Welcoming Michigan formally kicked off their initiative with a launch event on May 7^th in Detroit that included a diverse coalition of supporters and recognition by state lawmakers.   The event showcased the work of the growing initiative, which is led by the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center.

The initiative will focus initially on communities in Southeast Michigan and Detroit.  The event was covered by the Detroit News, which highlighted the role of Welcoming Michigan in  showcasing the economic contributions of immigrants to the Michigan economy.  The bi-partisan initiative has received support from various lawmakers, including the Governor Rick Snyder.   Says Snyder, “For the overwhelming majority of immigrants, the opportunity to begin again—and flourish —is what made Michigan great.  We need to continue to harness this thirst for success and the work ethic that makes success possible, to help Michigan grow once again.”

Welcoming New Hampshire, whose campaign launched in 2011, was recently recognized by Governor John Lynch.  In a proclamation issued last month, Governor Lynch commended the organization for “continuing to make our state proud of our welcoming tradition.” Welcoming New Hampshire is organized by the New Hampshire Alliance for Immigrants and Refugees (NHAIR).

Welcoming America is pleased to announce that David Lubell, founder and Executive Director, has been selected as an Ashoka Fellow.  David will join a prestigious global fellowship of leading social entrepreneurs in more than sixty countries.

The Ashoka Fellowship recognizes David’s innovative vision in founding Welcoming America – that communities reach their full potential when they are welcoming toward newcomers.  Ashoka has also recognized the value of Welcoming America’s efforts to change both individual perceptions and institutional practices.

A global organization, Ashoka supports those who share qualities traditionally associated with leading business entrepreneurs – vision, innovation, determination and long-term commitment – but are committed to systemic social change in their fields. Ashoka Fellows are recognized for their innovative solutions to some of society’s most pressing social problems. Since its founding in 1980, Ashoka has enabled more than 2,500 leading social entrepreneurs in over 60 countries. For more information on Ashoka, visit  www.ashoka.org/ashoka/usa.

When he founded the organization in 2009, David recognized that while many groups existed to do the important work of helping immigrants adjust to life here in the United States, there was a need for a national movement focused on helping people who were born in this country understand and appreciate their new neighbors.   “In the communities where Welcoming initiatives are underway, there are few strangers and more neighbors,” says David.

Welcoming America takes to scale the groundbreaking Welcoming Tennessee project David helped launch in 2006 while he was the Executive Director of the Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC). Captured in the 2011 PBS documentary, Welcome to Shelbyville, Welcoming Tennessee reaches out to everyday Tennesseans about the changes happening in their communities as a result of immigration. Welcoming Tennessee won the Migration Policy Institute’s E Pluribus Unum award for exceptional immigrant integration initiatives in 2009.

Since 2009, Welcoming America has grown as a national, grassroots collaborative and now works with a network of remarkable affiliates in 20 states.  In addition, the organization has launched the Receiving Communities Initiative, an effort to encourage organizations that traditionally support immigrants to do more to reach out to long-time community members who may be fearful or ambivalent about the presence of newcomers.

Click here to view the full press release

Please join us in congratulating David, and in recognizing the many individuals and organizations who have helped Welcoming America achieve so much.  The fellowship is not only a recognition of David’s success, but a recognition of all those who have helped Welcoming America and all those who continue to be part of our growing movement.

Above left: the Kenyan band Sauti Sol gets everyone dancing in the aisles.  Watch Sauti Sol video

Right: Oliver Rajamani performs. Watch Oliver Rajamani video

Welcoming America’s You’re Welcome! event recently made a splash at one of the nation’s largest music festivals, South by Southwest in Austin, Texas.   The day of comedy, music, and dialogue was designed to engage culture influencers and showcase performers that celebrate the fusion of cultures in America. 

The event was a success, and included a cultural influencers workshop where artists, musicians and comedians joined with activists for an exciting conversation about how to participate in the Welcoming Movement.

A big thanks to the performers, including Negin Farsad, Sauti Sol, Oliver Rajamani, Invincible, DJ Martin Perna, Riders Against the Storm, Maggie Maye, and many more.

Many thanks to our volunteers, to Opportunity Agenda for their opinion polling help, to the George Washington Carver Cultural Center, and to The Ford Foundation, Open Society Foundations, and Unbound Philanthropy for their generous support.  See more pictures from the day, and stay tuned for additional clips and coverage.

