The Barbara Weitz Community Engagement Center (CEC) building partner organizations have the opportunity to work within the center where they benefit from unique access to UNO faculty, staff, and student resources, other UNO and community building partners, and the amenities within our state-of-the-art facility.
UNO Academic and Career Development Center (ACDC)
The UNO ACDC, which oversees the UNO Student Service and Leadership Collaborative (The Collaborative), empowers students to explore, develop, and succeed at UNO and beyond. We prepare students for meaningful work by building bridges with campus, community, and employers.
Coalition Rx
Coalition Rx aims to reduce the misuse of prescription and non-prescription medicines by partnering with communities to raise awareness, provide community and professional education, prevention and treatment resources and public policy advocacy.
Conservation Nebraska
Conservation Nebraska protects Nebraska’s natural legacy by educating the public, supporting communities, and increasing civic engagement, and educates the public, media, and elected officials about important conservation issues.
Education Rights Counsel
Through advocacy, representation and community collaboration, Education Rights Counsel (ERC) closes the access-to-justice gap and decreases the school-to-prison pipeline for Nebraska’s under-resourced PK-12 public school children and families.Elevate Omaha Inc.
Elevate Omaha Inc. works to create a platform in Omaha to elevate youth voice and equip young people to become leaders who advocate for themselves and their peers, provide insight about youth-driven solutions, and funding possibilities to pave the way to a better future. It provides young people opportunities to participate and develop skills in our foundational pillars:(1) youth-led participatory action research (YPAR), (2) youth advocacy, (3) technical assistance, and (4) has goals of establishing a youth grantmaking system. organizations in the community.
Epilepsy Foundation Nebraska
The Epilepsy Foundation Nebraska educates, empowers, and advocates for Nebraskans impacted by this challenging neurological diagnosis. EFNE was chartered in 2018 to target local services and support the state.
Inclusive Communities
A human relations organization confronting prejudice, bigotry, and discrimination through education programs which raise awareness, foster leadership and encourage advocacy for a just and inclusive society.
UNO Juvenile Justice Institute
The Juvenile Justice Institute (JJI) provides essential technical assistance and completes policy and program evaluations for state and local agencies, as well as private organizations. JJI is increasingly providing more assistance to Omaha area agencies and having CEC space will increase its ability to collaborate more effectively in the community and across campus. This revenue-generating institute supports faculty and student engaged scholarship as well as supports service learning.
Keys Foundation
The Keys Foundation is compassionately dedicated to assisting youth girls with developing their basketball skills and knowledge, all while encouraging fitness for the game of basketball. We are committed to educate and empower today's youth girls of the importance of sportsmanship, teamwork, commitment, and integrity. We also emphasize on keeping the inner city community involved with women's basketball and give women that have a passion for basketball the opportunity to play in a friendly, yet competitive atmosphere.
Learning For ALL
Learning For ALL supports adults in Omaha to acquire the literacy, language, and life skills necessary to thrive and achieve their life goals. LFA offers learning opportunities with schedule flexibility, curriculum pace, one-on-one support, and a family-like environment students need to achieve their goals and succeed in life. The organization offers ESL/ELL, ABE, GED, job preparedness, career readiness, life skills, and citizenship acquisition instruction to residents, immigrants, and refugees 18 and older.
UNO Maverick Food Pantry
The UNO Maverick Food Pantry offers healthy, organic, and culturally sensitive food and personal hygiene products to members of the campus community.
Metro Area Continuum of Care for the Homeless
Metro Area Continuum of Care for the Homeless (MACCH) is the backbone organization of a Collective Impact effort to prevent and end homelessness within the tri-county region of Douglas, Sarpy, and Pottawattamie Counties. Composed of nearly 20 member agencies and multiple individual members, MACCH leads our community in the implementation of its “10 Year Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness.”
UNO Metro Omaha Educational Consortium
The Metropolitan Omaha Educational Consortium (MOEC) is a collaborative organization dedicated to public education and bringing metropolitan area educators together.
Mode Shift Omaha
Mode Shift Omaha advocates for transportation options that enhance the quality of life and opportunities for everyone to live, work, and play.
NAMI Nebraska
NAMI Nebraska is a statewide nonprofit organization that provides high-quality education and support services to those whose lives are impacted by mental illness. We collaborate with other organizations, governmental bodies, and advocates to improve services and quality of life for people with mental illnesses and their families.Nebraska Writers Collective
The Nebraska Writers Collective fosters personal empowerment and community-building in the Midwest through creative writing and performance poetry. The organization works through a variety of literary outreach programs, but primarily through hands-on, interactive workshops focused on the creation and performance of original writing.
UNO Office of Sustainability
The Office of Sustainability works with university administration, faculty, staff, and students to heighten awareness for and identify, implement, and assess sustainability practices across the campus.
Omaha Sister Cities Association
The Omaha Sister Cities Association supports Omaha's connections with its sister cities around the world. This is an all-volunteer, non-profit, membership-based organization with close and long-term ties to UNO. Since its inception in 1965 with starting a sister city relationship with Shizuoka, Japan, OSCA has expanded to include 6 other sister cities and one recent Friendship city.
UNO Omaha Spatial Justice Project
The UNO Omaha Spatial Justice Project (OSJP) is a public humanities project developing an interdisciplinary research group to examine the historic implications of racially restrictive housing practices throughout Omaha’s Douglas County. OSJP received a grant through UNO’s Strategic Investment in Social Justice, Inequality, Race and Class, to create a geographic information systems (GIS) database of restrictive covenants in Douglas County.
