Mariam Assefa Fund - Grantee Partners

Grant – Project Support

Established with a vision of creating a just and equitable Calgary for all, ActionDignity is a community-based organization that amplifies the collective voice of ethnocultural, racialized, and equity-seeking communities, with a mission to collaborate with those communities and create transformational changes. Its approach is focused on catalyzing collective impact by building the capacities of grassroots ethnocultural organizations to strengthen their communities and bring about systems change.

This new grant builds on the Brave Workers project and will support ActionDignity in further empowering racialized essential workers to better understand and advocate for their rights. The new project will have three main components, including (1) community engagement and capacity-building for racialized essential workers and ethnocultural communities, (2) establishment of a Knowledge Hub and Resource Centre for immigrant workers, and (3) systems change and policy advocacy. With this new project, ActionDignity will expand its reach to 1,500 workers and will direct its efforts toward meatpacking workers from other plants in Calgary, as well as other essential workers, including health care aides.

Grant – Project Support

African Bridge Network creates a supportive environment helping African and skilled immigrants leverage their qualifications and experiences to maximize their potential in Massachusetts. ABN uses a comprehensive integration approach to bridge gaps and fulfills its mission through orientation workshops, advocacy, and specialized programs providing access to resources, mentorship, and professional networking opportunities. In 2022, ABN launched the Untapped Talent Consortium with five human services agencies (Bay Cove Human Services, HMEA, Thrive Support & Advocacy, Advocates, and Venture Community Services) to develop model solutions transforming how human services agencies can effectively support immigrant employees and to create a pathway for systemic change in the human services industry in Massachusetts. The five agencies have identified solutions they will prioritize going forward.

This renewal grant helps ABN continue partnering and supporting these five agencies to implement and integrate their solutions and initiatives across their organizations and expand the number of consortium members.

Grant

Alberta International Medical Graduate Association (AIMGA) works to integrate International Medical Graduates (IMGs) into the Canadian healthcare system through various services such as new member orientation, study groups for licensing examinations, career transition programs etc. AIMGA’s vision is to improve healthcare through the re-engagement of IMGs in Canada and support them.  

With this grant, AIMGA is researching alternative health care careers for IMGs, such as allied technical assisting, and educational roles in healthcare and medicine, and working with employers to develop pathways for them to enter these fields. Building on AIMGA’s existing career transition program, this initiative aims to understand the perspectives of employers within those alternative health care careers and the challenges IMGs face in entering those jobs. The employers and IMGs are offered support, resources, and training to ensure the successful employment of IMGs into non-physician health and wellness careers.  

Grant – General Operating Support

Alianza Americas’ mission is to create an inclusive, equitable, and sustainable way of life for migrant communities living in the United States and across the Americas. They are committed to empowering community leaders, government agencies, labor organizers, and faith-based communities, to work transnationally to provide a more dignified and just way of life for all people living in the Americas.

Their program, Instituto de Liderazgo, is providing training and opportunities for Latin American and Caribbean immigrants leading community-based organizations to become more civically engaged at different levels of society.

Grant – General Operating

Article 47 is an initiative founded in 2021 that addresses systemic injustice through innovative philanthropy. Its leadership team, composed entirely of individuals from marginalized communities, has distributed more than $330,000 in rapid-response funding and larger grant initiatives to support causes often overlooked by traditional philanthropy. It prioritizes community-driven engagement and actively connects with marginalized communities to address systemic injustices. Article 47 works with a fiscal sponsor, the Quebec Public Interest Research Group at Concordia (also known as QPIRG Concordia).

This grant supports the operational and programmatic aspects of Article 47’s work, enabling it to continue and expand efforts in combating systemic issues and promoting social justice for BIPOC communities.

 Grant – Project Support

Au Coeur de l’Enfance is an innovative norofit based in Montreal, Quebec, with an integrated model of services providing social, medical, and education support to children and their families, mainly in asylum-seeker and migrant groups with a precarious immigration status. Au Coeur de l’Enfance operates in the Saint-Laurent neighboood of Montreal. This neighbourhood is home to the majority of asylum seekers who settle in Montreal.

With this grant, Au Coeur de l’Enfance will pilot the new service delivery model, which will combine legal with social support, with the intention to scale the model if social impact is demonstrated. Au Coeur de l’Enfance will partner with Clinique de Justice Migrante, a newly established legal clinic and migrant rights advocacy organization, which will provide training on immigration issues to Au Couer de l’Enfance’s social support team and will be offering direct legal counselling to the families served. With this partnership, the Clinique de Justice Migrante will also facilitate access to legal representation for the families Au Coeur de l’Enfance supports.

Co-funding Partnership

Beati Foundation has been providing grants and non-financial support to groups fighting social inequalities and poverty throughout Quebec and has supported more than 839 projects to date. The foundation recognizes forms of systemic oppression and aims to support initiatives based on furthering the common good and geared toward profound social and ecological transformation.

Beati Foundation, through its annual grantmaking process, provides 90,000 three-year grants to grassroots in Quebec to support their staffing needs. In addition, Beati Foundation receives several requests for smaller donations from these groups throughout the year to support their operating costs and immediate priorities. will allow Beati Foundation to increase amounts of funding it offers selected organizations involved in immigrant, refugee-serving, and anti-racism efforts in 2023 and provide additional resources for ad hoc discretionary funding requests by organizations in this category throughout the year.

Grant – Project Support

Founded in 2017, Better Future Forward (BFF) is a social enterprise leading a movement for education finance reform in the current higher education system. BFF believes all hardworking students deserve access to financial support, regardless of their background. Students from immigrant families disproportionately face barriers in acquiring and paying student loans due to lack of access to in-language resources and limited or no access to mainstream financial services and products. BFF provides students with an Income Share Agreement (ISA), a financial product wherein students receiving funding for education agree to make a fixed number of income-determined monthly payments after they leave school. Students only have an obligation to make payments in months when they are earning above a minimum amount.

This grant is investing in a new, critical layer in BFF’s student engagement efforts: a student and alumni advisory board that enlists a core group of young people to address strategic questions on the overall direction of the organization and how it approaches its mission. Developing this group of students and alumni who can provide information from their lived experience, as immigrants or as BIPOC, will strengthen BFF’s mission.

