cooperation with the Conservancy and other local government partners to acquire parkland, participate in vital planning processes, and complete major park improvement projects.
Music Center
The Music Center is one of the largest and most highly regarded performing arts centers in the country, and the place to experience the most innovative and critically-acclaimed performing arts in the nation, creating a cultural hub that is central to LA’s status as “the creative capital” of the world. Celebrated for its illustrious dance programming, Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at The Music Center, and home to four world-class resident companies – Center Theatre Group, LA Opera, LA Phil, and Los Angeles Master Chorale, The Music Center’s 22-acre campus includes four iconic venues – Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Mark Taper Forum, and Ahmanson Theater – as well as The Music Center Plaza and the newly opened Grand Park.
My Friend’s Place
My Friend’s Place (MFP)offers a free and comprehensive continuum of care that combines emergency necessities with therapeutic, health, and education services. MFP is not government or religiously affiliated and is 99% privately funded. MFP serves nearly half of the homeless youth population in Los Angeles County.
The National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW)
NCJW is a grassroots organization of volunteers and advocates who turn progressive ideals into action. Inspired by Jewish values, NCJW strives for social justice by improving the quality of life for women, children, and families and by safeguarding individual rights and freedoms.
National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence of the San Fernando Valley
The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence of the San Fernando Valley, Inc. (NCADD-SFV) is a non-profit organization founded in the early 1970s to provide individuals and their families community based comprehensive prevention, education, and treatment services relating to coping with the devastating effects of the disease of alcoholism and drug addiction.
Neighborhood Youth Association
Neighborhood Youth Association enables at-risk children and youth to achieve their personal best, by providing a comprehensive set of educational enhancement services, academic support, counseling, career planning, and cultural enrichment activities in a sustained, focused manner during their elementary through high school years.
New Economics for Women
New Economics for Women (NEW) has created a new way, a blueprint, that helps improve the lives of women and their families. We have seen economic climates swing between decline and prosperity. Through all of these changes, NEW has become a wise and resilient community development organization understanding what it takes for lower-income, women-led families to become knowledgeable and empowered.
New Roads School
New Roads School believes all children deserve access to education that places traditional academic pursuits in contemporary context, engaging students’ hearts and minds to explore the opportunities and address the challenges of our ever-evolving world. Weaving together the kaleidoscope of communities that makes up Los Angeles, New Roads School inspires students to become creative thinkers, committed citizens, and compassionate human beings.
Next Step Connections
Next Step Connections (NSC) is an international education organization offering experiential learning and student employability programs in Asia since 2008. Their mission is to bridge the gap between the student and professional world by uniting students, universities, and enterprises through collaborative and transformative experiential learning programs abroad. They offer real-world learning programs including global internships, work experience in Asia, short-term university programs, and student employability programs.
Nuevo South Inc.
Nuevo South takes a creative approach to community development by using education, innovation, technology, and entrepreneurship.
Ocean Park Community Center
Ocean Park Community Center (OPCC) empowers people to rebuild their lives. Their goal is to end — not simply manage — human suffering. OPCC is an independent, community-supported organization in which staff, volunteers, and clients work with mutual respect to address the effects of poverty, abuse, neglect, and discrimination. The agency’s programs are designed to remove barriers to access the resources individuals need to ensure their survival, end their victimization, and improve their quality of life.
ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries
ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries is the largest repository of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer (LGBTQ) materials in the world. Founded in 1952, ONE Archives currently houses over two million archival items including periodicals, books, film, video and audio recordings, photographs, artworks, organizational records, and personal papers. ONE Archives has been a part of the University of Southern California Libraries since 2010.
Operation HOPE
The mission of Operation HOPE, Inc. (HOPE) is silver rights empowerment, making free enterprise work for everyone. They accomplish this through our work on the ground as the nonprofit private banker for the working poor, the underserved, and the struggling middle class. They achieve their mission by being the best-in-class provider of financial literacy empowerment for youth, financial capability for communities, and ultimately, financial dignity for all.
Optimistic People in a Caring Environment (OPICA)
As the first Adult Day Program and Counseling Center in Los Angeles, OPICA has been serving adults challenged with memory loss and their families in the West Los Angeles area for more than 35 years. OPICA provides comprehensive programming specifically focused on all stages of memory loss in a nurturing environment. Offerings include cognitive stimulation activities, such as therapeutic art and music, brain fitness, counseling, education, and The OPICA Brain Train early memory loss program. Through on-site and select satellite programs, OPICA fills a critical need as one of the leading not-for-profit community-based organizations focused solely on memory loss.
