Funding and Financing for Impact
Learn how the innovative use of financial tools—including participatory grantmaking, investments, and more—creates access to opportunity for immigrants, refugees, and the communities they join.
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Announcing New Grants to Support New York City Asylum Seekers
The WES Mariam Assefa Fund is excited to announce $230,000 in grants to seven New York-based organizations that support asylum seekers. The funding will enable these groups to strengthen their work on the ground responding to the significant increase in asylum seekers arriving in New York over the past year. The recipients are Adama Bah, […]
Meet Léa Tienou-Gustafson, the Fund’s New Senior Director
On January 17, the WES Mariam Assefa Fund welcomed our new Senior Director, Léa Tienou-Gustafson. Léa comes to us from the Chicago non-profit Heartland Alliance, where she served as director of refugee and immigrant community services, supporting over a thousand refugees and immigrants annually. Léa has more than 15 years of experience working with and […]
How Talent Beyond Boundaries is Supporting Economic Mobility for Refugees in Canada
Talent Beyond Boundaries (TBB) matches refugees abroad with career opportunities in Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. TBB works directly with governments around the world to open up skilled migration pathways to refugees. Through a grant from the WES Mariam Assefa Fund, TBB is collaborating with Jumpstart Refugee Talent (Jumpstart), a national, refugee-led organization that […]
What Inspired Our Team in 2022
As the year winds down, the WES Mariam Assefa Fund team is reflecting on the extraordinary organizations, leaders, and efforts that inspired us. In 2022, we funded a total of 66 organizations across the United States and Canada, including 39 brand-new partners, who are increasing access to opportunity, building wealth, shifting power, and advancing justice […]
A Racial Equity and Immigrant Justice Partnership with Echoing Green: Meet the Fellows
Earlier this year, the WES Mariam Assefa Fund announced a $1.5 million partnership with Echoing Green to launch the Racial Equity and Immigrant Justice initiative, a fellowship to support immigrants and refugees of color in the United States and Canada. Through Echoing Green’s fellowship program, the initiative is supporting 19 Fellows — six brand-new Fellows, […]
Fund Ambassadors Grow a Community of Philanthropic Giving at WES: Announcing New Donations
In 2019, the WES Mariam Assefa Fund launched the Fund Ambassador program, which engages staff from across WES to develop skills in philanthropy and identify mission-aligned organizations to receive Fund donations. This month, we celebrate the accomplishments of the third cohort of Fund Ambassadors, made up of WES employees across multiple departments. The Fund Ambassadors […]
Building the New High Road: Report on U.S. Immigrants and Workforce Development
Immigrants and refugees play a crucial role in the U.S. workforce, especially in growth industries including tech and healthcare, yet they continue to be overrepresented in low-wage occupations. With a desire to learn more about the efforts to address this gap by supporting more inclusive employer practices, the WES Mariam Assefa Fund launched an open […]
Fund for Workforce Equity Selects Inaugural Grantees to Center Workers and Learners of Color
Today, the Fund for Workforce Equity, a new pooled investment fund led by Workforce Matters, announced 15 organizations that will each receive grants of up to $75,000 for initiatives that center the perspectives of workers and learners of color in designing or implementing workforce policies and programs. The grantees – workforce development organizations from across […]
Tips for Funders Beginning Their Participatory Investing Journey
This piece is co-authored by Smitha Das and Katheryn Witt and is the result of a partnership between the WES Mariam Assefa Fund and Common Future. In March 2022, Common Future launched the Action Lab: Participatory Investing, a partnership with the WES Mariam Assefa Fund. The Action Lab is a 12-month initiative in which funders are learning […]
New Workforce Initiative Will Connect Immigrants and Refugees in Rural Areas with Employment Opportunities
BOSTON (OCT. 3, 2022) – Jobs for the Future (JFF), a national non-profit driving transformation in the American workforce and education systems, today announced an ambitious two-year initiative for economic advancement for immigrants, refugees, and migrant workers in rural areas. The Rural Immigrant Success Exchange (RISE), a partnership with Ascendium and the World Education Services […]
Reflections on the Fund’s Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Journey
In 2021, the WES Mariam Assefa Fund team set out to specify how we center justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) in our work. We asked ourselves what our priorities and philanthropic practices looked like, and the steps we could take to put equity at the forefront. As a funder focused on building more inclusive […]
NASH Announces $230,000 Grant from the Fund to Catalyze Leadership Role for Public University Systems in Refugee Resettlement
Funding will enable public higher education systems across the nation to support their campuses in serving as communities of welcome for refugees in both urban and rural areas as U.S. ramps up refugee resettlement efforts Washington, D.C. – The National Association of System Heads’ (NASH) Refugee Resettlement Initiative (RRI) announced today a $230,000 grant from […]
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