Grant

Better Way Alliance (BWA) is a coalition of business owners and employers that support decent work practices, such as fair wages, paid sick days and fair scheduling laws. BWA members employ more than 30,000 workers in Ontario and the industries range from services, retail, food and beverage to manufacturing. BWA provides its members with space to discuss decent work practices, supports them in their advocacy efforts, and offers public exposure as decent work businesses.  

BWA is expanding its advocacy, capacity building, and policy change work. They are building on their research to develop a series of action-oriented case studies focused on key issues that racialized, immigrants, and workers in low-wage jobs face when it comes to decent work. Each report will build a business case for specific practices and propose tips and resources on how business owners can implement it into their own businesses. BWA is offering workshops and outreach programs focused on finding employers with decent work practices, especially the ones that are immigrant-owned or employ immigrant workers. These employers will be supported to act as leaders to advocate for decent work and grow the movement.  

Grant – Project Support

Building Skills Partnership (BSP) is a California statewide organization whose mission is to improve the quality of life for property service workers and their families by increasing their skills, access to education, and opportunities for career and community advancement. BSP represents property service workers, the majority of whom are Latinx immigrants in low-wage janitorial positions. Recognizing that the needs of workers go far beyond the workplace, BSP takes a holistic approach and strives to create an equitable future for its clients and their families. BSP currently serves 5,500 workers in California each year, and links responsible businesses directly with the service employees union. 

This grant will help scale BSP’s work and develop new career pathways programs. Amid COVID-19 and as the economy reopens, BSP is undertaking critical efforts to ensure worker safety and help career pathways programs evolve to meet the needs of workers and employers. Because of COVID-19 and the overall need for better safety and preparedness, BSP is developing an industry-recognized Infectious Disease Certification training as a pathway to career and economic mobility. Also, in light of COVID-19, BSP is exploring alternative service delivery models to support workers who have low levels of digital literacy, limited access to Wi-Fi and equipment, and limited English proficiency. BSP’s impactful work with janitors, airport workers, and other property service staff can serve as a model for other organizations looking to create viable career pathways for similar frontline and service sector workers, many of whom earn low wages and struggle to become economically mobile. 

 Grant – General Operating Support

The Canadian Centre for Nonprofit Digital Resilience (CCNDR) was launched in March 2022 with a vision of a digitally enabled non-profit sector where Canada’s diverse non-profits use data and tech to advance their mission and multiply their impact.

With this grant, the Fund will be joining other funders that have already committed to supporting CCNDR’s operations for the next three years. More specifically, the  Fund’s grant will be allocated for staffing and other costs associated with the Digital Leadership for Gender Justice initiative that CCNDR will be launching in 2023. For this initiative, CCNDR will establish a research and development consortium to co-design a program focused on Canadian organizations serving immigrant and refugee women. The initiative will explore ways to leverage opportunities presented by virtual service delivery, digital technologies, and data as well as how to adopt new technologies and use data in a safe, secure, and responsible way.

Grant – Project Support

The Canadian Council for Refugees (CCR) consists of over 200 member organizations all working with and for refugee and immigrant communities throughout Canada. By engaging in advocacy, policy monitoring, network expansion, and public education, CCR empowers its members and communities to bring about systemic change.

Impact Investment

Cell-Ed is an early-stage mobile-first education technology company that helps workers attain essential life and job skills more effectively. Founded in 2014 by Jessica Rothenberg-Aalami, Cell-Ed’s platform supports English language learning, sector-specific training, and the digital literacy needs of immigrant workers. Tens of thousands of adults currently use Cell-Ed’s platform, courses, and content to experience 84 percent faster skills gains. Learners access Cell-Ed through partner organizations that include education providers and employers in the United States and worldwide. 

Since its inception, Cell-Ed has been an innovator in providing access to educational content to individuals in low-wage jobs. Originally created to serve Latinx immigrant women in California, Cell-Ed has developed a tool whose robust content enables learners to listen to lessons on a flip phone, from anywhere, at any time. Ninety percent of Cell-Ed’s current users are Black or Latinx, and the vast majority are also first- or second-generation immigrants. The opportunity gap experienced by workers with low literacy or low educational attainment in low-wage jobs is daunting. The Fund’s investment will enable Cell-Ed to expand the reach of its core mobile skill-building product, invest in its people, and launch new products and forge new partnerships that work to bridge the opportunity gap and position Cell-Ed learners to advance in high-growth sectors, such as health care. 

Grant

The Centre for Civic Religious Literacy (CCRL) is a non-profit that aims to foster an understanding about religious, spiritual, and non-religious people so that individuals can live and work better together. CCRL is partnering with Temiskaming Shores & Area Chamber of Commerce (TSACC), the Rural Development Network (RDN) and Religious Freedom and Business Foundation (RFBF) for this project.  

Temiskaming Shores & Area is a small, 30,000 resident, highly homogenous region in Ontario with a strong desire to welcome and recruit immigrants and refugees but an inability to attract and retain them successfully. To create a welcoming and inclusive space that entices recruitment and promotes retention of immigrants, the four partners are piloting a faith-based employee resource group (ERG) that will showcase the needs of local immigrant and refugee populations and enable employees to connect with others with similar or different faiths or ethnical and cultural identities.

Grant

The Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Migration and Integration, launched by the Canadian Government at Ryerson University, aims to create innovative and accessible knowledge surrounding the connections between migration and post-migration processes, forced and voluntary mobility, internal and international migration, and the role of countries of origin and transit, including non-state stakeholders at local, national, and international levels. They disseminate their research through scheduled events enabling community and key stakeholders to access it.   

This project is addressing the issues temporary migrant workers encounter in the agricultural sector. These workers account for half of Canada’s paid agricultural workforce and are often employed in conditions where discrimination, exploitation, and abuse are common. CERC in Migration’s “Fair Farm Work” project seeks to harness consumer power to drive change for agricultural workers by creating a Fair Work labelling scheme that outlines a set of guidelines that producers, suppliers, and distributors must meet to be certified. The project will entail learning from other fair work certification initiatives, especially in Europe and the U.S., analyzing current gaps in Ontario legislation regarding the regulation of farm work, building a fair work coalition of farmers, employer and worker associations, supermarkets and distributors, and local and regional authorities. 