More events are planned for the summer, as Welcoming America affiliates will join with local artists and other leaders in Detroit and Omaha to make them more welcoming places.

Want to learn more and get involved? Contact us today.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), part of the Department of Homeland Security, is a strong leader in promoting the value of receiving communities strategies and is helping grantees to infuse these new approaches into their work, in order to achieve more successful outcomes.

Welcoming America recently conducted a webinar for USCIS Office of Citizenship grantees on how to incorporate receiving communities principles into citizenship programs. Citizenship programs are ripe for bringing together newcomers and native born residents, attracting the involvement of local leaders, and promoting positive and unifying messages in the community about the contributions of our newest citizens. One USCIS-funded program using a receiving communities approach involves local high school students as volunteer tutors for their civics tutoring program. Another established a partnership with the local police department on a civic engagement initiative to help the immigrant population set up neighborhood crime watch programs.

USCIS also incorporated receiving communities engagement in their funding application for citizenship programs, signaling the importance of this approach. Welcoming America is delighted to be working with USCIS as a partner in the growing receiving communities movement.

To learn more about the Receiving Communities Initiative, visit www.receivingcommunities.org.

Click here to read the most recent RCI e-news.

Click here to read “The Next Immigration Challenge” by Dowell Myers for the New York Times.

In a vote passed unanimously on January 3rd by the East Providence City Council, local elected leaders adopted a welcoming resolution, which states that the city is “committed to continue building a neighborly and welcoming atmosphere in our community where all are welcome, accepted and appreciated.”   To view the full resolution and watch a video clip of the event, visit Welcoming Rhode Island’s recently-launched blog.

East Providence joins with communities in Alabama, Idaho, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Oregon, who have passed resolutions that declare their communities welcoming or “immigrant friendly.”

Read on for the full story or view it online.

Building Welcoming Communities for All

White House Office of Public Engagement Blog Post by Felicia Escobar, White House Domestic Policy Council, December 21, 2011

Achieving full economic recovery and maintaining America’s competitive edge globally now and into the future will require communities to fully embrace their strongest resource –their people.   This is why communities around the country are taking a new approach to integrating newly arrived immigrants, refugees, and other newcomers into their community and creating more welcoming environments for all community members.

Through the New Americans Citizenship and Integration Initiative, officials from throughout the Administration have met with hundreds of leaders in communities across the nation to learn about successful models for integrating immigrants civically, economically, and linguistically.  Recently, White House staff from the Domestic Policy Council and Office of Public Engagement sat down to learn more about Welcoming America, a national organization working to create a welcoming atmosphere – community by community –which helps immigrants integrate into the social fabric of their adopted hometowns.  Welcoming America is a part of the “receiving communities movement,” which focuses on building 21^st century communities that attract and retain global investment.

With affiliates in 19 states, local Welcoming America efforts engage in positive, proactive initiatives that bring all community members together.  By connecting immigrants and U.S. born residents, and by highlighting local contributions made by immigrants, Welcoming America is transforming relationships in these communities and working with others, including community leaders, practitioners, and academics to support strategies that engage all Americans in understanding and promoting more integrated communities.

Welcoming America and other private organizations have developed a host of resources for those interested in using the “receiving communities” approach in their communities:

• The Receiving Communities Toolkit from Welcoming America and Spring Institute for Intercultural Learning highlights promising practices from around the country that are effectively building meaningful connections between people.

• The Center for America Progress report All Immigration is Local: Receiving Communities and their Role in Immigrant Integration outlines the imperatives for a new focus on the communities in which newcomers settle.

We are inspired by all the groups involved in growing this movement to help unite people from all backgrounds in America’s cities and towns.  We believe this approach holds great promise and look forward to continuing to support efforts that promote globally competitive communities across the nation that are welcoming places for all people to live and work.

Posted by Felicia Escobar on December 21, 2011 at 04:45 PM EST

Felicia Escobar is the Senior Policy Advisor at the White House Domestic Policy Council.

America is at a crossroads.   From Alabama to Arizona, shuttered storefronts and barren fields tell the story of communities gripped by anxiety and fear.  But fortunately there is another path.

Over the last year, Welcoming America and its affiliates have proactively reached out to thousands of individuals around the country to share a simple message: immigrants make us stronger.

