National funding collaborative provides a model for centering long-term, responsive grantmaking and capacity building initiatives on the needs and leadership of immigrant communities.
WASHINGTON, DC – As leaders work to craft a pathway to citizenship for more than 6.9 million undocumented residents nationwide, the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) is honoring one of the movements strongest supporters for their efforts to get philanthropy to expand and deepen its financial support of immigrant justice.
Rini Chakraborty, Senior Director, Four Freedoms Fund.
The 45-year-old DC-based philanthropic advocacy group is celebrating the Four Freedoms Fund (FFF)’s leadership both in driving significant funding towards the pro-immigrant/ pro-refugee movement and for profoundly influencing the philanthropic sector to embrace and champion immigrant justice. Launched by NEO Philanthropy in 2003, FFF is a national funder collaborative that strengthens the capacity of the immigrant justice movement to ensure all immigrants, regardless of immigration status, have dignity, power to shape change, and agency to determine the quality of their life, community, and future.
“We are deeply honored to be receiving NCRP’s “Mover and Shaker” Award for Bold Peer Organizing, particularly at this moment when fighting for immigrant justice could not be more critical,” said Rini Chakraborty, Director of the Four Freedoms Fund. “The immigrant justice movement is leading the way – from restoring the promise of democracy to championing freedom and liberation for all. The FFF team is grateful for the privilege of supporting the immigrant justice movement in its work to transform our country’s systems to be inclusive, fair and just, and grounded in racial, gender and economic justice.”
Four Freedoms Fund is one of four grantmakers that will be honored at the 2021 NCRP Impact Awards on Wednesday, October 27th. The virtual ceremony is one of many events that are taking place as part of CHANGE PHILANTHROPY’s UNITY Summit, an annual gathering of top philanthropic and nonprofit leaders dedicated to exploring, examining and expanding their individual and institutional practices in order to advance equity with an intersectional lens, and with community at the center of their efforts.
FUNDING IMMIGRANT JUSTICE MEANS SUPPORTING AMERICA’S NEXT WAVE OF LEADERS & ORGANIZATIONS
Since its founding in 2003, Four Freedoms Fund has infused the immigrant justice movement with over $180 million and provided crucial technical assistance to deepen organizational capacity. From an initial handful of grantees in 2003, FFF now supports organizations, coalitions and networks operating in approximately 30 states and Washington DC.
FFF grantee, The National Korean American Service & Education Consortium (NAKASEC), at a rally in D.C.
Through the unprecedented challenges and ever-changing political landscape of the past eighteen years, FFF has worked to ensure the immigrant justice movement has the resources and infrastructure it needs to empower, protect, and defend immigrant communities under all political conditions. FFF has invested in the long-term ability of immigrant justice organizations to effectively organize and build power from the ground up, challenge immigration enforcement, mobilize immigrant voters, secure inclusive state and local immigrant justice policies, respond to critical opportunities and threats, and build momentum to transform federal immigration systems.
FFF’s long-term and responsive grantmaking and capacity building initiatives have helped the immigrant justice movement build and win under some of the most hostile political conditions. In response to the rising anti-immigrant threat as well as the growing needs of the movement, FFF launched a number of initiatives to support grantees to respond to extreme challenges, while building movement infrastructure and seizing opportunities to advance lasting systemic change, including FFF’s:
• Rapid Response Fund
• Black Migrant Initiative
• Ending Child Detention and Family Separation Initiative
• COVID-19 Rapid Response Fund
• Wellness Fund
Four Freedoms Fund grantee, Four Freedoms Fund grantee, CASA De Maryland, rallying for federal immigration reform.
Despite years of attacks on immigrant communities, continued racial and economic injustice, and the compounding destructive impacts of COVID-19, the immigrant justice movement is emerging from these intersecting crises stronger than it entered them. With FFF’s support, immigrant justice organizations across the country have relentlessly continued the long and difficult work of organizing their communities, strengthened organizational capacity, secured transformational policy victories, and demonstrated that immigrant communities are a powerful political force that cannot be ignored.
Following years of sustained FFF investments in state and local immigrant justice organizations, the immigrant justice movement is undoing the damage of the past years and rebuilding a better, more inclusive nation through bold policy reforms expanding protections, opportunities, and equity for immigrants and their communities. Through years of ceaseless movement building, voter mobilization, and hundreds of state and local immigrant justice policy victories, the immigrant justice movement has laid the groundwork to meet this movement moment.
“We are deeply honored to be receiving NCRP’s “Mover and Shaker” Award for Bold Peer Organizing, particularly at this moment when fighting for immigrant justice could not be more critical,” said Rini Chakraborty, Senior Director, Four Freedoms Fund. “The immigrant justice movement is leading the way – from restoring the promise of democracy to championing freedom and liberation for all. The FFF team is grateful for the privilege of supporting the immigrant justice movement in its work to transform our country’s systems to be inclusive, fair and just, and grounded in racial, gender and economic justice.”
Read more about FFF’s impact and the work of FFF grantees in the Carnegie Corporation’s report, The Four Freedoms Fund: A Philanthropic Partnership Helps Build a Movement.
About the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP)
The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) has served as philanthropy’s critical friend and independent watchdog since 1976. We work with foundations, non-profits, social justice movements and other leaders to ensure that the sector is transparent with, and accountable to, those with the least wealth, power and opportunity in American society.
Our storytelling, advocacy, and research efforts, in partnership with grantees, help funders fulfill their moral and practical duty to build, share, and wield economic resources and power to serve public purposes in pursuit of justice.
About the NCRP Impact Awards
Since 2013, NCRP has awarded 25 Impact Awards to grantmakers in recognition of support, leadership and partnership with grassroots organizations and community leaders around LGBTQ rights, minimum wage, environmental justice, health equity and other critical issues. The seventh edition of the networking and community building celebration was originally slated to be held in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
A full list of past NCRP Impact Awardees is available on www.ncrp.org.
Leave a Reply