Community Organizations

WGIT aims to promote community, culture, and assist locals with deepening their roots by making activities, organizations, and events more accessible for readers. Naturally, being a part of a community goes hand in hand with knowing, listening, and helping the struggles of our neighbors. And so, we added a page listing the community organizations mobilizing and educating the people of DC around local issues, struggles, and movements for liberation.

This page is not meant to surveil organizations, commodify or promote organizations based on popularity, nor rank groups in any way. Our goal is readers use this page to help find organizations they feel inclined to support and join and to be more aware of other community groups amongst DC.

All information gathered was from public sources. If you would to see another organization added or would like to be removed from this page please fill out the feedback form below and we’ll update the page accordingly.

Local Organizations & Advocacy Groups

  • District of Columbia Neighborhood Villages
    “DC Villages is a network of thirteen individual Villages located in the District of Columbia which operates as a collaborative. Participating Villages share information, resources, and strategies to strengthen the individual Villages, all of which serve specific areas or neighborhoods within the city.DC Villages share a number of programs and services. We work together to bring services to underserved parts of the community and to support neighborhood groups looking to start new Villages.”
  • Harriets Wildest Dreams
    • “We are a Black-led abolitionist community defense hub centering all Black lives most at risk for state-sanctioned violence in the Greater Washington area. Our work includes legal empowerment, political and civic education, mass protest, organizing campaigns, and community care that builds alternatives to oppressive systems.”
  • DC Justice Lab
    • “DC Justice Lab is a team of law and policy experts researching, organizing, and advocating for large-scale changes to the District of Columbia’s criminal legal system. We develop smarter safety solutions that are evidence-driven, community-rooted, and racially just. We aim to fully transform the District’s approach to public safety and make it a national leader in justice reform.”
  • Grassroots DC
    • “Grassroots DC provides a space for media production and training to community members, individual activists and progressive nonprofits in the Washington, DC Metropolitan area. Through our training programs, Grassroots DC students learn marketable skills that help to sustain themselves and their families. Through the distribution of news media, such as radio segments, short videos, public service announcements, digital stories, etc., Grassroots DC producers and contributors report on issues important to their communities, educate policy makers and the public at large, and advocate on behalf of public policies designed to improve their lives and the lives of their neighbors.
  • Empower DC
    • “The mission of Empower DC is to enhance, improve and promote the self-advocacy of low and moderate income DC residents in order to bring about sustained improvements in their quality of life. We accomplish our mission through grassroots organizing and trainings, leadership development, and community education. Empower DC is a citywide, multi-issue, membership-based community organizing project. Empower DC builds campaigns to address key issues that directly-impact our membership. The organization is led by its membership, Board of Directors and staff. Empower DC is a 501(c)3 nonprofit. Since 2003, Empower DC has advanced racial, economic and environmental justice by investing in the leadership and organized political power of DC’s lowest income residents and communities.”
  • Hola Cultura
    • “Hola Cultura is a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C. established to celebrate Latino/a culture in all of its grandeur and diversity.​ Hola Cultura serves as a bridge between the area’s Latino and non-Latinx communities, covering topics bilingually that affect D.C. residents’ everyday lives — from arts and humanities to the coronavirus pandemic. The organization got its start in 2011 as an innovative series of artistic mini-documentaries featuring D.C.’s Latino arts, humanities and creative class. It’s the brainchild of Alberto Roblest, an award-winning artist, author and educator. Since those early days, we’ve kept on growing—publishing more than 1,000 articles, interviews and other media with the help of our talented interns and volunteer contributors. Together, we’re building an online archive.”
  • Mutual Aid Groups
  • DC Peace Team
    • “We cultivate the habits and skills of nonviolence in our communities, so we can better resist injustice, and thus, build a more sustainable just peace. The DC Peace Team lives this mission by: Deploying unarmed civilian protection units, providing training in key nonviolent skills, facilitating restorative processes and also advocacy.”
  • Brookland Manor Coalition
    • “Brookland Manor is the largest remaining affordable community in the nation’s capital and its 3-, 4-, and 5-bedroom units are some of the last places for families in the District. But the DC government approved and funded the owner’s plan to tear down more than a hundred family units to replace them with 1,300 luxury apartments. This massive displacement plan eliminates desperately needed family housing and threatens the close knit community supports residents have built over the last 60 years. The Brookland Manor community, a Black stronghold in gentrifying Ward 5, is fighting back. Will you join us?”
  • Food Not Bombs