Our Time Bank
Our Time Bank is a community of people living in the West Los Angeles area who support each other. They started in Culver City, Palms, and Mar Vista, but are expanding into nearby neighborhoods. Their mission is to nurture and expand a movement that promotes equality and builds caring community economies through inclusive exchange of time and talent. They are working with members and local communities to strengthen and rebuild community, foster a network of skill sharing, and use TimeBanks, Sharing Economies, and our Repair Café to achieve wide-ranging goals such as social justice, bridges between diverse communities, and local ecological sustainability.
Outfest
Founded by UCLA students in 1982, Outfest is the leading organization that promotes LGBT equality by creating, sharing, and protecting LGBT stories on the screen. Outfest builds community by connecting diverse populations to discover, discuss, and celebrate stories of LGBT lives. Over the past three decades, Outfest has showcased thousands of films from around the world, educated and mentored hundreds of emerging filmmakers, and protected more than 20,000 LGBT films and videos. Outfest is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
P.S. Arts
P.S. ARTS is dedicated to improving the lives of children by providing arts education to underserved public schools and communities. P.S. ARTS is the only organization in Southern and Central California that provides yearlong arts education in dance, music, theater, and visual arts to every child in a school during the regular school day. Without their programs, children in these underfunded school districts would not have access to the arts. P.S. ARTS also coordinates with school administrators and parent groups to provide community outreach services designed to increase the community’s capacity to advocate for educational equity and to provide critical cultural experiences for the entire family. P.S. ARTS programs help level the educational playing field by teaching creative and cognitive skills to students struggling to overcome economic, ability, or literacy barriers that will better equip them to be competitive and successful people.
Pacific Council on International Policy
Their mission is about building the capacity of Los Angeles and California to have an impact on global issues, discourse, and policy.
Contact the UGS Internship Program for a referral to this organization.
Pacoima Beautiful
Pacoima Beautiful is a grassroots environmental justice organization that provides education, impacts public policy, and supports local arts and culture in order to promote a healthy and sustainable San Fernando Valley.
The Painted Brain
TPB creates lasting community-based solutions to mental health challenges and the impact of social injustice through arts, advocacy, and enterprise.
Contact the UGS Internship Program for a referral to this organization.
PEN Center USA
PEN Center USA strives to protect the rights of writers around the world, to stimulate interest in the written word, and to foster a vital literary community among the diverse writers living in the western United States. The organization, therefore, has two distinct yet complementary aims: to promote a literary culture and to protect freedom of expression. Among PEN Center USA’s various activities are public literary events, a mentorship project, literary awards, and international human rights campaigns on behalf of writers who are censored or imprisoned.
The People Concern
The People Concern empowers the most vulnerable among us in Los Angeles County to rebuild their lives. It is one of the largest social services agencies in the county with many volunteer opportunities.
Contact the UGS Internship Program for a referral to this organization.
Pilipino Worker’s Center (PWC)
All people and communities have the right to a healthy, dignified quality of life. Yet so many immigrants are working in jobs that cannot meet their basic needs and living in unhealthy environments because they are isolated, disempowered, and overwhelmed by their daily struggle to work and put food on the table. They become victims of wage theft, human trafficking, occupational safety hazards, unhealthy lifestyles, and their own despair. PWC focuses on providing programs that help meet the immediate needs of workers and their families while at the same time building their leadership to take collective action for long last change.
Plaza de la Raza
Plaza de la Raza Cultural Center for the Arts & Education is the only multidisciplinary community arts venue dedicated to serving the Eastside neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Founded in 1970 by prominent labor, business, and civic leaders as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, it offers affordable after-school, intergenerational arts education programs to nearly 4,100 children, teens, and adults each year. Its mission is to foster enrichment of all cultures bridging the geographic, social, artistic, and cultural boundaries of Los Angeles, and beyond.
Pop Culture Hero Coalition
Created by Chase Masterson with Heroism Experts Carrie Goldman & Matt Langdon, The Pop Culture Hero Coalition is the first-ever organization that uses the universal appeal of comics, film & TV to create anti-bullying programs at pop culture events, and in schools and communities. Founded in 2013, Pop Culture Hero Coalition is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that takes a stand against bullying, racism, misogyny, cyber-bullying, LGBT-bullying, and other forms of hate, using the phenomenal popularity of media to bring justice and healing.
