The Receiving Communities Initiative

ABOUT          ADVISORY BOARD          COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE          TOOLS

ABOUT

The Receiving Communities Initiative (RCI) is an effort to build and support a movement of individuals and organizations focused on involving mainstream Americans in immigrant integration.

Led by Welcoming America, the initiative recognizes that a broad scale movement is needed in order

to proactively work with the whole community in the process of immigrant and refugee integration. The initiative hopes to ease tensions and build greater understanding and cooperation between long-time residents and new arrivals. As a result, communities will be thriving places for all who live and work there.

ADVISORY BOARD

The National RCI Advisory Board is comprised of knowledgeable and prominent actors in immigrant integration. Representing a diversity of sectors, their role is to provide strategic guidance to the initiative.

  • Amanda Bergson-Shilcock, Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians
  • Hamutal Bernstein, German Marshall Fund
  • Suzette Brooks Masters, J.M. Kaplan Fund
  • Jeff Chenoweth, CLINIC
  • Vicki Esses, University of Western Ontario
  • Laurence Gilbert, Former Mayor, Lewiston, Maine
  • Mahvash Hassan, Institute for Local Government
  • Maggie Herzig, Public Conversations Project
  • Taryn Higashi, Unbound Philanthropy
  • Adam Hunter, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
  • Margie McHugh, Migration Policy Institute
  • Dowell Myers, University of Southern California
  • Patrice O’Neill, The Working Group
  • Manuel Pastor, University of Southern California
  • Jan Reeves, Idaho State Refugee Coordinator
  • Frank Sharry, America’s Voice
  • Audrey Singer, Brookings Institute
  • Matthew Soerens, World Relief
  • Naomi Steinberg, Refugee Council USA
  • Susan Thornton, Former Mayor, Littleton, Colorado
  • Darcy Tromanhauser, Nebraska Appleseed
  • Kim Turner, Maytree Foundation
  • Tom Wahlrab, City of Dayton, Ohio

Staff:

  • David Lubell, Executive Director, Welcoming America
  • Susan Downs-Karkos, Director of Strategic Partnerships, Welcoming America
  • Rachel Steinhardt, Deputy Director, Welcoming America

COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE

RCI works to gather and disseminate promising practices from the field and bring together individuals and organizations to share knowledge and experience through:

  • Conference presentations and convenings
  • Webinars
  • Technical assistance
  • Publications and newsletters
  • Indicators and performance measures

TOOLS

Receiving Communities Toolkit: A Guide for Engaging Mainstream America in Immigrant Integration

Written by Susan Downs-Karkos and produced by the Spring Institute and Welcoming America.

Strategies for Creating Welcoming Communities: Innovations from the Field, a collection of several compelling case studies of receiving communities work in the U.S..  Written by Kate Raum.


All Immigration Is Local: Receiving Communities and Their Role in Successful Immigrant Integration

Written by Michael Jones Correa, and produced by the Center for American Progress.

 

Stronger Together: Community Integration of Newcomers

A recorded panel about the RCI movement and report, hosted in 2011 by the Center for American Progress.

Click here to access many more tools from Welcoming America that can help you engage receiving communities!