Bayanihan Foundation Worldwide

The Bayanihan Foundation's long term goals are:
1) PROMOTE NEXTGEN youth leadership development
2) INCREASE philanthropy especially among young Filipino Americans locally and globally
3) ADVOCATE for other social issues affecting Filipinos in the US and abroad through strategic partnerships and linkage agreements

Filipinos abroad are fragmented into tens of thousands of groups and hometown associations. Chicago alone has over 250 associations for a local population of 93,000 Filipinos. Many do not talk about the country’s colonial past and the cultural obstacles confronting them such as ‘crab mentality’, fragmentation, distrust and the intense competition among one another. The Bayanihan Foundation acknowledges these challenges and would like to anchor its work in these traditional values to promote NEXTGEN youth leadership development, organizing and advocacy:
• ‘Tiwala’ (trust)
• ‘Kabalikat’ (interdependence, sharing responsibilities)
• ‘Pagkakaisa’ (mutuality, helping each other)
• ‘Tradisyon’ (traditional values of helping ‘bayanihan’)

Three Action Steps:
1. Educate and build leadership of 30 NEXTGEN youth leaders that will help change legislation,
improve lives and create systemic change that will eventually decrease poverty and outmigration
2. Promote Community Power Giving Circle, encouraging integration among NEXTGEN youth and Filipinos abroad to uphold the traditions of both the Filipino culture and its host country. The concept of integration is opposite to assimilation where immigrants discard its traditional values and adopt solely the language and values of its host country
3. Partner and advocate with four Filipino groups and create linkages with them to help advocate for additional legislation that will help improve lives and decrease outmigration.

The Bayanihan Foundation has competent and capable staff and board leaders to tackle the challenges the foundation faces. Dale Asis co-founded two immigrant and ethnic alliances: Coalition of African, Arab, Asian, European, and Latino Immigrants of Illinois (CAAAELII); and the United Congress of Community and Religious Organizations (UCCRO). He received a Master’s degree in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago and is completing his PhD studies in Social Work at Loyola University Chicago. He also helped build a network of over 120 diaspora philanthropic organizations in the Chicago area with the Chicago Global Donors Network. In 2017, Dale is currently the Financial Director at the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO), a local environmental justice organization in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood.

So far, the Bayanihan Foundation has achieved the following progress:
1) Disbursed thousands of dollars in philanthropic projects for the last seven years.
2) Developed 12 meaningful partnerships over the last seven years
3) Developed 1,200 database of diaspora donors
4) Developed 12 new Filipino youth leaders as part of NEXTGEN
5) Startup of Community Giving Circle stalled in 2017