Grant – Program/Project-Specific Grant

The Chicago Community Trust, founded in 1915, is one of the oldest and most prominent community foundations in the United States. The Trust is committed to building thriving, equitable, and connected communities in the Chicago area. The Fund is contributing to one of the Trust’s standout initiatives, the Illinois Immigration Funder Collaborative (IFC). IFC brings together funders, service providers, and community leaders to address critical funding gaps in areas such as legal services, workforce development, healthcare, and other resources for immigrant’s success and well-being.

Grant – General Operating Support

Code the Dream offers free intensive training in software development to people from diverse low-income backgrounds. The ultimate goal of Code the Dream is to create a unique win-win that allows coders in the program to acquire real experience building apps that make the world a little bit better, and then use that experience to launch new careers that offer greater opportunity.

This grant is supporting Code the Dream’s efforts to scale its model and expand access to its apprenticeship program which provides students with hands-on experience in the tech industry. Code the Dream’s work can help employers hire, invest in, and support immigrant and refugee workers.

Grant – General Operating

Established to fill an existing service gap for refugee and immigrant communities in Northeast Wisconsin, COMSA (originally started as Community Services Agency Inc.) strives to create an environment that welcomes immigrants and refugees and provides services that support economic stability. These services include after-school programs, citizenship classes, youth leadership mentorship, English classes, and summer school programs.

This grant is supporting and scaling up COMSA’s essential work to provide services for resettled refugees. In 2022 alone, COMSA served 1,540 clients, provided nearly 2,000 hours to support language acquisition and academic achievement, and collaborated with Catholic Charities to host a cultural orientation program attended by 60 members of the Afghan community.

Project Support 

Ryerson University has a unique mandate to meet societal needs through high-quality, professional, and career-related programs as well as scholarly, research, and creative activities. Ryerson is student-focused, providing an emphasis on experiential learning, creativity, entrepreneurship, adult learning, and alternative pathways for marginalized populations.  

Established in 1999, the Ted Rogers School of Management’s Diversity Institute conducts and coordinates multidisciplinary, multi-stakeholder research to address the needs of diverse Canadians, the changing nature of skills and competencies, and the policies, processes, and tools that advance economic inclusion and success.   

 In recent research, Diversity Institute finds that racialized newcomer youth often encounter systemic challenges, including barriers to accessing post-secondary education, barriers to job placements and training programs, and barriers to securing employment. With support from the Fund, Diversity Institute will implement a program to provide language skills, digital skills training, counselling, and wraparound services for racialized newcomer youth, particularly Afghan refugees. The program will serve approximately 100 racialized newcomer young people in the Greater Toronto Area, Halifax, and Calgary.  

Grant – General Operating

Documented, founded in 2018, is a non-profit newsroom that has become the go-to source for news, investigations, and resources focused on immigrant New Yorkers. Documented engages with its community of readers through a multilingual website; a Spanish-language WhatsApp-distributed newsletter called Documented Semanal that reaches 5,000-plus majority-undocumented New Yorkers; and the thrice-weekly Early Arrival newsletter, a roundup of top immigration news and Documented exclusives widely read by local immigration advocacy and service professionals.

Documented is leveraging this grant from the Fund to expand its reach with two new community-powered news services geared toward Chinese and Caribbean New Yorkers. The grant aligns with the Fund’s goal of advancing justice and inclusion through community-driven media and journalism for immigrants and refugees in the U.S. and Canada. Its aim is to shift the narratives and stories about immigrants and refugees, particularly in divisive moments.

Grant – General Operating

Ellis Island Initiative is a new statewide coalition of New York’s leading labor, business, faith, and advocacy organizations aiming to transform the state’s approach to integrating newly arrived migrant families into communities. The initiative highlights the benefits of welcoming new immigrants and strives to revitalize upstate local economies by filling open jobs in local industries and providing new opportunities for small businesses.

The grant is helping to ensure that upstate New York communities can welcome newly arrived asylum seekers and can benefit from the state’s historic investment in support of asylum-seekers.

Grant – General Operating Support 

Encuentro’s mission is to transform New Mexico into a thriving community for all its residents by engaging Latinx immigrant families in educational and career development opportunities that impart skills which enable work toward economic and social justice.

Encuentro is addressing the barriers faced by low-income Latinx immigrant caregivers in home health through career training, cooperative development, and immigrant leadership.

Grant – Project Support

Foundation for Environmental Stewardship (FES) is a youth-led, youth-serving nonpartisan sustainable development organization. It is accredited by the United Nations (UN) and has a special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the UN and UN Environment Programme. FES empowers youth to create a more inclusive, fair, prosperous, and sustainable future.

FES is implementing a multi-year climate justice partnership, using a participatory and collaborative process to develop a support program for BIPOC and newcomer youth to explore climate activism, test and pilot ideas, and scale those ideas for impact. The partnership aims to increase participation of BIPOC and newcomer communities in climate justice activism, empower BIPOC leaders to implement and scale sustainable initiatives, and equitably disburse funds to BIPOC groups. The partnership also anticipates an increase in intergenerational partnerships, capacity-building opportunities, network growth, and culturally relevant resources for BIPOC youth interested in climate justice.

General Operating

Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees (GCIR) is the only immigrant-focused and philanthropy-supporting organization in the U.S. It mobilizes millions of dollars each year to tackle the most pressing issues facing immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. As a close partner to WES, GCIR focuses on both short- and long-term immigrant-related investments to advance its vision of a just, equitable, and inclusive society. 

With this grant, GCIR is continuing its work reframing the dialogue on the root causes of migration. The organization’s four-year project, Im/Migration Timeline, aims at shifting public perception and conversations on how we talk about why people leave their home countries. There are 40 million individuals living in the U.S. who were born in other countries, and not everyone left because they wanted to. The project is documenting how and why people come here, by creating a dynamic multimedia tool that can be used by funders and movement leaders to reshape conversations on migration. 

Grant

Groundswell School provides alternative education that prioritizes students’ lived experiences, challenges toxic systems, and helps to build collective power to change the status quo. Groundswell students are social entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, community organizers, and non-profit leaders with varied intersectional backgrounds who are systematically underrepresented in leadership and entrepreneurship. Since 2013, Groundswell has served over 250 individuals with their social entrepreneurship and self-employment programs, helping to create over 75 jobs.  

This grant is supporting the design and launch of a train-the-trainer version of Groundswell’s Leadership for Social Change course, an inclusive, trauma-informed, anti-oppressive, and intersectionality-feminist approach to leadership and career development training. The 6-month program will provide an adaptive approach for community leaders and organizers who serve immigrant women through their jobs or ventures to learn to facilitate person-centered, strengths-based leadership and livelihood development. Trainees will receive support to pilot and test the Groundswell approach within their communities and will be provided wraparound services during the program. 

Grant – General Operating Support

Havenly’s mission is to build the community power of women seeking refuge from colonized or occupied lands. They provide job training, education, and organizing opportunities at their café and community center in New Haven, Connecticut. Havenly’s vision is to build a community of refugee and immigrant women leaders that can transform their future and the future of their communities for the better, thriving in a more just future of their own creation.

Havenly is bolstering their six-month training program, English language and civic education resources, and organizing opportunities for refugee women at their café and community center.

Grant – General Operating Support

The Immigrants Alliance for Justice and Equity (IAJE) invests in building the capacity of working-class Latinx and Indigenous immigrant communities in Mississippi through economic empowerment and social justice advocacy. IAJE’s vision is to create racially equitable, environmentally sustainable, economically just, culturally appropriate, and just policies to transform the lives of Mississippi’s working-class Latinx and Indigenous immigrant communities.

Their initiative, Nuestro Mississippi, brings together community leaders, artists, business owners, and organizational members to engage in arts and civic engagement initiatives that disrupt the dominant narratives about immigrants.

Grant

The Immigrant Workers Centre (IWC) is a Quebec-based organization that defends the rights of immigrants in their workplaces and fights for dignity, respect, and justice. It was founded in 2000 by a small group of Filipino-Canadian union organizers along with their academic and activist allies. The organizers saw that unions were not meeting all the needs of workers. The IWC emerged to address the needs and concerns of workers. 

With this grant, IWC is expanding its ongoing advocacy, capacity-building, and policy change work. They are building workers’ collective leadership to amplify their voices in the public sphere supporting labour rights ambassadors. IWC is also working to ensure that workers can defend their rights in the workplace by providing workshops on labour standards, health and safety and immigration law. IWC’s approach is to bring these groups of workers with various situations into a council which will institutionalize the work of ambassadors to change the status quo. IWC will also continue advocating better working conditions for workers (e.g., to raise the minimum wage to $18) and providing legal advice and support to workers.   

Grant – General Operating Support 

Inclusive Action for the City addresses the root causes of poverty by merging good urban policy with sound economic development initiatives that reduce barriers, increase opportunity, strengthen local economies, and empower low-income residents and entrepreneurs.

Inclusive Action is expanding its lending program to get more capital into the hands of low-income immigrant entrepreneurs, advance local and state policies that protect entrepreneurs from predatory practices and promote opportunities for financial well-being and asset building.

Grant – General Operating Support

The Indiana Undocumented Youth Alliance (IUYA) is a youth-led organization committed to empowering undocumented youth to achieve high levels of education, influence public policy, and overall improve the quality of life of undocumented communities in the state of Indiana.

IUYA’S mentorship program is created by and for youth who are undocumented or have families who are undocumented, empowering newcomers through community building and support services.

Grant – General Operating Support

The Inland Empire Immigrant Youth Collective (IEIYC) creates a safe space for immigrant youth in the region where they can express themselves and achieve their full potential, regardless of their status. The IEIYC’s mission is to engage youth around equal access to higher education, professional development, and advocacy for immigrant justice in our communities.

The IEIYC is running a fellowship program for low-income immigrant youth to build skills and explore professions in social justice.

General Operating 

Islamic Family & Social Services Association (IslamicFamily or IFSSA) is an agency that takes a holistic approach to serving communities’ well-being through a halal food bank, family violence counselling, a youth program, refugee sponsorship, and more. Through these services, clients have access to support that addresses security in different ways and a means to connect to the larger community. 

In November 2022, IslamicFamily participated in an event organized by the Sponsorship Agreement Holders (SAH) Association and facilitated by Venture 2 Impact, a current Fund partner, in partnership with the Fund and the Northpine Foundation. The event included a competition to design sustainable, scalable solutions to meet various capacity needs of SAHs (private sponsors of refugees). Around 30 SAHs participated, and IslamicFamily’s concept won. Its winning idea, Embark Platform, is a scalable, market-ready application that makes the process of private refugee sponsorship more efficient, transparent, and accessible for marginalized communities. The Fund grant is enabling IslamicFamily to develop a business model so it can offer its platform to more SAHs in a sustainable way.

Grant – Project Support

Jumpstart is an international charitable organization run by refugees, with offices around the world and its headquarters in Toronto. Jumpstart focuses on economic inclusion by connecting refugees and forcibly displaced individuals to jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities.

This grant is helping Jumpstart set up and develop the Refugee Impact Fund to address barriers that refugee entrepreneurs often face in accessing capital and support.

Project-specific  

Kinbrace Community Society is a Vancouver-based non-profit that assists refugee claimants with housing, support, and education. The organization aspires to develop transformative communities where refugee claimants are welcomed, and offer programs focused on increasing housing security as well as refugee protection and legal support, connecting people with job opportunities, supporting well–being, and cultivating belonging. A current partner of the Fund, Kinbrace previously focused on designing and implementing its Transforming Employer Narratives (TEN) program. After various community consultations, TEN was piloted with a group of employers. 

Through TEN, Kinbrace seeks to fight bias among employers and initiate systems change across workplaces and in policy. With this new grant, Kinbrace is further developing TEN, after redesigning it based on feedback. Kinbrace is also organizing public events to engage and network with refugee claimants, employers, HR managers, and other relevant stakeholders. Kinbrace is partnering with employers interested in realizing TEN’s vision within their organizations; to further support refugee claimants, it’s also launching long-term partnerships with other immigrant-serving organizations.

Grant – General Operating Support

La Converse is a Montreal-based French language non-profit media organization founded in 2020 whose journalism is a vehicle for social change. By providing journalism training programs and a platform through which marginalized groups can share their stories, La Converse seeks to empower individuals to reclaim their narrative.

Grant – General Operating Support

Lubunga Pan African House for Community Services (LUPAHCS) provides capacity building and empowerment through formal and informal education, advocacy, and cultural orientation to Congolese migrants and refugee-led organizations.

LUPAHCS is bolstering their current efforts in technical and vocational training programs, social service awareness, and community support to promote civic awareness and engagement.

 Grant – General Operating Support

The Migrant Workers Alliance for Change (MWAC) is a membership-based, migrant-led organization that supports migrants across Canada in accessing basic rights and services. MWAC supports the formation of migrant worker peer support groups in their workplaces, communities, and schools, both in person and online. In December 2018, MWAC founded the Migrant Rights Network (MRN), the most impactful organization for systems change regarding migrant issues in Canada, allowing over 40 migrant-led organizations across the country to share updates, strategies, and expertise with each other.

With this general operating support grant, MWAC will continue its much-needed and impactful work supporting worker organizing, advocacy of policy and systems change, and ensuring that migrants have access to rights and services, as well as its coordination of provincial and nationwide migrant-led organizations through the Migrant Rights Network. Among the key focus areas for MWAC in the next two years are increasing its number of members and trained organizers, developing a single hotline for all migrant workers and a comprehensive cross-country referral system, and expanding the Migrant Rights Network.

Project Support 

Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Society’s mission is to improve the lives of Indigenous peoples living in urban environments through social and cultural programming. This mission is achieved by promoting the educational, cultural, and economic advancement of Indigenous people, assisting in locating shelter for Indigenous peoples in the Halifax/Dartmouth regional area, and encouraging the active participation of Indigenous people in all aspects of society.  

With a new grant from the Fund, Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Society will implement its program Participatory Canada to support community resilience. Participatory Canada will address critical post-pandemic recovery challenges of economic, social, and climatic dimensions, all of which need to be tackled through improved social infrastructures that reduce polarization and strengthen social bonds. This initiative is aimed at serving newcomers to Canada as well as immigrant and refugee communities. Its unique approach creates conditions for neighbours to work better together in times of crisis and disaster and helps embed reconciliation, equity, and capability building into everyday community life.

Grant

MOSAIC is one of the largest settlement organizations in Canada, serving immigrant, refugee, and other communities since 1976. They provide a broad range of services including settlement assistance, English language training, employment programs, interpretation and translation, and counselling services. The Alliance for Doctors Denied by Degree is hosted by MOSAIC and works in partnership with the Canadian on Paper Society for Immigrant Physicians Equality (COPSIPE), the Association of International Medical Graduates of Alberta (AIMGA), the Society of Canadians Studying Medicine Abroad (SOCASMA) SFU Refugee Livelihood Lab, and the Foundation of International Medical Graduates. These partners will be actively involved in this project.  

This project is challenging the systemic discrimination faced by immigrant and refugee physicians who are citizens and permanent residents of Canada. MOSAIC will collect and analyze disaggregated data from the key medical and government bodies that International Medical Graduates (IMGs) interact with for their licensure and residencies. The project will also entail interviewing IMGs to collect demographic and quantitative data to compare the data collected from the data sources and identify any missing data. The data collected will help develop equity-focused interventions to help reduce existing disparities for IMGs.

The National Association of Higher Education Systems (NASH, formerly the National Association of System Heads) serves as a forum for the exchange of views and information among its members and leverages its network to advance innovation in public higher education. Its cross-system collaboration has focused on increasing student access and success in college, especially that of low-income students and students of color.

Grant – Project Support

The National Dignity for Families Fund (DFF) was launched in 2021 to address the humanitarian needs of children and families seeking asylum in the United States.

Through DFF’s New York City initiative, this grant will provide funding to organizations that advance systemic solutions directly supporting newcomers in the city.

Grant – Project Support

The National Fund for Workforce Solutions is a national network of almost 30 communities taking a demand-driven, evidence-based approach to workforce development. Its mission is focused on collaboration with workers, employers, and communities to advance a skilled workforce, promote good jobs, and invest in equitable outcomes.

The Fund is supporting the Healthcare Immigrant Workforce Project, which leverages the expertise and peer-learning model of CareerSTAT, a national network of more than 300 health care employers and partners, to share workforce development innovations, best practices, and outcome-based initiatives that would help immigrant frontline health care workers build skills, advance their careers, and achieve family-sustaining wages.

A renewal grant from the Fund is supporting CareerSTAT’s work with frontline immigrant health care workers, prioritizing storytelling to elevate CareerSTAT employer partners as thought leaders in the health care sector and in workforce development.

Grant – Project Support

The New Mexico Dream Team (NMDT) is a statewide network committed to creating power for multigenerational, undocumented, LGBTQ+, and mixed-status families. Through trainings and leadership development, NMDT works to engage the community and allies in becoming leaders, using an intersectional, gender, and racial justice lens to develop and implement an organizing and advocacy infrastructure for policy change that dismantles systematic oppression.

This grant is supporting NMDT to continue developing Puentes No Barreras (Bridges Not Barriers), a program formed to create and expand pathways of opportunity for immigrant and undocumented workers. With a unique training curriculum training developed with and for employers, educational institutions, and immigrant students and job seekers, the program helps establish a shared ecosystem of mutual understanding, support, and prosperity in New Mexico.

Grant – General Operating Support

The New Mexico Worker Equity Initiative (NMWEI) is a coalition of community-based organizations and leaders building community power to inform and shape a statewide workforce system that supports the economic prosperity and holistic well-being of all workers and families of color.

Grant – General Operating Support 

New Power Labs is a collaborative platform to inform, co-create, and mobilize new approaches to flow capital to underrepresented communities in Canada.

This grant supports New Power Lab’s ongoing commitment to advancing capital to underfunded and overlooked leaders in Canada, including immigrants and refugees.

Grant – General Operating Support

Oakland Bloom’s mission is to advance economic equity and create pathways to business ownership in Oakland, California, by providing food entrepreneurship training, income-generating opportunities, and hands-on support to aspiring chef entrepreneurs from refugee, immigrant, and low-income communities who are seeking to launch their own food businesses.

General Operating

One Fair Wage (OFW) is a U.S.-based movement-building organization led by women of color. It organizes service workers, employers, and consumers to raise wages and working conditions in the service sector. In 2020, OFW launched High Road Kitchens, a program that trains restaurant workers to desegregate their staff and raise wages for workers of color. Participating restaurants are awarded grants and receive training and support, as well as access to a peer-learning community. So far, OFW has worked with over 300 restaurants across seven states that are now all part of the organization’s high road restaurants.

With previous support from the Fund, OFW was able to enforce minimum wage salaries, as opposed to subminimum wage, for service workers in Washington, D.C., and Chicago, Illinois. Restaurant workers are commonly segregated by race and gender, separating servers and bartenders who often make a more livable wage, from back of the house staff like kitchen workers, who might not get to take part in a restaurant’s tip pool. With this grant, OFW plans to continue building momentum and impact in this area by advancing bills and ballot measures nationwide, specifically prioritizing California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico and Rhode Island.

Grant – Program/Project-Specific

The Ontario Employment Education & Research Centre (OEERC) is committed to improving public education and awareness of workplace legislation, as well as providing support and strategies for workers who have experienced violations of their rights. OEERC delivers its programming utilizing the expertise of community organizations such as the Workers’ Action Centre, Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, and Caregivers’ Action Centre.

Grant – General Operating Support

Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans (PANA) works at the intersection of Black, Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian immigrant and refugee communities impacted by racial and ethnic profiling, religious discrimination and Islamophobia, increased government surveillance and law enforcement harassment, and barriers to healthy housing and family-sustaining jobs.

PANA is bolstering its organizing, policy, and civic engagement programs that engage thousands of the San Diego region’s refugees and immigrants through voter education campaigns, direct support, and legal services.

 Grant – Project Support

PeaceGeeks is a Vancouver-based international technology non-profit that creates digital tools to support greater connection, peace, and safety for those who have been displaced. It develops products and research to transform newcomer journeys and strengthen human rights around the world. The partner organization in this initiative, Immigrant Networks, launched during the pandemic, offers an online on-demand peer-matching platform for newcomers.

With this innovative pilot grant, PeaceGeeks and immigrant Networks as partners will focus on testing a digital mentorship platform (Immentor) with 12 service provider organizations (SPOs) across three provinces in Canada to assess the interest in and feasibility of a shared tech platform among membership agencies for managing mentorship programs. The partners hope that a shared mentorship platform can improve newcomers’ access to mentorship and employability and allow more SPOs to start offering mentorship to their participants. The initiative is based on observations gleaned from a previous pilot project implemented by PeaceGeeks with funding from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada called Skilled Newcomers and Professionals Partnership (SNAPP).

 Grant – General Operating Support

The Pivot Fund is a new venture philanthropy organization dedicated to investing $500 million in independent community news outlets led by Black people, Indigenous people, and other people of color. Through grantmaking, development support, and strategic consulting, the Pivot Fund is disrupting journalism and philanthropy by centering and investing in culturally competent news organizations.  The Pivot Fund provides capacity building, training, and opportunities for collaborative journalism. 

This grant will assist the Pivot Fund in providing resources to ensure that more fact-driven, local, and trusted information reaches immigrant communities and communities of color across the U.S. here will be a focus on supporting two to three independent news outlets that inform immigrant communities in Georgia. 

Grant – General Operating Support

The Refugee Livelihood Lab (RLL) is a program within RADIUS, a social innovation hub of the Beedie School of Business at Simon Fraser University. Launched in 2018, RLL works to dismantle systemic barriers and generate opportunities for refugees, immigrants, and international students to pursue thriving livelihoods in the Greater Vancouver region. RLL seeks to facilitate systems change and achieve migrant justice by building power within communities through leadership development, convening, and advocacy. 

RLL is developing two key initiatives to support the economic and social inclusion of immigrant and refugee leaders: 

• Beyond Borders is an equity-focused social innovation program through which migrants of colour who are leaders in their community develop and prototype a social venture or service innovation that addresses socio-economic barriers. 
• Trampoline: Ideas into Action! is a venture incubation program. Selected participants go through a highly participatory prototype validation and incubation process. 

The ventures developed and launched by RLL participants will foster greater innovation in the sector and help grow the social entrepreneurship field in Canada. RLL will ensure that immigrant leaders are equipped with critical skills and knowledge that enable them to drive change in their communities and advance their careers.   

Grant – General Operating

Rainbow Railroad is an international non-profit organization that helps LGBTQI+ people who are facing persecution for their sexual orientation, gender identity, or sex characteristics. In a time when there are more displaced people than ever, LGBTQI+ people are uniquely vulnerable due to systemic, state-enabled homophobia and transphobia. These factors can displace them in their own country or prevent them from escaping harm.

This grant supports Rainbow Railroad’s Safe, Settled, and Supported initiative, which provides comprehensive support to LGBTQI+ refugees throughout their resettlement in Canada. The initiative includes monthly financial assistance, network building for post-settlement services, community engagement for peer support, and a focus on systemic change to ensure LGBTQI+ newcomers can access employment, shelter, health care, and safe resettlement more effectively.

Grant – General Operating Support

Refugee & Immigrant Voices in Action (RIVA) advances the lives of immigrants and refugees through collaborative action, advocacy and leadership development. RIVA envisions an Iowa where immigrants and refugees are seen and respected as the primary actors in their communities and have the resources and expertise they need to support their peers in living healthy, productive, and meaningful lives.

RIVA works with immigrants, refugees, and migrants in Iowa to increase immediate access to services, support systems change by advancing the leadership of immigrant advocates, strengthen community-led organizations, and build relationships of trust and solidarity.

Grant – General Operating Support

Resilience Force operates at the intersection of climate, labor, and racial justice, advocating on behalf of workers who rebuild homes and communities after hurricanes, floods, and fires. Founded with the goal of amplifying the voices of essential immigrant workers playing a critical role in recovery efforts amid unstable working conditions, Resilience Force works to transform the disaster recovery sector by creating more resilient, equitable communities while providing stable, family-supporting jobs for workers on the front lines of climate recovery.

Grant – General Operating Support

Solidarity Across Borders (SAB) is a network of migrants and allies who organize together to support individuals and families confronting an unjust immigration and refugee system, in particular those living without status or with precarious immigration status (undocumented). As a movement, SAB is organized around demands for an end to deportations, detentions, and double jeopardy, as well as implementation of a continuous, inclusive, and comprehensive regularization program (the “status for all” campaign).

This grant will help SAB keep its emergency fund operational and open beyond January 2023, when its current funding was forecast to expire. This emergency fund provides direct support to migrants to meet their essential needs. That includes funding for rent, food, medication, and transportation, as well as fees for applications to regularize status or obtain a work permit. This fund is often the only support available to migrants secure immigration status who cannot access government services. Most people who receive support through SAB’s emergency fund are part of the network and are on the front line of work for structural change.

