Connect with Local Community Partners

The Institute for Social Concerns invites you to expand your learning and work into the neighborhoods of South Bend and beyond. Thousands of Notre Dame faculty, staff, and students take part in opportunities offered through the center and our many partners. Consider engaging with an organization in the directory below through a Community-Engaged Course, research project, or volunteer opportunity.

Community partners listed in this directory work with the center’s Community-Engaged Learning Program Director to better understand the center’s core principles for academic community engagement:  university/community courses, research projects, and volunteer opportunities are designed and delivered collaboratively to meet the needs of community partners as well as the learning goals of university members,  outcomes and deliverables from the collaboration are designed with community partners to advance their work and belong to them upon completion, and. the aim of such collaborations is social justice.

Seven of these partner sites host Community-Engaged Learning Coordinators (CELC) who are part of a practitioners group on community-engaged research, teaching, and learning. CELCs have significant experience partnering with individuals at Notre Dame and can help students and instructors find agencies to collaborate with in mutually beneficial ways.

Students, Faculty, and Staff: Get Started!

To start your community engagement, contact a CELC or any of the organizations listed here to ask what they need and develop ways to collaborate together. Contact the Community-Engaged Learning Program Director (Dave Lassen, dlassen@nd.edu) if you have any questions.

Community Organizations: Apply to Partner with the Institute for Social Concerns

If you are a community partner who would like to be considered a partner of the Institute for Social Concerns and added to this directory, contact the Community-Engaged Learning Program Director (Dave Lassen, dlassen@nd.edu). Partners of the center must:

• Do work that aligns with the mission and values of the University and the Institute for Social Concerns; 
• Provide ongoing evidence of compliance with risk mitigation and safety efforts for volunteers;
• Provide excellent orientation, placement, supervision, reflection, and assessment of volunteers;
• Communicate accurately and responsively with University partners and volunteers;
• Participate as they are able in events and activities that advance academic community engagement, such as the Social Concerns Fair.

We look forward to seeing the positive community impact that happens when we collaborate!