Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees - GCIR

Overview

During a year of significantly reduced public and philanthropic resources, GCIR focused on providing grantmakers with a forum to identify strategic partnerships that would leverage the influence and impact of their leadership and grant dollars. With a new administration and renewed promise of comprehensive immigration reform (CIR), we organized regular briefings on policy developments and held strategy discussions on CIR advocacy and implementation. We also continued to inform philanthropy about pressing integration issues and promising integration policies and practices.

At the organizational level, GCIR welcomed four new board members and embarked on a long-range strategic planning process to guide our work for the next three years. We also began gearing up for our 20th anniversary commemoration and national convening in 2010—and embarked on discussions about how best to engage foundations in planning for implementation should immigration reform become a reality in the next few years.

We invite you to browse the highlights from GCIR's work below or for more in-depth information, read our 2009 Annual Report.
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Summary of 2009 Programs

In 2009, GCIR organized 14 programs and cosponsored another 14 programs that reached local, statewide, and national funders. These programs covered a wide range of topics including immigration policy reform, immigrant integration, ESL, education, citizenship, social-movement building, wage theft, and the 2010 Census. The diversity of topics reflects both our member-driven approach and our desire to keep funders informed of the most pressing issues in and the latest innovations from the field. Many programs are listed in the online program archives, and a complete list of 2009 programs is available in the annual report.

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California Immigrant Integration Initiative (CIII)

Through the California Immigrant Integration Initiative (CIII), GCIR plays a convening role to help California funders implement the principles of GCIR’s immigrant integration framework and apply best practices. In 2009, CIII members identified the following three strategic priority areas: maximizing participation of immigrants and other hard-to-count populations in the 2010 census; strengthening the infrastructure for naturalization, legal services and fraud prevention, and ESL in rural Northern California; and expanding the strategic communications capacity of immigrant organizations.

To advance CIII’s goals, we undertook the following research projects in 2009:

• California Counts! A Funders’ Guide to the 2010 Census provides an overview of the 2010 census and background information for foundations interested in supporting efforts to produce a more accurate count for populations that have historically been undercounted, such as people of color, immigrants, limited-English speakers, renters, and low-income groups, among others.
• Supply and need for English as a second language (ESL) classes in California. The Migration Policy Institute finished its research, commissioned by CIII, on the supply and need for ESL classes in California. The draft report was shared with various foundations seeking to develop funding guidelines relating to adult English language acquisition.
• California-focused research on health. GCIR produced an annotated bibliography and is in the final stage of completing a report on existing research on language access, cultural competence, and workforce diversity in the health care field for California.
• Leveraging the Role of Community Colleges. In October 2008, GCIR published The Vital Role of Community Colleges in the Education and Integration of Immigrants, a report which calls attention to the critical importance of community colleges in meeting the educational and vocational needs of immigrants and refugees, especially those facing the dual challenge of earning a degree or certificate while learning English.

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Information Resources

GCIR’s publications reflect critical issues facing newcomers and respond to members’ information needs. All of our materials are produced for practical application to grantmaking, so we strive to make sure the recommendations and ideas put forth in all of our resources can be widely used by funders with different funding strategies.

Perspectives
The winter 2009 issue of Perspectives, Impact of Immigration Enforcement Raids on Children and Families: Roles for Foundations, illustrates how enforcement efforts have compromised the well‐being of American children and families and placed enormous burdens on states and local communities to respond to the humanitarian crisis that have followed the raids.

GCIR's Web Site
GCIR’s website, revamped in 2008, contains valuable information for grantmakers around immigration and immigrant integration issues. We continually update the website with new publications from GCIR and the field, upcoming events and program resources, and fast facts on a variety of issue areas including children of immigrants and demographics.

Members' Only Section
GCIR expanded the members-only section in 2009 to include two in-depth member profiles; additional program archive materials, resources, notes, and recordings from past GCIR programs; and an extensive section on immigration and demographic data at state and county levels from the 2000 Decennial Census, 2006 American Community Survey (ACS), and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

California Immigrant Integration Initiative (CIII) Section
GCIR’s website site has a dedicated section on the California Immigrant Integration Initiative (CIII). This section contains numerous issue reports, demographic data by county and legislative districts, and other resources.

In light of busy schedules, the diversity of CIII projects, and the dispersion of CIII members across California, staff created an online forum at http://ciiifunders.ning.com to facilitate discussion, collaboration, and information sharing among CIII members in between in-person meetings. To date, 29 members have joined.

GCIR’s E-Newsletter
In 2009, GCIR decided to focus the e-newsletters on grantmaking strategies, initiatives, and resources that are germane to the interests of our members—as well as targeted announcements to promote our upcoming programs and new online and other resources. In 2009 GCIR distributed eight member e-newsletters, each of which reached more than 300 individual members.
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Strategic Planning

Last summer, GCIR embarked on a long-range strategic planning process to assess the implications of social, economic, and policy trends for our organization and for the field as a whole. GCIR plans to unveil the strategic plan as part of our 20th anniversary commemoration activities at the national convening in June 2010 in New York City.

Oranizational Priorities for 2010

2010 marks an exciting year for GCIR as we celebrate our 20th anniversary, gear up for our national convening in New York, implement our three-year strategic plan, and keep the field informed and prepare implementation strategies for the potential passage of comprehensive immigration reform. We are uniquely positioned to play a leadership role in promoting philanthropic support for comprehensive immigration reform advocacy and implementation. Looking ahead, we will explore ways in which these events can help promote our cause. We will engage our members more deeply, as knowledge and coordination become even more important with fewer resources, and we will call attention to the needs of immigrant groups during these harsh economic times.

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