UUSC was founded in May 1940 as the Unitarian Service Committee with the intended purpose of assisting European refugees endangered by Nazi persecution.
Charles Joy, Elisabeth Anthony Dexter and Noel Field were recruited to work in the organization's Lisbon and Marseille offices and they, along with many refugee volunteers, expanded the relief and emigration programs.
Other board members included Harold Hitz Burton, mayor of Cleveland, Ohio and a future Supreme Court justice; Percival Brundage, senior partner in the Price Waterhouse and future budget director for President Dwight D. Eisenhower; Louise Wright, chairwoman of the voters department of government and foreign policy for the League of Women Voters.
[4] Today, UUSC is involved in coordinating humanitarian efforts and documenting human rights abuses worldwide.
In recent years, the organization has been active in addressing a range of issues, including U.S. immigration policies, climate change and environmental justice for Indigenous communities, supporting civil society organizations in Haiti, providing aid to communities affected by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and advocating for accountability for human rights abuses and war crimes committed by the Burmese military against ethnic minorities, including the Rohingya population.