    • “Food Not Bombs DC is a consensus-based collective that solicits food donations from grocery stores and restaurants and shares hot vegan meals, bags of groceries, and seasonal clothes with and for those in need every Saturday from 2:30 pm – 4:30 pm at Franklin Square. We do what we do because food scarcity is a lie. FOOD DOES GROW ON TREES! People go hungry in our communities because of waste and disempowerment, and we’re here to put a stop to that.”
  • Slow Food DC
    • “Slow Food is a global, grassroots organization with supporters around the world who are linking the pleasures of good food with a commitment to their community and the environment.  It is our goal to connect eaters with the biodiverse and sustainable food producers, as well as increase public awareness of the slow food philosophy. Slow Food DC (SFDC) is one of more than 200 chapters that comprise Slow Food USA. Our chapter is dedicated to good, clean, and fair food in the National Capital Region through tastings, tours, lectures, and volunteer events.  If you are new to Slow Food, you can find out more about Slow Food DC and the Slow Food movement here.”
  • One DC
    • “At ONE DC, our mission is to exercise political strength to create and preserve racial and economic equity in Shaw and the District. We seek to create a community in DC that is equitable for all. We, the people of ONE DC, envision the nation’s capital as a place where low income, poor, and immigrant communities are organized, educated, and trained to take action to create and preserve social and economic equity. The membership and leadership of ONE DC will build on and organize with the participatory democracy goals and principles taught by Ella Jo Baker: involving grassroots people in the decisions that affect their lives; minimizing hierarchy and professionalism in organizations working for social change; and engaging direct action to resolve social problems.”
  • Justice Policy Institute
    • “Founded in 1997, the Justice Policy Institute (JPI) is a national nonprofit organization developing workable solutions to problems plaguing juvenile and criminal justice systems. Our research and analyses identify effective programs and policies and we disseminate our findings to the media, policymakers and advocates, and provide training and technical assistance to people working for justice reform.”
  • Decrim Poverty DC
    • “Through ongoing advocacy, we aim to replace carceral systems with harm reduction-oriented systems of care that promote the dignity, autonomy, and health of people who use drugs, sex workers, and other criminalized populations. As a coalition, we are leading a legislative campaign calling on the District of Columbia to end the criminalization of drug use and possession, and instead address collateral consequences of drug convictions and invest in evidence-based public health approaches that dignify and support people who use drugs. The war on drugs has enabled law enforcement to harass, arrest, prosecute, deport, incarcerate, and even kill people – targeting Black, Latinx, and under-resourced communities in D.C. at vastly disproportionate rates. The impact extends far beyond the criminal legal system, as people face an array of punishments in employment, housing, education, immigration, child welfare, and public benefits – all of which can trap people in poverty. We want to see the D.C. Council introduce and pass our legislative proposal to transform D.C.’s drug laws and invest in a health-focused structure for people struggling with drug misuse and/or people negatively impacted by previous drug convictions.”
  • Black Swan Academy
    • “Founded in 2013, the Black Swan Academy (BSA) is a non-profit organization in the District of Columbia that concentrates its efforts on empowering Black youth through Civic Leadership and Engagement. The Black Swan Academy empowers black youth in under-served communities through civic leadership and engagement, giving them a comprehensive set of tools needed to succeed in life and become active social catalyst in their communities. We are committed to creating a pipeline of Black youth leaders that are committed to improving self, as well as their communities.”
  • The Way Home DC
    • “The Way Home Campaign is a coalition of nearly 7,000 individuals and 110 organizations united in their commitment to solving chronic homelessness in the Nation’s Capital. Our membership includes individuals with lived experience of homelessness, compassionate neighbors, ardent advocates, and local and national experts in the fields of homelessness, healthcare, affordable housing, and the private sector.”
  • Sunrise DC
    • “Sunrise DC dreams of and organizes for a future where all people are truly safe and free. We are a joyful collective of young people, unified by our struggle against the climate crisis and committed to the long-term work to abolish systems of oppression. Together with local partners, we take direct action, build up our community, grow our political power, and practice mutual aid.”
  • DC Greens
    • “DC Greens is a Black-led, multiracial organization that uses the power of equitable food policy, education, and access to build a more just and resilient food system in our nation’s capital. Our vision for health equity is a city where each of us has the ability to shape the policies and institutions that have an impact on our wellbeing.”
  • Fair Budget Coalition
    • “The Fair Budget Coalition (FBC) advocates for budget and public policy initiatives that address systemic social, racial and economic inequality in the District of Columbia. We work to accomplish these goals by leveraging the collective power of our Coalition Member organizations and impacted community members, particularly those from Black and other communities of color. We believe in a just and inclusive District of Columbia—a place that supports strong and stable communities, that allows low-income Black and non-Black communities of color to live in dignity, and that makes it possible for all residents to achieve economic security.”
