Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees - GCIR

GCIR partnered with the Endowment for Health in New Hampshire, the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, and the Norwin S. and Elizabeth N. Bean Foundation to produce this publication. The 16-page collection of stories sheds light on the varied backgrounds of newcomers to the state, the challenges they faced in their homelands, and the talents and skills they bring to their new communities.

Nebraska, once an immigrant destination for Europeans, has emerged as a new immigrant gateway. The state provides many challenges and opportunities for foundations to support the integration of its newcomers.

The Miami Workers Center is engaged at the grassroots level to empower low-income people of color and their communities to combat broader issues of racial and economic injustice.  Through communitywide planning and cross-cultural organizing, the center creates and strengthens community relationships to focus on creating change.

BRIDGE is a tool for all organizers, community groups, educators, activists, advocates, and leaders—anyone committed to supporting the rights of immigrants, refugees, and the communities where we all live. This workbook contains tools for immigrant communities to build alliances and find common ground for action with others fighting for economic, social, and racial justice, and to envision alternatives and resistance in these times of global exclusion, racism, and human rights abuses. BRIDGE strives to place the current work of the immigrant and refugee rights movement in larger historic and global contexts, and to promote the human rights of all migrants and refugees.

This book, which was one of two follow-up reports to the Ford Foundation’s Changing Relations Project from 1987 to 1991, placed multicultural research teams in a variety of U.S. cities. The research revealed that participation across groups in a shared task helps to reduce competition as well as build bonds of trust. The report noted that the challenge is not merely in "harmonizing relations among groups" but in "mobilizing intergroup cooperation into strategies for economic and political advancement." Examples of initiatives included the following areas: affordable housing, economic development, family literacy, and neighborhood and citywide advocacy.

This study reports the results of a comprehensive, 18- month community planning effort in California’s Silicon Valley, where immigrants and their children comprise more than 60 percent of the population. The planning effort engaged multiple stakeholders, including immigrants and established residents, who identified 16 action areas. The detailed research findings, analysis, and policy recommendations cover wages and working conditions, housing, healthcare access, mental health, criminal justice, domestic violence, food, employment training, language access, child care, and legal services.