POPS the Club
POPS the Club provides a space for high school students struggling with the Pain of the Prison System. They offer opportunities for young people often struggling with the shame and stigma of loving someone in prison to know they are not alone, to create a community, to share their stories with each other, and to listen to the stories of others. POPS the Club also offers opportunities for these students’ stories to reach the world through their publishing program.
Project Angel Food
Project Angel Food prepares and delivers healthy meals to feed people impacted by serious illness, bringing comfort and hope every day.
Contact the UGS Internship Program for a referral to this organization.
Proyecto Jardin
Proyecto Jardín is a place, a people, a movement, and an organization rooted in the community and a 15-year legacy as a force for creative placemaking and neighborhood revitalization. Proyecto Jardín cultivates and promotes community health and wellness, social cohesion, cultural self-determination, and grassroots people power through urban agriculture, traditional healing arts, artistic expression, and community organizing.
Public Allies
Public Allies is a national movement committed to advancing social justice and equity by engaging and activating the leadership of young people. Since 1992, Public Allies have helped thousands of underrepresented young leaders serve our country, get on successful pathways to higher education and careers, and bring communities together to work for the common good. Public Allies operate their signature AmeriCorps program in 24 communities nationwide.
Reading Partners
Reading Partners is a national nonprofit that mobilizes communities to provide students with the proven, individualized reading support they need to read at grade level by fourth grade.
Contact the UGS Internship Program for a referral to this organization.
Reading to Kids
Reading to Kids is a grassroots organization dedicated to inspiring underserved children with a love of reading, thereby enriching their lives and opportunities for success in the future. To this end, Reading to Kids gathers on average 891 children and 379 volunteers at reading clubs on the second Saturday of every month at seven Los Angeles elementary schools.
Ready LA
The beautiful city of Los Angeles is prone to many natural and man-made disasters. But the Ready LA website can soothe your fears, with important facts, valuable tips, and critical reminders for developing emergency preparedness plans to help you, your family, and pets survive every type of conceivable disaster. Most of the time, life goes on here in L.A. without incident. But when calamity strikes… don’t panic! Know where your disaster survival kit is and, if necessary, where your nearest emergency shelter is located. And, oh yes… review Ready LA’s helpful advice.
reDiscover Center
reDiscover Center’s mission is to develop children’s creativity through hands-on making with sustainable materials.
Contact the UGS Internship Program for a referral to this organization.
The Relational Center
The Relational Center’s mission is to serve as a catalyst for empathic, diverse, sustainable community in Los Angeles and beyond. They assume that human beings have a fundamental need to strive together in collective action. In fact, the more they try to overcome complex problems by themselves, the more they suffer. Their hope lies in their capacity to depend on each other and share responsibility for sustaining ourselves, their families, their environments, and their futures.
Ride On! Bike Co-Op
Ride On! is a newly formed bicycle co-op in Leimert Park Village. They are a bike repair member-run collective, developing the capacity to conduct bike clinics on a regular basis for the local community. Ride On! also aims to provide the tools, space, and a community environment to facilitate this bike repair education. In addition to repair services, Ride On! will also conduct workshops on bike safety and advocate for bicycle infrastructure equity in South-West Los Angeles.
Saint Joseph Center
St. Joseph Center’s mission is to provide working poor families, as well as homeless men, women, and children of all ages, with the inner resources and tools to become productive, stable and self-supporting members of the community.
Salvation Army
The Salvation Army has social service agencies strategically placed throughout Southern California. Material and spiritual support is their standard – social services delivered with compassion is their model – anyone in need is the prerequisite. The Salvation Army’s motto of “heart to God and hand to man” is put into action every day as they change lives, transform the community and remain a steadfast beacon of hope for those in need in the Los Angeles County.
Santa Monica Alternative School House
SMASH is an elementary and middle school located in Santa Monica. The charter school enrolls students through a lottery system. The curriculum emphasizes democratic education, real-life issues, self-motivation, social change, and cooperative learning.
School on Wheels, Inc.
School on Wheels provides academic tutoring to children living in shelters, motels, cars, group foster homes, and on the streets in Southern California. They provide homeless students stability in a time of stress and transition and help them achieve educational success so that they may break the cycle of homelessness and poverty.
SCOPE
Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education (SCOPE) builds grassroots power to create social and economic justice for low-income, female, immigrant, black, and brown communities in Los Angeles. To do this, SCOPE organizes communities, develops leaders, collaborates through strategic alliances, builds capacity through training programs, and educates South L.A.’s residents to have an active role in shaping policies that affect the quality of life in our region. Justice, respect, responsibility, integrity, and voice: These are their core values.