Project Support Grant

Sonor Foundation is a Toronto-based foundation that supports high-impact organizations to provide necessary services to underserved communities through national impact challenges.

With this funding, the Sonor Foundation launched the Transcend Impact Challenge. The initiative awarded funding to nine organizations that support trans and gender diverse communities through supportive environments, economic and financial stability and inclusion, housing, education, and health care access.

Grant – Project Support

St. Bernard Project (SBP) is a non-profit disaster relief organization with a mission to shrink the time between disaster and full recovery. The organization ensures that disaster-impacted citizens and communities recover in a prompt, efficient, and predictable manner. It achieves that with an “Under One Roof” model, incorporating the many facets of a volunteer-based rebuilding program into one entity. The project recruits and trains volunteers, provides skilled site managers, offers health services, and coordinates fundraising.

This multiyear funding is supporting SBP’s Share Program: Home Equity and Disaster Relief for Immigrants and Refugees, addressing capacity needs and working with local non-profits to increase recovery time for disaster-impacted communities across the nation. The partnership will select around 15 to 20 non-profit partners through grant funding, training, and capacity assistance via placement of Americorps members.

Grant

Talent Beyond Boundaries (TBB) is pioneering labour mobility as a complementary solution to refugee resettlement in multiple countries. It works to match refugees with career opportunities and support forcibly displaced people to leverage their skills to secure their futures. Through TBB’s model, refugees earn employment in a third country and embark on economic migration pathways, regaining regular status and rights while securing their livelihoods. TBB is collaborating with Jumpstart Refugee Talent (Jumpstart) for this initiative.  

TBB is building on the Canadian federal government’s expansion of access to the Economic Mobility Pathways Pilot, a program welcoming displaced people through Canada’s economic immigration streams. TBB aims to increase the number of refugees directly benefiting from this program in Canada. In partnership with Jumpstart, the two organizations are establishing the Refugee 500 Taskforce to advance this goal, a coalition of Canadian businesses, refugee-serving organizations, immigrant specialists and refugee leaders. At the same time, TBB and Jumpstart will enable Canadian businesses to search for candidates in the Talent Catalog, a unique online platform to collect comprehensive data on the professional profiles of displaced people. 

Grant – General Operating

TechEquity Collaborative envisions a world where the growth of the tech industry creates economic prosperity for everyone and where tech sector employees and companies are engaged and active participants in making our economy equitable. The mission is to mobilize tech workers and companies to advance structural change that addresses economic inequity at its roots.

This grant builds on TechEquity’s other efforts such as affordable housing policy and a labor standard for workers in low-wage jobs that serve tech company campuses, including janitors, security officers, shuttle drivers, and food service workers. TechEquity is continuing to support meaningful employer practice changes industry-wide by influencing the context in which tech companies operate and by promoting adoption of the Responsible Contracting Standard, an effort to ensure quality jobs for contract workers in the tech industry.

Grant – Project Support

Technical.ly is a national news organization started 15 years ago focused on local journalism that covers entrepreneurship, economic opportunity, and company culture, primarily in the tech sector. Its aim is to ensure more accessible and representative innovation economies. Technical.ly is working to expand its coverage of how immigrants are a vital economic and cultural resource.

Project Support Grant 

Techstars is a pre-seed investor that provides access to capital, mentorship, and other support for early-stage entrepreneurs.

This grant will support Techstars Workforce Development (WFD) Accelerator in providing mentorship and funding to early-stage workforce technology ventures, prioritizing impact and founders with lived experience with a focus on underinvested in and overlooked entrepreneurs with relevant lived experience – including immigrants, refugees, and BIPOC. The accelerator will be supported for three years.

Grant – Project Support

The Breach Media is an independent non-profit media organization that provides a platform for minority voices and focuses on reporting about racism, inequality, colonialism, and climate. With this grant, Breach Media is expanding its immigrant issue coverage in Canada. The goal is to combat misconceptions about immigrants and refugees in Canada and amplify the voices of newcomers.

Grant – Project Support Grant

Launched in 2019, The Local is a non-profit magazine addressing urban health and social issues in Toronto, reporting from immigrant suburbs. Stories cover a range of underreported concerns in the city, from poverty and homelessness to mental health, aging, and food insecurity. Since its launch, The Local has been reporting from Toronto’s immigrant communities that are too often ignored or misunderstood. The Local aims to fill a role that traditional media neglects—turning complex policy issues into compelling narratives, and addressing problems that are pressing and ongoing, even if they don’t have a news hook.

This grant supports general operations for The Local and the publication of a dedicated quarterly issue focused on immigration. One in four Canadians have come to the country as an immigrant; last year, Canada welcomed close to 500,000 newcomers, with one in three settling in Toronto. The immigration issue will include personal essays, data journalism, and investigations, to look at how newcomers are settling in Toronto and explore issues that matter to them, such as housing and employment. The Local is shifting power through accessible, community-driven journalism and advancing justice by transforming the local news landscape.

Project Support  

The Momentum Centre (TMC) is a leader in economic and workforce development. The organization works extensively with employers and industry, youth, and equity-deserving groups such as Black people, Indigenous people, and other people of colour, youth, ex-offenders, immigrants, newcomers, and refugees to advance Manitoba’s labour market objectives. Using a demand-driven approach, TMC operates in partnership with employers to provide employability and leadership training, professional development, and work experience, giving participants the opportunity to translate their knowledge and competencies to align with employer needs. 

With support from the Fund, TMC will implement a project to address labour market demand and skill shortages in the STEM fields by developing a sustainable process to increase access to work-integrated learning opportunities for international students and employers. In order to foster more equitable, diverse, and inclusive workplaces, TMC will provide professional development, employability skills training, and networking opportunities for students to prepare them to transition to sustainable employment. TMC aims to retain more international students while supporting meaningful labour market transitions into STEM in Manitoba, Canada.  

General Operating 

The Refugee Centre (TRC) is a non-profit that aims to provide a sustainable structure of integration for refugees and immigrants in Canada. Using a multi-faceted approach, the centre seeks to break down educational, social, and economic barriers that refugees and immigrants face. TRC does this through providing French and English language classes, legal aid, support with academic admissions and employment, newcomer orientation, housing and wellness support, and more. The organization also has an extensive legal support and network, allowing it to help thousands of asylum seekers.  