Last week, Welcoming affiliate Uniting NC unveiled a new billboard campaign, including the image above. The launch of the billboards received broad media coverage, including yesterday’s story by the Huffington Post.

The billboards will help thousands across North Carolina benefit from their powerful, positive message.  It’s but one example of the exciting and proactive work that Welcoming America is supporting around the country.

As the year ends, we welcome you to join us in celebrating just a few of the exiting achievements that Welcoming America, our affiliates, and our supporters made possible over the last year.  If you are inspired, please DONATE to Welcoming America today. Your donation will directly support the work of our affiliates across the country.

• Reaching the Untapped: In May, the PBS documentary, Welcome to Shelbyville, which featured our affiliate, Welcoming Tennessee (a project of TIRRC), introduced more than one million Americans to the impact of Welcoming. Thousands more have used the Building a Nation of Neighbors how-to videos from the film (thanks, ActiveVoice!) and our newly-launched Friends of Welcoming.

• Deepening Our Impact: From the redwood forests to the gulf stream waters, Welcoming initiatives took root, and in 2011 the Welcoming affiliate network grew from 13 to 19 members.   Our collective efforts to bring native and foreign-born community members into direct contact led to more than 130 events that touched more than 5,000 individuals.  Hundreds more around the countyy have become “online welcomers” through our web platform, Friends of Welcoming.

• Engaging New Allies: “Immigrant friendly” initiatives such as Welcome Dayton and Global Detroit are demonstrating how the idea of creating welcoming communities has broad appeal as a key economic development strategy to attract and retain 21st century global talent.  Now, Welcoming America is working to spread this approach throughout the country so that more cities and towns can leverage their greatest asset – their diverse population.

• Advancing What Works: Does the broader community play a role in immigrant integration?   That was the question that led to our Receiving Communities Initiative, and the answer is a resounding “yes.”   For the first time, practitioners can learn about practical strategies to engage the broader public, with our Receiving Communities Toolkit (developed in partnership with the Spring Institute, with support from the J.M.Kaplan Fund).  And, hats off to US Office of Citizenship and Immigration Services, Office of Citizenship for newly incorporating a focus on receiving communities in their latest funding opportunity!

• Sharing Practical Approaches: In addition to launching our interactive web community, Friends of Welcoming, we introducednew practical tools and resources to help groups interested in implementing our three-part strategy of leadership development, strategic communications, and public engagement.

• Keeping it Hip: With the help of artists, musicians, and comedians, we are engaging new audiences by sharing the fun side of welcoming – and drawing on the power of art to open hearts and minds through a project we call You’re Welcome.

• Making it Real:  Reaching mainstream America to address fears and doubts about their new immigrant neighbors is not an easy task.  But it is possible, as this testimonial makes clear:

“Honestly, I was not so open to immigrants in the past, probably from media portrayals but most likely because we just didn’t interact….  If there were nothing such as Welcoming America .. I think everything would continue in the same way. But thankfully, there is a way to redirect people’s attitudes toward rethinking immigration and immigrants.”  –  Pat, Michigan

This is is just the start. Individuals around the country are asking Welcoming America for help to reclaim their communities from the grips of fear and divisiveness.  We can help them to succeed in reclaiming the spirit of the American dream – but only with your support.

Will you help us to build a nation of neighbors? You can join us today by making a tax-deductible* donation to Welcoming America.  Even better, every dollar that is donated will be directed to local communities. Visit our websiteto learn about what we do and why your support matters.

From the Welcoming America team, we wish you a happy holiday season!

The billboards, which were supported by Welcoming America and funded largely through a grassroots campaign led by Uniting NC, will be shown first in Raleigh, followed by other locations throughout the state.  For press coverage of the event and to follow the billboards, visit Uniting NC’s Facebook page.

Uniting NC is one of 19 Welcoming America affiliates around the country that is using positive messaging campaigns to highlight the shared values and contributions of immigrants in local communities.   Using Welcoming America’s 3-pronged approach, affiliates also engage with local leaders and bring long-time and new residents together to learn about each other’s values and cultures.  More examples of messaging campaigns are available on the Welcoming America website, along with a toolkit for affiliates or other groups interested in strategic communications.

– participant, Receiving Communities track,
National Immigrant Integration Conference