Partnership 4 Kids
Provides students the continual support needed to achieve success from kindergarten to careers. Using a foundation in goal-setting proficiency, strengths-based leadership curriculum, and the consistent support of adult role models, Partnership 4 Kids (P4K) focuses on four core areas to prepare students for academic success and the 21st-century workforce.
Prairie STEM
Prairie STEM’s model combines the rigor and innovation of instructional leadership programs with authentic community partnerships and family engagement to transform regional economies through the talent development of all urban and rural students. This effort will cause for old paradigms to die. Transformational system-wide reforms will be needed which are driven by the needs of the future economy.
Project Extra Mile
Project Extra Mile is a network of community partnerships working in Nebraska to prevent and reduce alcohol-related harms. This community organization has an active coalition in the Omaha metro area (Douglas/Sarpy counties). Their work is focused on policy initiatives, enforcement collaborations, media advocacy, education and awareness, and youth leadership.
UNO Samuel Bak Museum: The Learning Center
UNO's Samuel Bak Museum: The Learning Center will offer a source of collaboration and opportunities to students, faculty and staff with the broader community around the subjects of art, Holocaust education, human rights and genocide. These opportunities of engagement will better prepare students with a sense of purpose, civic responsibility, critical thinking, inclusivity and cultural awareness. The center’s purpose is to be a partner and collaborator with all facets of the university, providing unique partnerships and opportunities aligned with internships, degree completion, workforce development, community engagement and social mobility of students, family and the community.
Center will open in a temporary location for 3 years. The 5,200 sq. ft space located in Aksarben Village (2289 S. 67th Street) will host rotating exhibitions of 99 of Bak's work with tours for visitors. The space hosts a classroom (seats up to 30) and a presentation space (seats up to 75) for discussions, educational programming, and events. Samuel Bak Museum: The Learning Center is free to the public.
UNO Service Learning Academy
The UNO Service Learning Academy (SLA) creates university-community partnerships by integrating academic scholarship and civic engagement. These partnerships enhance student learning, advance community development, and foster engaged citizenship.
UNO Spirituality, Public Health, Religious Studies
Spirituality, Public Health, Religious Studies (SPHRS) is a project of Religious Studies that supports, or helps to coordinate, a variety of partnerships, initiatives and activities related to the areas of Spirituality, Public Health and Religious Studies at UNO, UNMC, and in local and global communities.
The UNO Student Service and Leadership Collaborative (The Collaborative)
Formerly known as the UNO Office of Civic and Social Responsibility, The Student Service and Leadership Collaborative (The Collaborative) hires UNO students and connects them with paid internships with nonprofit organizations. Nonprofits provide students with internship experiences while students get paid and make a difference in our community. Students gain valuable skills, experiences, and connections.
UNO Support and Training for the Evaluation of Programs
Support and Training for the Evaluation of Programs (STEPs) is a UNO organization who promotes evidence-informed decision making through research and evaluation. We use a collaborative, utilization-focused approach to support social service programs and policies that transform and improve lives.
The House of Afros, Capes, and Curls
The House of Afros, Capes and Curls is an organization whose goal is to connect people from diverse backgrounds and build a community based on a shared love of science fiction, fantasy, gaming, and Afrofuturism, while providing a safe space to explore the artistic literary and historic merits of geek culture.UNO Tell All the Truth Project
Designed to inspire, harness, and promote expressions of literary imagination, the Tell All the Truth Project aims to foster social justice in the metropolitan community of Omaha, Nebraska by providing meaningful opportunities for collaborative truth-telling through diverse forms of literary expression informed by critical analysis of the nation’s intersectional histories and collective imagination.The Wellbeing Partners
Relying on expertise in worksite wellness and community health, The Wellbeing Partners bridge the good work between worksite wellness initiatives and community health collaboration for the greatest impact in our community. Based on public health and workplace wellness evidence, applied community practice, and partner and resident feedback, The Wellbeing Partners combines the eight dimensions of wellness with the social determinants of health to shape our work.
In January of 2020, WELLCOM and Live Well Omaha merged to become The Wellbeing Partners with a goal to build wellbeing into the way communities grow and do business.
University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) Munroe-Meyer Institute (MMI)
The UNMC Munroe-Meyer Institute’s (MMI) mission is to lead the world in transforming the lives of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, their families and communities through outreach, engagement, premier educational programs, innovative research and extraordinary patient care.
Urban League of Nebraska
The Urban League of Nebraska has been serving the Omaha community since 1927 and is one of 15 out of 98 affiliates to receive a perfect assessment score. A signature program of the National Urban League, Project Ready is a set of evidence-based standards plus practical tools specifically designed for and unique to the Urban League movement, for the purpose of getting African American and other urban youth ready for college, work, and life.
Urban Bird and Nature Alliance
The Urban Bird and Nature Alliance is established to appreciate, respect and value, protect, educate and support the preservation and conservation of nature in urban environments pertaining to urban forestry, sustainable landscapes, birdlife, wildlife, and natural resources. We work to preserve and restore nature for the public gain in Omaha and throughout the state of Nebraska.
WhyArts
A community organization that partners with professional artists and area organizations serving at-risk youth, people with physical, mental or developmental disabilities and seniors to create interactive arts experiences.
UNO William Brennan Institute for Labor Studies
A UNO institute dedicated to fostering creative and critical thinking among labor leaders, potential leaders, and interested members by providing relevant information and training in the skills needed in today’s changing economy and workplace.