Every year, more than one million immigrants and refugees settle in inner cities and in small rural towns across America. There are approximately 35 million immigrants and their children in the U.S. overall. Of these, the federal government estimates that over eight million legal residents are eligible for naturalization, and nearly 12 million immigrants are undocumented and waiting for immigration reform that will allow them to legally work and reside in the United States. While immigrants provide social and economic energy, there are significant barriers to their full participation in American life, including language, racial and ethnic discrimination and isolation. The issues related to immigration are large and complex, affecting virtually the entire country, including the Upper Midwest and Pacific Northwest. Notwithstanding the challenges of immigrant integration, there are significant opportunities to advance the aspirations and potential of the immigrants and refugees. It was these prospects that prompted several major foundations to form the Four Freedoms Fund, a national funding collaborative, which seeks to energize American democracy through the full participation of immigrants and refugees.
“We envision a nation where immigrants are fully engaged and empowered; where they live and work openly, contribute their voice to the American process, and fully participate in a democratic society,” says Magui Rubalcava Shulman, of the Four Freedoms Fund (FFF). “Getting there takes innovative strategies and sustained funding to promote policy advocacy, defense of rights and due process and civic participation that includes naturalization, voter engagement and leadership development,” she said.
Established in 2003, the Four Freedoms Fund has invested more than $23 million dollars in 85 proven and promising grantees in 33 states that have large or growing immigrant populations, including coalitions in Washington, Idaho and Oregon. The Northwest Area Foundation joined the collaborative in 2009, leveraging its resources with those of other funders in an effort already at work in over two-thirds of the states in the country.
One of the goals of the Four Freedoms Fund is to connect local immigrant groups with state and national coalitions to:
In addition, the Four Freedoms Fund supports efforts by grantees to form strategic alliances among immigrants and non-immigrant groups to address other social justice issues that affect immigrant and refugee communities.
The Four Freedoms accomplishes its goals by:
The Fund has invested in grantees that:
Other current FFF funders include the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Ford Foundation, Open Society Institute, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Horace Hagedorn Foundation, Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund, J.M. Kaplan Fund, the Western Union Foundation and Unbound Philanthropy. FFF is managed by Public Interests Projects, a nonprofit public charity that makes grants, provides technical assistance and offers strategic planning for donors interested in social justice and human rights issues.
As with the Four Freedom Funds, the Northwest Area Foundation continues to seek out opportunities to partner with a diversity of funders to leverage its perspectives, experience, creative ideas and resources with theirs.
Four Freedoms Fund
For information to other immigrant-related sites: GCIR – Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrant and Refugees National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy Welcoming America campaign Reform Immigration FOR America
