This Giving Tuesday, the Santa Barbara Independent is encouraging our readers to participate in Giving Tuesday by highlighting area nonprofits and their great work. Below, you will find a sliver of the nonprofits doing good work in the Santa Barbara community.
We encourage our readers, if able, to contribute this season to a nonprofit listed below or your favorite nonprofit.
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AHA! Attitude. Harmony. Achievement.
AHA!’s mission is to inspire communities to feel safe, seen, and emotionally connected. We equip teenagers with social-emotional intelligence to dismantle apathy, prevent despair, and interrupt hate-based behavior. By cultivating empathetic leadership, AHA! transforms communities into welcoming, nourishing, expressive, and inclusive spaces where youth and adults work together for the highest good.
ASAP Cats
The mission of the Animal Shelter Assistance Program (ASAP) is to save the lives of cats in Santa Barbara County by providing shelter, veterinary care, behavioral support, adoption and foster services, education and community outreach.
C.A.R.E.4Paws
C.A.R.E.4Paws works to reduce pet overpopulation and improve pet family welfare.
Chumash Museum and Cultural Education Foundation
To promote respect, knowledge, and dialogue by collecting, preserving, and presenting outstanding collections, images, and programs about Chumash culture. Our stories will connect the past with the present to inform our shared future.
Community Environmental Council
The Community Environmental Council has pioneered environmental solutions on California’s Central Coast for more than 50 years. While regressive climate policies threaten to unravel years of progress, we are doubling down to ensure that our region is a tangible, real-world model of what healthy, equitable, climate-safe communities can look like.
Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse (CADA)
The Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse (CADA) is committed to building healthier lives, stronger families, and a safer, more vibrant community. Since 1949, the Council on Alcoholism & Drug Abuse (CADA) has delivered programs and services focused on the education, prevention, and treatment of substance abuse and co-occurring mental health conditions affecting youth, adults, and families throughout Santa Barbara County.
Doctors Without Walls – Santa Barbara Street Medicine
DWW-SBSM is dedicated to providing free, volunteer medical care for the most vulnerable of Santa Barbara County, when and where they are in need, including in times of disaster, and to provide education and training for DWW-SBSM volunteers and others, in order to promote the excellent practice of humanitarian medicine in our hometown and elsewhere.
Environmental Defense Center
Defending nature and advancing environmental justice on California’s Central Coast through advocacy and legal action.
Gateway Educational Services
Creating equity through education and access for all students who lack the resources and support to succeed.
Gaviota Coast Conservancy
Gaviota Coast Conservancy is dedicated to permanently protecting the rural character and environmental integrity of the Gaviota Coast for present and future generations. Through acquisitions, easements, and restoration—highlighted by the 3,272-acre Rancho Tajiguas—we safeguard the coast’s land, water, wildlife, and enduring heritage.
Goleta Valley Historical Museum
To collect, preserve, interpret and foster appreciation of Goleta Valley’s history through exhibits, programs and stewardship of the historic Rancho La Patera, home to the Stow family.
Good Samaritan Shelter
To provide emergency, transitional, and affordable housing with support services to the homeless and those in recovery throughout the Central Coast.
Heal the Ocean
Heal the Ocean focuses on wastewater infrastructure – sewers and septic systems – as well as ocean dumping practices that have contributed to ocean pollution. We are focused on Santa Barbara County, but our methods now serve as a model for other coastal communities across the country.
Ice in Paradise
Our mission [as a non-profit organization] is to provide a wide variety of recreational ice-skating programs for all members of our community to enjoy at affordable prices within a state-of-the-art facility. We strive to deliver this within a safe, friendly and fun environment with unparalleled customer service.
Juneteenth Santa Barbara
Year-round, in addition to the annual Juneteenth Santa Barbara celebration, Juneteenth Santa Barbara utilizes its platform to uplift all Black/African American-led/serving organizations to bridge understanding, community, and joy.
League of Women Voters of Santa Barbara
For 105 years, the League of Women Voters has been a respected, activist, grassroots organization working “to empower voters and defend democracy.” For 87 years, LWV Santa Barbara has advocated and educated on important issues, registered voters, held candidate forums, and provided well-researched non-partisan information about ballot measures.
