INVEST YOURSELF: A Guide to Action, is the most comprehensive catalogue of full- and part-time volunteer opportunities with nongovernmental and community-based organizations, tackling problems of hunger, poverty, illiteracy, lack of access to clean affordable water, lack of access to quality health care, disaster recovery, ending toxic pollution and environmental degradation, and more. UCLA students communicated with the organizations listed in INVEST YOURSELF to update their volunteer descriptions, and to advise the partner organizations on how to frame their efforts as working toward the United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

Students assessed the effects of one care farm location to discover ways to improve the positive effects of, and to collect data to support the promotion of, more farms in other locations. A key aspect was the issue of community building around these farms, and how students and families interact with the farm's activities. The students conducted interviews at one of the farm's sites (John R Wooden HIgh School) to collect these data, and also had frequent interviews with the organization's director.

Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (SAJE) builds community power and leadership for economic justice by focusing on tenant rights, healthy housing, and equitable development. 

In this project, a team of students from the UCLA Master’s of Social Science program (MaSS) developed and administred an evaluation survey to assesss the impact of SAJE's Tenant Action Clinic (TAC) . TAC is a weekly workshop run by SAJE staff and volunteering lawyers who educate low income tenants in Los Angeles County (predominantely Latinos, Hispanic and African American families) about their rights and advise them when they are faced with unlawful evictions and issues to do with inhabitability of their homes (i.e. code violations). The evaluation of TAC was executed through a series of structured interviews with tenants over the phone. Findings highlight the value that tenants see in TAC as well as offer a number of methods to increase attendance and to follow up with tenants to facilitate resolution of problems.

Our group's target population is high school students who have at least one foreign-born parent and thus identify as second-generation. As children of immigrants or immigrants ourselves, we know first-hand that as trusted messengers in our household, we are uniquely positioned to engage in discussions about the Census with our loved ones. This generally extends to second-generation immigrants, who tend to explain political information to their parents and families. As such, we want to equip youth populations with accurate, applicable information about the 2020 Census, so they can be an informed trusted messenger for their communities.

For the next ten years, the data collected from the 2020 Census will have political and financial implications for underrepresented communities. Although this project centered around advocacy efforts for 2020, we hope that the materials and information live beyond this course and will be applicable for future generations.

The members of "Asian Americans: #CountMeIn" have a collective vision: to integrate and answer to the needs and concerns of Asian-Americans in LA County by motivating the AAPI (Asian-American Pacific Islander) community to participate in the Census. As members of different AAPI racial groups, we contain a connection in regards to the struggles and needs of the Asian-American community - and hope to further tap into these connections through engaging in grass-root movements.

Thus, in an attempt to understand and increase low Census response rates of Asian Americans in Los Angeles County, "Asian Americans: #CountMeIn" conducted a 10-week hands-on project to engage, outreach to, and educate Chinese, Korean, and Filipino communities. 

In December 2018, the Green Together collaborative, a diverse group of public and non-profit sector partners, received a Transformative Climate Communities (TCC) program grant from the California Strategic Growth Council (CA SGC). The proposal focused on investments in Pacoima and Sun Valley, city of Los Angeles neighborhoods in the northeast San Fernando Valley with a long history of environmental injustice. The award will bring in $23 million of public money raised through California’s Cap-and-Trade program to the project area for development and infrastructure projects to achieve significant environmental, health, and economic co-benefits in the state’s most disadvantaged communities. While the significant investment is expected to generate numerous positive benefits for local residents and businesses, these transformative investments also bring the risk of displacement in the working class community. To address the possibility of gentrification and displacement, CA SGC requires TCC program grant awardees to prepare and implement a Displacement Avoidance Plan (DAP). UCLA’s Center for Neighborhood Knowledge (CNK) and Professor Vinit Mukhija from UCLA Urban Planning, are providing the lead grantee (Pacoima Beautiful) with research on how to develop a Displacement Avoidance Plan.

As part of their work with the Consejo de Federaciones Mexicanas de Norteamérica, students assist with commmunity outreach, citizenship workshops, and logistical support in Spanish. Some specific tasks have been carrying out phonebanking to explain the Water Talks initiative, conducting an opinion survey of community members throughout the San Gabriel Valley, assisting community members with census registration, and filling out the citizenship application form. Additionally, in 2020, students provided assistance with the transition of organizational resources to digital platforms in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Final projects include the creation of  informational materials in English and Spanish regarding the Water Talks initiative, legislation to protect water reservoirs in the San Gabriel Valley, a digital petition in support of the legislation campaign, a video on the process to obtain citizenship, and bilingual electronic cards to prepare for the naturalization civics test. 

The students involved with the organization Knowing Neurons perform translation services and community outreach. The goal of the organization is to make neuroscience accessible to a broad public. In this particular project, students with a passion for both Spanish and neuroscience translate articles from English into Spanish, interview Spanish-speaking neuroscientists (see podcast section on the website), and conduct workshops for Latinx youth on the path to earn a STEM degree. The translations are reviewed and edited by a linguist, Dr. Carla Suhr from the UCLA Department of Spanish and Portuguese, and a neuroscientist, Dr. Rafael Romero-Calderón from the UCLA Neuroscience Interdepartmental Program.