WLI’s Founding

The UCLA Watts Leadership Institute (WLI) is an initiative that addresses what a 2013 UCLA Center for Civil Society report described as myriad challenges many small, community-based nonprofit agencies face as they work to survive in already marginalized communities in LA County, including Watts. The report identified what WLI’s founders had seen and experienced all too often – communities across Los Angeles County faced a human services crisis, characterized by a lack of locally-focused, sustainable human service organizations/programming, and a lack of overall support.  In response to this report and along with other research findings and personal experiences, in 2016, in collaboration with a number of Watts residents and stakeholders, Jorja Leap, Ph.D., Adjunct Professor of Social Welfare and Karrah Lompa, M.S.W., launched the UCLA Watts Leadership Institute (WLI). 

WLI was originally established as a 10-year initiative focused on building and advancing community leadership by investing in the grassroots leaders and nonprofit organizations who were already doing critical work in Watts, but they did not have adequate resources or networks. The establishment of WLI represented an effort to advance leadership, knowledge, and long-term sustainability among the small and struggling nonprofit organizations and individual leaders in Watts.  The multi-year engagement and cohort model, coupled with both training and financial investment in WLI members, makes the WLI model unique.