This is the Fund’s second grant to TRC. The first grant focused on creative approaches to supporting newcomer clients’ employment outcomes through basic job-specific training, job matching, and employer engagement. This new grant is allowing the centre to strategically focus on key priorities, including enhancing its legal aid services to better support refugees, and expanding its resourceful housing model, which uses community bonds and cash incentives to obtain discounts on bulk apartment leases.

Grant – Co-Funding Initiative

The Sorenson Impact Institute, based at the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah, is a pioneering organization focused on advancing equity and global change through innovation. The Sorenson Impact Institute trains future impact leaders and drives inclusive economic growth through data-driven insights and strategic partnerships.

This partnership supports Sorenson’s Inclusive Impact Initiative, which seeks to expand impact investing career opportunities for underrepresented communities and drive systemic change in the investment sector.

Grant – General Operating Support

The Welcoming Center works to open doors of economic opportunity for immigrants of all education and skill levels and build immigrants’ individual and collective agency to address barriers to integration and wellbeing. The Welcoming Center collaborates with its participants, a broad spectrum of organizations, and public and private sector institutions to advance learning, shape policy, and grow the economy.

The Convocatoria is an advancement of The Welcoming Center’s Immigrant Leadership Institute, designed to foster dialogue and enhance civic engagement of participants from all over the world regarding the challenges affecting immigrant communities.

 Grant – Project Support

Toronto Community Benefits Network (TCBN) represents a coalition of more than 85 community and labour organizations, including workforce development agencies, learning institutions, and funders. TCBN cultivates and supports the implementation of community benefits agreements (CBAs) with transit and infrastructure development projects in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) to increase apprenticeship, training, and employment opportunities for communities, including newcomers, who face barriers to employment.

With this new grant, TCBN will recruit, train, and develop community benefits ambassadors—emerging leaders from TCBN’s pool of Black and other racialized individuals who have already been successfully placed in construction trades or professional, administrative, and technical (PAT) jobs. The ambassadors will support TCBN’s campaigns for community benefits agreements and quality jobs in neighbourhoods where massive public infrastructure projects are imminent or occurring. TCBN will provide ambassadors with knowledge, skills, and resources to help build communities that are prepared to negotiate a CBA.

Grant – General Operating Support

The Toronto Workforce Funder Collaborative is a group of philanthropic-minded organizations that aims to improve workforce development and create a more equitable labour market and economy across the Greater Toronto Area.

Grant – General Operating Support

Upwardly Global is a national non-profit whose mission is to eliminate employment barriers facing immigrant and refugee professionals and advance the inclusion of their skills into the United States economy. The organization envisions an equitable, welcoming country that embraces the full diversity of the U.S. workforce.

Grant – Project Support

Venture 2 Impact (V2I) uses human-centred design to solve complex challenges by linking global communities to skilled volunteers. Working with corporate partners, such as Google, Netflix, and Salesforce, V2I has launched and developed countless programs to deliver workforce development programs, including training and mentorship for formerly incarcerated men and women, and survivors of human trafficking. Their work has helped NGOs and people, especially women and girls, unlock their potential through training, mentorship, and technical tool development in North America, Asia, Europe, and Africa. 

Across Canada, recent immigrants and refugees face high rates of both underemployment and unemployment, even though the country faces a shortage of skilled labour. To address these systemic barriers, V21 is partnering with Elevate Talent, a not-for-profit committed to uniting the world’s innovators to solve society’s greatest challenges. Together the two organizations developed Future Link – a pilot program that will provide the tools that employers need to create more inclusive and equitable environments for refugee, newcomer, and immigrant professionals to retain employment and grow in their careers and improve tech training to set job seekers up for success. The Fund’s investment will support further access to career mentorship and networking opportunities for refugees, immigrants, and newcomers.  

Grant – General Operating Support

We Are All America is a nationwide campaign dedicated to supporting immigrants, refugees, and migrants, with a particular emphasis on marginalized racial, ethnic, and religious communities, particularly Black, Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, South Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islander communities. The organization works to uphold and strengthen our nation’s commitment to welcome and protect those seeking freedom, safety, and refuge in the United States.

We Are All America is leading a national movement driven by refugees and immigrants, advocating for more welcoming policies and practices at both federal and state levels through mobilizing public support, countering nativist forces, and establishing organizing infrastructures.

Grant – General Operating Support

Welcoming America works to address the root causes of othering and exclusion to build a stronger and more cohesive United States for all, including immigrants. Welcoming America facilitates a network of local government and non-profit leaders in 500 communities worldwide and equips it with tools, resources, training, and networking opportunities to break down the barriers immigrants face and make their communities more welcoming.

Workers’ Action Centre (WAC) is a worker-based organization committed to the belief that the leaders in the fight for decent work should be the people directly affected by poor working conditions. WAC’s members are workers with precarious jobs and are mainly recent immigrants, migrants, workers of colour, and low-wage workers who face discrimination, violations of their rights, and unstable employment.

Grant – General Operating Support

The Workers Defense Project is a member-led, Texas-based organization focused on immigrant worker justice, particularly among Latino workers.

Workers Defense is part of a local coalition collaborating to expand infrastructure for clean and affordable energy in Harris County, which last year secured a large grant from Environmental Protection Agency. Support from the Fund is helping the organization to push for the fair distribution of those funds and to enhance immigrant construction workers’ access to quality green jobs.

Grant – Project Support

Workforce Matters is a national network of grantmakers that draws on expert and practitioner knowledge to collaboratively strengthen workforce development philanthropy in a way that empowers workers, learners, and job seekers to realize their full potential; dismantles inequities based on race, gender, ability, and other individual characteristics; and advances equitable education and employment outcomes for youth and adults.

This grant builds on the first grantmaking round of Workforce Matters’ Fund for Workforce Equity in 2022, a pooled fund from various philanthropic organizations to award $1 million in grants to 15 organizations around the country. These organizations were selected to pilot or extend efforts to authentically engage and center workers and learners of color in designing and implementing workforce programs and policies. Workforce Matters seeks to make a second round of grants through the Fund for Workforce Equity in 2024.