Welcoming America Inc

Welcoming America is an award-winning, internationally-recognized organization that is leading a movement to build inclusive communities that embraces immigrants and fosters opportunity for all. We connect a broad network of nonprofits and local governments and support them with the know-how, tools, and incentives they need to develop plans, programs, and policies that transform their communities into vibrant places where people respect each other and everyone's talents are valued and cultivated. Ultimately, our vision is of an inclusive nation and world in which all people, including immigrants, have the opportunity to reach their greatest potential, engage with their community, and fully contribute their talents – expanding prosperity and well-being for all.

Welcoming America is leading a movement of communities undertaking a positive view of immigrants and refugees and providing them the opportunity to fully participate in their communities. Due to negative perceptions from U.S.-born residents and a lack of access to opportunities, immigrants and refugees nationwide face closed doors in schools, workplaces, and on Main Street. However, Welcoming America has a proven solution that is unlocking these doors one community at a time. Our model includes three parts:

1. Connect Leaders: We connect municipal government and nonprofit leaders locally and nationally and promote their collaboration.

2. Build Capacity: We strengthen the capacity of these leaders by providing training, resources, and incentives and facilitating their ability to work with their whole community to drive change.

3. Change Systems and Culture: We help communities enact policies and programs that expand immigrant inclusion and engage long-time residents, reinforce positive behavior, and communicate welcoming's beneficial socioeconomic impact.

Over the last seven years, Welcoming America has helped communities create welcoming environments that improve the lives of immigrants and ensure that the whole community is part of the solution. We are the only organization that is pulling together disparate immigrant inclusion efforts, leaders, and strategies into one vibrant web. As a result of our efforts, a growing number of communities have begun to embrace their foreign-born residents and proactively advance their rights and opportunities, with one in eight residents – both immigrant and U.S.-born – living in a welcoming community in 2016.

Communities within our network and their immigrant residents are already realizing the benefits of an actively welcoming position. For example, Nashville – the site of the first welcoming model on which Welcoming America is based – has seen an expansion of immigrant integration efforts across the community as well as greater support from the local government through the recent establishment of an Office of New Americans and the proliferation of a variety of programs like MyCity Academy, a model now being replicated nationwide that empowers new Americans to understand and participate in Nashville's government. For these efforts, Nashville, along with the work of Welcoming America and Welcoming Tennessee, were honored as a model for the country around immigrant inclusion by President Obama in 2014. Additionally, Nashville has made significant economic gains that have been linked by civic and business leaders to its welcoming climate, including leading the country in job growth in 2012. The city was also named by Forbes as the third likeliest metro area to prosper in the coming decade, with reference to the growth of its diverse immigrant community and high self-employment among Asians and Hispanics.

Thanks to successes like these, we have become a recognized leader on immigrant inclusion and welcome, honored by the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations and BMW Group through the 2014 Intercultural Innovation Award, by President Barack Obama, and as “Champions of Change" by the White House in 2013. In addition to these, we have been recognized with multiple awards and fellowships, and been featured in major news publications, including:

- New York Times
- Forbes
- CNN
- NBC News
- The Atlantic
- Governing Magazine
- 2015 World Economic Forum Young Global Leader Forum
- Chronicle of Philanthropy's 2015 '40 under 40'
- GeorgiaTrend's 2015 'Georgia's 40 under 40'
- 2013 Clinton Global Initiative Commitment to Action
- Ashoka - Innovators for the Public
- Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation Entrepreneur Portfolio Award

Over the past seven years, Welcoming America and our rapidly growing national network have connected Americans with welcoming values in communities big and small, rural and urban. Our network has grown to include over 300 communities in 34 states and the District of Colombia that are embracing immigrants and refugees as essential community assets. We train more leaders every day – over 3,000 in 2015 alone – to redesign communities around welcoming ideals and further fuel the movement. We started with the simple idea of speaking to the hopes and dreams of newcomers and local residents, fostering a sense of belonging for both, and moving from an 'us versus them' mentality to a new sense of 'we.' This holistic approach – now codified in national and local policy through over 570 policies and programs – is expanding opportunities for immigrants in schools, workplaces, and on Main Street, and in turn expanding prosperity for all members of the community.

Welcoming America has successfully connected new and influential partners to immigrant-integration efforts, boosting global support and attention for welcoming initiatives. For example, our partnership with the White House channeled federal resources and technical assistance to over 50 cities across the U.S. And with many countries facing record inflows of migrants, we have sparked our first forays across international waters. Now, we have launched the Welcoming Communities Transatlantic Exchange, with representatives from five Germany communities learning from U.S. welcoming communities and vice versa. In addition, we are helping organization Welcome to Australia replicate our Welcoming Cities and Counties program locally.

Welcoming America has acted as a firewall against negative rhetoric towards immigrants and refugees and has lifted the message that “immigrants are vital contributors" to national and international audiences. For example, in 2016, Executive Director David Lubell spoke at the 2016 World Economic Forum and gave a TED Talk at TEDxBerlinSalon to an audience of over 1,000, and Deputy Director Rachel Peric gave remarks at the White House's celebration of their Building Welcoming Communities Campaign. This message continues to take root in the U.S., with coverage from CNN, The Atlantic, and Governing Magazine.

Although Welcoming America has made great strides in reshaping national and local policy and culture around immigration – impacting 6 million new Americans and local residents, there is still much work to be done. We hope to reach a tipping point where a critical mass of communities in the U.S. is engaging in immigrant inclusion work, with Welcoming America playing an instrumental role in promoting welcoming as a new social norm. We believe this critical mass will both inspire neighboring peers to follow suit and motivate shifts in federal policy, in turn driving local changes. Welcoming America is well-poised to catalyze this change over the coming years.