Social Impact Summer Scholarship

Social Impact Summer Scholarships (SISS) support students pursuing unpaid positions with host organizations that empower them to add dimension to their undergraduate course work while advancing the organization's mission, goals, and objectives. All applicants are required to have a summer funding advising session with a Lang Center Associate or Lang Center staff member before submitting an application through the Lang Center Common App.

For Summer 2024, applications will be due on February 15. Students do not need to have a secured internship at the time of application, but advising is required.

Current Swarthmore students are invited to utilize our Social Impact Organizations Map (login required)—which provides information on 300+ organizations at which Swarthmore students have had impactful experiences in the recent past—to research potential host organizations. Please note that these organizations operate independently of Swarthmore College and their appearance on this map is not an official endorsement of the organization.

In addition to supporting students who identify their own internship placements, the Lang Center cultivates partnerships with organizations that offer placements to Swarthmore students on a regular basis. These include:

Eviction Lab at Princeton (supported by the Robbins/Chang Big Data and Social Change/Liberal Arts fellowship)
Equity Research and Innovation Center at Yale
Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) - Philadelphia
Puentes de Salud
Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting (through the Pulitzer Center Reporting Fellowship)
Washington Office of Latin America (in collaboration with Prof. Nanci Buiza and the Latin American Studies Program)

The SISS program also helps to administer a number of named grants. Students interested in pursuing opportunities that may fall within the parameters of one of these named grants are particularly encouraged to apply. These include: