Immigrant Youth

The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy published a striking report recently on funding for pro-immigrant movements by U.S. foundations.  Among their findings is that barely 1% of all money granted by the 1,000 largest U.S. foundations was intended to benefit immigrants and refugees

As a Brooklyn Youth Fellow, I got to see one side of grantmaking by helping in the process of creating, reviewing, and accepting applications for the Youth Voice Awards. Now as a Foundation intern, I get to see another important side of grantmaking: going on site visits to see our grantees programming firsthand, starting with El Puente in Bushwick.

Today, we are proud to announce new grants through our Immigrant Rights Fund, a special initiative created by our donors in the weeks after the 2016 presidential election to build a boroughwide response to unjust government policy changes threatening Brooklyn’s immigrants and their families.

Through our Immigrant Rights Fund, we’re supporting BAJI’s comprehensive outreach to Black Muslim immigrants.

More than 500 people came out to the Brooklyn Museum last week in spite of nearly a foot of snow for "Defending Immigrant Rights: A Brooklyn Call to Action," which featured a critical conversation with local leaders working on the frontlines of the fight for immigrant rights.

My first national march on Washington, DC was as a teenager and it instilled in me a lifetime of activism.

Last week, shortly after we launched our Immigrant Rights Fund, we gathered immigrant-led organizations from across Brooklyn to learn firsthand about challenges confronting our communities. 

Grants total $1,915,000, bringing the Foundation’s funding for youth-serving nonprofits in Brooklyn to $2.3 million in 2016.