Self-Help Graphics & Art, Inc.
Self-Help Graphics & Art, Inc. is a community arts center in East Los Angeles, California, USA. Formed during the cultural renaissance that accompanied the Chicano Movement, Self Help, as it is sometimes called, was one of the primary centers that incubated the nascent Chicano Art movement, and remains important in the Chicano art movement, as well as in the greater Los Angeles community, today.
Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles
The Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles enriches and nurtures personal growth, professional development, and social change through engaging and accessible arts experiences inspired by Shakespeare’s plays and poetry, with a special focus on empowering underserved youth and veterans.
Share. Collaborative Housing Culver City
SHARE! Collaborative Housing is a public-private partnership providing affordable, permanent supportive housing to disabled people in single-family houses throughout Los Angeles County.
Contact the UGS Internship Program for a referral to this organization.
SMART Recovery
SMART Recovery is the leading self-empowering addiction recovery support group. Their participants learn tools for addiction recovery based on the latest scientific research and participate in a world-wide community which includes free, self-empowering, science-based mutual help groups.
South Central Farmers
The South Central Farmers have been fighting for 8 years to preserve 14 acres of what used to be open green space in the middle of South Central Los Angeles. The South Central Farm, located at 41st and Alameda Streets in South Los Angeles, was thought to be the largest community farm in the United States. This land was originally mitigated to the community by Mayor Bradley after the 1992 uprisings. In the first 14 years, this community had benefited by having access to fresh and healthy produce. A majority of these products are not available in local or major produce markets. Additionally, the farm provided access to many Mesoamerican traditional plants that are used for medicinal purposes. The community was composed of 350 families and benefited thousands in the surrounding community.
Southern California Counseling Center
SCCC believes that mental health care is a right, not a privilege. Anyone who needs counseling should have it. It is a belief we have lived for almost 50 years by providing affordable, sliding-scale counseling to people in need for as long as they need care.
The Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research
The Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research primarily documents and preserves the history of twentieth-century radicalism and social change through progressive movements in the greater Los Angeles area.
SOVA Community Food and Resource Program
Much more than a food pantry, JFS { SOVA provides free groceries and an array of supportive services to over 9,000 individuals of all ages, ethnicities, and religions each month.
SPARC Murals
SPARC’s intent is to examine what we choose to memorialize through public art, to devise and innovate excellent art pieces; and ultimately, to provide empowerment through participatory processes to residents and communities excluded from civic debate. SPARC’s works are never simply individually authored endeavors, but rather a collaboration between artists and communities, resulting in art which rises from within the community, rather than being imposed upon it.
Spero Sober Living
Originating from the need to have a safe and supportive environment for women in recovery, Spero House is a sober living committed to helping their residents achieve lasting sobriety. Sober living and aftercare is an integral step in the recovery process- bridging the divide between residential inpatient treatment and the complete autonomy of the outside world. Spero House’s treatment professionals recognize the need for a structured and supportive environment while allowing each client the dignity of self-realization.
Step Up On Second
Step Up envisions that all individuals, families, and communities affected by mental illness will have the opportunity to experience recovery and a sense of belonging, and that permanent supportive housing will be available to everyone who needs it.
Stephen M. White Middle School
Stephen M. White Middle School first opened its doors on February 4, 1957, after breaking ground ceremonies on August 8, 1955. The original campus was surrounded by open fields, cow pastures, incomplete freeways, a few housing tracts. The cost of the school and its 40 acres was $2.5 million and was the most modern school in the harbor area. Stephen M. White Middle School is part of the Los Angeles Unified School District and the last district school to be built with a full auditorium.
Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (SAJE)
SAJE’s mission is to change public and corporate policy in a manner that provides concrete economic benefits to working-class people, increases the economic rights of working-class people and builds leadership through a movement for economic justice. In the process, SAJE also creates models of economic democracy that are replicable and sustainable.
The Strategy Center
The Strategy Center is a Think Tank/Act Tank for regional, national, and international movement building, founded in 1989. It builds consciousness, leadership, and organization among those who face discrimination and societal attack–people of color, women, immigrants, workers, LGBT people, youth, all of whom comprise the Strategy Center’s membership.
Student Task Force
The Human Rights Watch Student Task Force (STF), launched in 1999, is a youth leadership-training program that brings together high school students and educators from the Los Angeles area and empowers them to advocate for human rights issues, especially the rights of children.
