In 2013, SJF organized two Immigration Reform Giving Projects to support the immigrant rights movement at a strategic and critical juncture. Collectively, the 25 volunteers who made up these two Giving Projects raised $83,210 and made the following seven grants:
Causa Oregon – Salem, OR. Causa Oregon’s mission is to foster a society that recognizes the contributions of immigrants and upholds the values of democracy, equality, and respect. Causa’s goal for their Comprehensive Immigration Reform work is to build community power in isolated rural parts of the state to support advocacy efforts in Oregon US Congressional District 2 from My to August of 2013 while also continuing their core work of developing leaders within the community.
Center for Intercultural Organizing – Portland, OR. CIO is a diverse, grassroots organization that leads community-based efforts to protect and expand immigrant and refugee rights through education, civic engagement and policy advocacy, community organizing and mobilization, and intergenerational leadership development. Over the past decade, CIO has engaged thousands of individuals from diverse cultural, ethnic, and religious backgrounds.CIO’s role in the immigrant and refugee rights movement has been and always will be to bring a multi-ethnic perspective to the issues they undertake. This grant will fund CIO’s immigration reform work; as Comprehensive Immigration Reform policy is developed, CIO will engage the community using the following criteria: Is the policy truly comprehensive? Does the policy address refugees, unaccompanied minors and LGBT community members? Does the policy protect people’s fundamental human rights and dignity?
Colectiva Legal del Pueblo – Burien, WA. Colectiva’s mission is to build the power of Latino and working class communities to achieve dignity and justice through advocacy, education, and legal services, committed to: (1) representing low-income, people of color and disadvantaged individuals and communities who otherwise would not have legal representation; (2) having a concrete impact that moves us towards eliminating structural inequality; (3) bringing a multi-disciplinary approach to causes and matters even when it is difficult to do so; (4) pursuing community empowerment by collaborating with community organizations and individuals to design strategies to address the issues they identify as most important to them; and (5) being a non-hierarchal collective organization that internally practices what they are struggling for while being respectful of every person’s contribution. This grant will fund Comunidades en Resistencia (Communities in Resistance), focusing on building deportation defense strategies within the community, by organizing, educating and empowering the undocumented communities.
Community to Community Development – Bellingham, WA. C2C is a place based, women-led grassroots organization working for a just society and healthy communities. C2C is committed to systemic change and to creating strategic alliances that strengthen local and global movements towards social, economic and environmental justice. This grant will fund organizing at the intersection of farmworker justice and immigration reform, developing leadership in the farmworker community, monitoring and analyzing current events, educating the solidarity community, creating a report on how the guestworker program plays out in our local region, preparing the farmworker leadership for the coming season, and working on state legislation addressing farmworker issues – which will be determined by the grassroots leaders and the ongoing campaign at Sakuma Berry Farms.
Idaho Community Action Network – Boise, ID. ICAN empowers disenfranchised Idahoans to create the power necessary to create systemic changes that positively impact low income communities and communities of color. We are dedicated to the following principles: Empowerment of disenfranchised people and development of new leadership; diversity; a stable, membership-driven funding base; the democratic process within and outside the organization; and non-violent action in the spirit of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. ICAN’s goals towards Comprehensive Immigration Reform is to continue engaging the local community in the national campaign for immigrant rights, building a base of non-traditional allies, and strategically moving their congressional delegation.
Montana Immigrant Justice Alliance – Bozeman, MT. MIJA is a statewide non-profit organization working for immigrants rights. Montana has a rich history of immigration, but in recent years the contributions that immigrants have made to our State have sometimes been overshadowed by negative stereotypes and false myths. MIJA works to educate the public about our migrant communities, and provide services to empower these communities. This grant will support MIJA’s work to empower the immigrant community through leadership development and education; to fight against the criminalization and systemic discrimination of immigrants; and to provide statewide leadership through coalition building on immigration issues.
Voz Workers’ Rights Education Center and Interfaith Movement for Immigrant Justice (IMIrJ) – Portland, OR. (Joint grant) – Voz is a worker-led organization that empowers immigrants and day laborers to gain control over their working conditions through leadership development, education and community organizing. Voz operates the MLK Jr. Worker Center in Portland, which connects hundreds of workers a week with local employers and jobs. IMIrJ is an interfaith coalition of individuals, faith leaders and congregations responding actively and publicly to the struggles of our immigrant brothers and sisters residing in the United States. IMIrJ is committed to working for a just and humane immigration reform, and the transformation of the social and economic systems that perpetuate the poverty and in immigrants’ home countries that drives much of the migration to the U.S. This grant will support a collaboration between the two organizations to build leadership and power in the immigrant community, by activating faith leaders (clergy and non-clergy) in Latino and non-Latino based congregations, with the overall goal of strengthening the immigrant/day labor rights voice to pressure decision-makers to make just immigration policies.