  • Restaurants Opportunity Center (ROC)
    • “Founded in 2009, ROC-DC is a multiracial membership-based organization that combines worker advocacy, workplace justice campaigns, job training, and research to advance our mission. Our local mission is to build power with restaurant workers across the DMV to win improved wages and thriving working conditions for all! We seek to build a more just and equitable restaurant industry for all workers in the DMV!”
  • Jewish Voice For Peace
    • “JVP opposes anti-Jewish, anti-Muslim, and anti-Arab bigotry and oppression. JVP seeks an end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem; self-determination and security for Israelis and Palestinians; a just solution for Palestinian refugees based on principles established in international law; an end to violence against civilians; and peace and justice for all peoples of the Middle East.  Adopted in 2009.“
  • HIPS
    • “HIPS promotes the health, rights, and dignity of individuals and communities impacted by sexual exchange and/or drug use due to choice, coercion, or circumstance. HIPS provides compassionate harm reduction services, advocacy, and community engagement that is respectful, non-judgmental, and affirms and honors individual power and agency. We believe that those engaged in sex work, sex trade, and drug use should be able to live healthy, self-determined, and self-sufficient lives free from stigma, violence, criminalization or oppression. We will achieve this through engaging sex workers, drug users and our communities in challenging structural barriers to health, safety, and prosperity.”
  • Extinction Rebellion DC
    • “Extinction Rebellion is a decentralized, international and politically non-partisan movement using non-violent direct action and civil disobedience to persuade governments to act justly on the Climate and Ecological Emergency.”
  • SURJ DC
    • “SURJ DC is a chapter of Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), a national network of groups and individuals organizing white people for racial justice. Through community organizing, mobilizing, and education, SURJ provides a space to build relationships, skills, and political analysis to act for change.”
  • Peace House DC
    • “The Peace House is one of the longest standing activist collectives in DC. Through an abolitionist framework. The Peace House uses mutual aid resource sharing, radical political education, and inter-generational relationship building to grow a transformative community. We are fiscally sponsored by Grassroots DC. All your donations can be tax-deductible.”
  • Beloved Community Incubator
    • “Beloved Community Incubator is a worker self-directed nonprofit that provides sliding-scale support for worker-owned cooperatives, collective projects, business owners, and freelancers in the Washington, DC metro region. We help workers create and maintain their own businesses, so that workers control their work, pay themselves living wages, and democratically steward resources together. We provide incubation support, including leadership development, ecosystem and resource organizing and legal, bookkeeping and administrative support for new cooperatives that create living wage work and that are led by poor and working class Black, Brown, Indigenous and People of Color.”
  • Parents Amplifying Voices in Education (DC PAVE)
    • “Founded in April 2016 with an all-parent governing board, PAVE is dedicated to creating an environment where the vision for education in DC is created with children and families, not for them. We aim to shift the dynamic so that communities and parents are partners in creating great schools.”
  • DC Policy Center
    • “The mission of the D.C. Policy Center is to arm decision makers with fact-based, unbiased, and reliable research and analyses to help create a vibrant local economy that can maximize opportunities for residents, workers, and businesses in the District of Columbia. Through objective and rigorous research and collaboration, the D.C. Policy Center develops and tests policy ideas, disseminates its findings, actively promotes policy solutions, and engages in constructive dialogue and debate.”
  • Carecen
    • “Since 1981, CARECEN has remained true to its long history of facilitating the process of transition for immigrants to an integrated life in their new home and equipping them to play an essential role in the advancement of the community.”
  • Latino Economic Development Center
    • “The Latino Economic Development Center (LEDC) equips Latinos and other underserved communities with the skills and financial tools to create a better future for their families and communities. Participants in our programs learn how to build their long-term financial security by buying and staying in their homes, taking control of decisions affecting their apartment buildings, and starting or expanding their small businesses. The entire DC-MD-VA region and Puerto Rico is stronger when all families have the power to achieve financial independence and join with their neighbors to improve their communities.”
  • Defund MPD
    • “Defund MPD formed in June 2020 and we are a Black-led multi-racial coalition of people and organizations in DC who share a common vision of a city without prisons and police. In 2020, there were 15,000+ public submissions on FY21 budget, 1,300+ letters of support demanding changes to the Fraternal Order of Police contract, and over 180 days of political education, protest, and street action. We were born out of the 2020 uprising, and although the climax has passed, we are still active, still engaged, still attentive. Our demand is time-bound to three years to encourage longer term investment from our coalition members, elected officials, and community organizations past the 2022 elections and the upcoming announcement of criminal legal reforms in the district.”

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