The Studio for Southern California History
The Studio for Southern California History is a nonprofit resource that seeks to critically chronicle and share social history in order to foster a sense of place.
Survivors’ Truths
Survivors’ Truths helps groups of people affected by violence or discrimination who are generally either not seen or seen in a negative light. Their projects are geared toward bringing out the parts of each person’s story that include their knowledge, courage, and other resources that have kept them going. The process of telling their own stories of resilience using various creative media is a powerful tool for individual healing and moving forward.
Sustainable Economic Enterprises of Los Angeles
SEE-LA’s mission is to build sustainable food systems and promote social and cultural activities that benefit both low-to-moderate income residents of Los Angeles while also supporting California small- and mid-sized farms and local small businesses.
T.R.U.S.T. South LA
T.R.U.S.T. South LA was established in 2005 as a permanent and democratic steward of land in South Los Angeles. Since its inception, the group has expanded its community membership, has raised and dedicated millions in funds in its effort to improve the way of life for thousands of local residents, businesses, and stakeholders.
Tiyya Foundation
Tiyya was founded on the belief that a community is stronger together if everyone stands together. As a non-profit, Tiyya exists to support and serve refugees, immigrants, and displaced American families so that they can overcome obstacles and become active members of society.
Town Hall Los Angeles
Town Hall Los Angeles is a non-profit, nonpartisan speaker’s forum, providing a vital platform for discussing and debating today’s most pressing issues. One of the Top 10 Leadership Forums in the nation, Town Hall is dedicated to promoting civic participation in the Los Angeles community. In a world of sound bites, Town Hall embodies the values of democracy and the role of an engaged citizenry.
Twin Town Treatment Center
Twin Town Treatment Centers operates six outpatient substance use disorder programs in Los Angeles and Orange Counties serving community residents within a twenty-minute commute. Morning or evening adult sessions and an evening teen program allow patient clients to continue with home, school and work responsibilities as they apply recovery and new coping skills directly into their daily lives. The “take-home” benefits of outpatient treatment is 100%.
Two Bit Circus Foundation
TwoBitCircus.org is a nonprofit educational organization designed to cultivate the next generation of inventors, advance environmental stewardship and spur community engagement. Combining the inspiration of Two Bit Circus with castoff material from hundreds of manufacturers, our programs help students learn STEAM education and innovation skills while inspiring critical and creative thinking.
Two Hawks Quarterly
Two Hawks Quarterly is a digital literary journal brought to others by writers in the UGS Internship in Liberal Studies Creative Writing Concentration at Antioch University Los Angeles. Two Hawks is dedicated to sparking debate and discussion by exposing the world to the most daring, lyrical, and edgy poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, and experimental writing available.
UCLA Labor Center
The UCLA Labor Center believes that a public university belongs to the people and should advance quality education and employment for all. Every day the Labor Center brings together workers, students, faculty, and policymakers to address the most critical issues facing working people today. Their research, education, and policy work lifts industry standards, creates jobs that are good for communities, and strengthens immigrant rights, especially for students and youth.
Unión De Vecinos
Union de Vecinos is an organization of neighborhood committees building community power in Boyle Heights (East LA) and the City of Maywood. Their members represent all sectors of their community: tenants, homeowners, families, youth, seniors, immigrants, low-income families, working-class families, and small business owners. Union de Vecinos started in 1996 with 12 families fighting against the demolition of the Pico Aliso public housing projects.
United Friends of the Children
United Friends of the Children empowers current and former foster youth on their journey to self-sufficiency through service-enriched education and housing programs, advocacy, and consistent relationships with a community of people who care.
The Unusual Suspects Theatre Company
The Unusual Suspects Theatre Company’s mission is to empower youth in underserved and at-risk environments with the means and methods necessary to explore personal and social conflicts and develop self-esteem, communication, and coping skills to make positive life choices and become productive members of the community.
Venice Arts
Venice Arts’ mission is to ignite youths’ imagination, mentor their creativity, and expand their sense of possibility through high quality, accessible, media–based arts education programs. Their programs also serve as a catalyst for people of all ages, living in low–income or underrepresented communities, to create and share personal and community stories through photography, film, and multimedia.
Venice Family Clinic
Venice Family Clinic is the first choice in affordable health care for low-income, uninsured and homeless families and individuals. They serve everyone from infants, children and teens to adults and seniors. Their patients are most highly concentrated on the Westside, but many come from across Los Angeles County.