Legal Aid Foundation of Santa Barbara County
Legal Aid Foundation of Santa Barbara County is a non-profit law firm that provides free legal assistance to Santa Barbara County residents. Our mission is to provide high-quality civil legal services to low-income and other vulnerable residents in order to ensure equal access to justice. We change lives through direct representation, legal advice and information, and community education.
Mickey Flacks Journalism Fund
To promote social justice and protect the environment, SBCAN — in partnership with the Santa Barbara Independent — supports research and reporting on environmental and social justice issues. Your tax-deductible donations to the SBCAN Mickey Flacks Journalism Fund will help ensure that these issues will continue to be researched and reported on in the Santa Barbara region.
Music Academy of the West
The mission of the Music Academy of the West is to provide classically trained musicians and diverse audiences with transformative educational and performance experiences. We support musicians to expand their talents, inspire each other, and pursue artistic innovation.
New Beginnings
Our mission is to provide quality, affordable counseling, shelter, case management, and education that strengthen our community and provide our clients with the ability to lead healthy and productive lives. We strive to be recognized as a leading organization that meets the shifting needs of our community through our superior clinical training program and focused supportive services, delivering exceptional outcomes cost effectively.
Partners in Housing Solutions
Partners in Housing Solutions helps people who are experiencing homelessness and those at risk to secure and retain permanent housing through our network of rental property owners.
PEP Postpartum Education for Parents
PEP supports growing families in Santa Barbara County through education, encouragement, and community connection in a nonjudgmental, inclusive environment. As a volunteer-run organization, we keep services free and costs low. Families often share how much PEP means to them, your support helps us keep making that difference every day.
Santa Barbara Botanic Garden
Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, the first in the nation to focus on native plants, spans 78 acres with trails, a nursery, and research facilities. For nearly a century, it has worked to conserve native plants and habitats for health and well-being of people and the planet.
Santa Barbara Channelkeeper
Santa Barbara Channelkeeper is a grassroots non-profit organization dedicated to protecting and restoring the Santa Barbara Channel and its watersheds. Through science-based advocacy, education, fieldwork, enforcement, and community engagement, Channelkeeper defends our community’s right to clean water and informs, inspires, and empowers people to speak and act for our waterways.
Santa Barbara County Action Network
SBCAN is a countywide grassroots organization that works to promote social and economic justice, to preserve our environmental and agricultural resources, and to create sustainable communities. SBCAN advocates a holistic approach to community planning that integrates housing, open space, and transportation to meet the needs of all members of our community and future generations.
Santa Barbara County Genealogical Society
The Santa Barbara County Genealogical Society helps people, wherever they come from, discover, document, share, and preserve their family histories. We are a premier genealogical resource inspiring discovery of ancestral, cultural, and ethnic roots.
Santa Barbara High School Alumni Association
The Santa Barbara High School Alumni Association was created in 1975 to advance the interests and welfare of Santa Barbara High School and its students, staff, and alumni. We provide educational scholarships, support reunions, allocate monetary assistance to classroom projects, grant awards, beautify the campus, and preserve the history and archives of the school. We promote unity and equity and encourage Dons spirit to honor our shared legacy.
SB Culinary Experience
The Santa Barbara Culinary Experience, in partnership with The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts, organizes annual food and drink events showcasing the local culinary and hospitality industry throughout Santa Barbara County. A portion of the proceeds supports nonprofits making a difference in the area’s food system.
ShelterBox USA
To provide families with life-saving shelter and essential tools and supplies that will enable them to rebuild their homes and transform their lives after disaster and to build awareness of global displacement.
State Street Ballet
Santa Barbara’s State Street Ballet strives to create exceptional art through imaginative programming, quality dance training, and community engagement, ensuring a vibrant future for our organization and the arts community.
Unite to Light
Unite to Light envisions a world where every person has access to clean, affordable light and energy. We provide low cost solar lighting and energy to people living without electricity to improve global health, education, prosperity, and fight climate change.
United Boys & Girls Clubs of Santa Barbara County
To enable all young people, especially those that need us most, to reach their full potential as productive caring and responsible citizens.
Unity Shoppe Santa Barbara
Unity Shoppe is dedicated to providing residents impacted by temporary conditions of poverty, natural disaster or health crisis with resources, including groceries, clothing, and other essentials, that reinforce human dignity and encourage self-sufficiency and independence.
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