Vermont Slauson Economic Development Corporation
The primary mission of VSEDC is to facilitate community development of the South Los Angeles area by providing programs structured to revitalize the physical, economic and social life of the community. In order to realize this objective, VSEDC has developed and implemented a comprehensive approach to community economic development that includes business development, technical assistance, and training, residential housing, commercial and industrial development.
Wallace Arts Foundation
Arts education has been on the decline in urban public schools for more than a generation. Since 2005, Wallace has been working with nonprofits and school districts to find out how they might engage more young people in high-quality arts learning during the school day and beyond. Wallace Arts Foundation develops and tests promising ideas on the ground, study the results, research-related issues – and share what they’ve learned broadly to help improve children’s lives.
Warehouse Worker Resource Center
Warehouse Worker Resource Center is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3), organization founded in 2011 dedicated to improving working conditions in the warehouse industry in Southern California. They focus on education, advocacy, and action to change poor working conditions in the largest hub of warehousing in the country.
Wende Museum
The mission of the Wende Museum is to preserve Cold War art, culture, and history from the Soviet Bloc countries, inspire a broad understanding of the period, and explore its enduring legacy.
West Valley Food Pantry
WVFP is an interfaith community-supported approach to alleviating hunger
Contact the UGS Internship Program for a referral to this organization.
Westside Family Health Care
Westside Family Health Center provides comprehensive, high quality, cost-effective health care in an educational and supportive environment that empowers patients to take an assertive role in caring for their well-being through all stages of life.
Contact the UGS Internship Program for a referral to this organization.
Westside Food Bank
WFB is dedicated to ending hunger in Western Los Angeles County
Contact the UGS Internship Program for a referral to this organization.
Westside Pacific Villages
WPV is a grassroots, membership-based, and volunteer-driven non-profit that organizes a variety of connections, support, and events–empowering people to better navigate the changes and opportunities that come with living longer. Their offerings reflect the interests, values, needs, and diversity of their members, and evolve as necessary to best reflect and enhance the membership experience.
Contact the UGS Internship Program for a referral to this organization.
Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum
Will Geer founded Theatricum Botanicum in 1973. Our mission is to elevate, educate, and entertain audiences of all ages by presenting thought-provoking classics, socially relevant plays, and education programs in a beautiful, natural outdoor sanctuary for the arts. By passing on a sense of history to young people and adults alike, great works of art inform their present and inspire their future. A true renaissance theatre, the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum offers a diversity of programming from Shakespeare to poetry to folk music to the development of future playwrights – all to help understand the world we live in and to embrace our shared humanity
WISE & Healthy Aging
WISE & Healthy Aging, a nonprofit social services organization, enhance the independence, dignity, and quality of life of older adults through leadership, advocacy, and innovative services.
Write Approach
The Write Approach offers freelance writing services, specializing in grant writing for nonprofit organizations
WriteGirl
Through one-on-one mentoring and monthly creative writing workshops, girls are given techniques, insights, and hot topics for great writing in all genres from professional women writers. Workshops and mentoring sessions explore poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, songwriting, journalism, screenwriting, playwriting, persuasive writing, journal writing, editing, and more.
Writopia
Writopia Lab is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded in New York City in April of 2007. They run creative writing workshops for kids ages 6 to 18. All of their workshops have a maximum of seven students and are led by a published author or produced playwright who has been fully trained in Writopia’s time-tested methodology.
Y.O.G.A for Youth Volunteers
The Y.O.G.A. for Youth mission is to provide urban youth with tools of self-discovery that foster hope, discipline and respect for self, others, and community. Since its inception in 1993, Y.O.G.A. for Youth has served over 16,000 young people in Los Angeles County alone. A division of Y.O.G.A., Inc, Y.O.G.A. for Youth is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization dedicated to creating opportunities for youth to practice yoga and relaxation in schools, community facilities, hospitals, and detention centers.
Young Nonprofit Professionals L.A. (YNPNLA)
Young Nonprofit Professionals Network is a volunteer-led and -run organization that supports current and future nonprofit and community leaders through professional development training, networking events, and web-based platforms for connecting and sharing resources.
Youth Justice Coalition
The YJC’s goal is to dismantle policies and institutions that have ensured the massive lock-up of people of color, widespread law enforcement violence and corruption, consistent violation of youth and communities’ Constitutional and human rights, the construction of a vicious school-to-jail track, and the build-up of the world’s largest network of jails and prisons.
Contact the UGS Internship Program for a referral to this organization.