NALEO Educational Fund

NALEO Educational Fund is the nation’s leading 501(c) (3) non-profit, non-partisan organization facilitating full Latino participation in the American political process, from citizenship to public service. The organization accomplishes this mission through promoting Latino political participation, providing professional training to Latino policymakers, and promoting policies that expand Latinos’ access to the political process.

NALEO Educational Fund works to educate, mobilize, and integrate the Latino community into the political process. These efforts focus on: access to citizenship, electoral involvement, and participation in the Census. NALEO Educational Fund’s proven naturalization program includes direct application assistance and an extensive train-the-trainer approach to aid community-based partners build upon their capacity to help Lawful Permanent Residents (LPRs) apply for citizenship. The organization operates the nation’s only year-round bilingual naturalization information and referral hotline (888-839-8682), which helps provide callers with eligibility determination, answers to common application questions, and recommendations for in-person assistance and legal aid. The organization builds consistent voting habits through Get-Out-The-Vote (GOTV) mobilizations and a year-round bilingual voter information and protection hotline (888-VE-Y-VOTA) that provides callers with crucial voting information—such as polling locations, in addition to a forum to report violations of voting rights. In advance of every decennial census, the organization conducts an extensive community outreach and engagement campaign to promote the Latino community's participation.

NALEO Educational Fund provides professional development training to Latino policymakers from across the country to increase their understanding of key policy areas and enhance their governance and leadership skills. By facilitating conversations between school board members, city councilmembers, and state legislators, the organization provides policymakers with a forum to learn how they can work together to improve their communities.

NALEO Educational Fund promotes policies which further Latino access to the political process, and provides the public with accurate and relevant information about Latino political engagement and impact. The organization’s activities include policy analysis and development, research, and advocacy directed toward NALEO Educational Fund’s stakeholders. NALEO Educational Fund’s focuses on four major policy areas that are central to its mission: naturalization and immigration reform; Census; appointments and Congressional workforce diversity; and voting rights and election reform.

For naturalization, NALEO Educational Fund is implementing a hybrid assistance model that combines
in-person and virtual elements during multi-day workshops in which participants receive online or telephone counsel before arriving in-person to complete their naturalization and fee waiver applications. NALEO Educational Fund’s live bilingual naturalization information and referral hotline (888-839-8682) provides callers with non-legal support, as well as referrals to local legal services and partner organizations.   NALEO Educational Fund will work continue to work closely within the New Americans Campaign (a national, diverse coalition of organizations connecting LPRs with trusted legal assistance and critical information about the naturalization process) and coordinate monthly meetings, during which organizations can share best practices, innovations, and challenges.

NALEO Educational Fund will continue to serve as a critical voter education resource by operating its live, bilingual information and voter protection hotline – (888) VE-Y-VOTA/(888) 839-8682. The organization will continue to use various outreach strategies and modes, including organic and paid digital and media efforts, phone, mail, earned and paid media strategies, and mass texting to empower Latinos with the information and support they need to turn out to vote. NALEO Educational Fund will continue to serve as a trusted source of accurate information and implement robust digital efforts to inoculate disinformation, report bad-actors, and track ongoing trends.

NALEO Educational Fund equips Latino policymakers with the governance skills, leadership capacity, and policy content knowledge they need to become effective policymakers and successful advocates for their communities.  ALEO Educational Fund’s training model develops the policy expertise of Latino policymakers through intensive leadership training, which follows a curriculum that presents current and relevant research, including evidence- and best practice-based policy options, and offers unique opportunities for policymakers from all levels of government to collaborate. 

NALEO Educational Fund’s Policy, Research, and Advocacy Department promotes policies that expand Latino access to the political process and focuses on four major policy areas: naturalization and immigration reform; voting rights, election reform and governance; Census; and appointments and congressional diversity. NALEO Educational Fund develops and disseminates several civic research publications that serve as resources on Latino political progress and participation, including the National Directory of Latino Elected Officials, the biennial Latino Election Handbook, election profiles, surveys, and reports. Through its unique “Staff Up Congress” initiative, the organization is working to increase the number of qualified and talented staffers of color working in Congressional offices.

As a pioneer and leader of Latino civic engagement, NALEO Educational Fund has nearly 40 years of experience in the realm of naturalization assistance and promotion. NALEO Educational Fund has also conducted a tested and refined voter mobilization program for more than 20 years, and is a leader in the field of message-testing and delivery to Latino voters, having developed and commissioned a number of original research projects. NALEO Educational Fund is the leading national Latino organization in the area of Census promotion and policy development, having conducted outreach campaigns to promote the full enumeration of Latinos since the 1990 Census. NALEO Educational Fund is uniquely qualified to lead this work given its wealth of knowledge and expertise and its long-standing leadership in the field of naturalization, voting, and the Census.

NALEO Educational Fund possesses full-time staff in strategic areas across the country to build partnerships with key community-based organizations and mobilize the hardest-to-reach communities. In addition to offices in Los Angeles, New York, Washington, D.C., Houston, and Orlando, regional coordinators operate throughout California, North Carolina, and Florida.

NALEO Educational Fund is uniquely qualified to conduct advocacy and policy efforts on census issues because it is a leading national organization in the area of census public education and policy development. The organization has played a key role in the public dialogue on ensuring that the Bureau provides America with the most accurate count of its population. Since 2000, NALEO Educational Fund has served on the Secretary of Commerce’s 2010 Census Advisory Committee, and its predecessor, the Decennial Census Advisory Committee. In June 2013, the Bureau selected NALEO Educational Fund to join its National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic and Other Populations. In addition to its role as Co-Chair of The Leadership Conference’s Census Task Force, NALEO Educational Fund also serves as a Co-Chair of Census Task Force of the NHLA.

Throughout 2022, NALEO Educational Fund equipped Latino policymakers with the governance skills, leadership capacity, and policy content knowledge they need to become effective policymakers and successful advocates for their communities. Overall, NALEO Educational Fund convened 1,110 Latino policymakers and stakeholders who represent more than 143 million constituents in communities across the country.

NALEO Educational Fund continued to deliver direct assistance to help eligible lawful permanent residents (LPRs) complete their U.S. naturalization application, promote the benefits of naturalization, engage local partners in efforts to protect the accessibility and affordability of the naturalization process, and provide leadership and technical assistance to local partner organizations through the New Americans Campaign (NAC). In 2022, NALEO Educational Fund and its partners completed 9,558 N-400 naturalization applications, including assistance with fee waivers that saved applicants more than $1.55 million. In addition, the naturalization hotline received 14,093 calls and the organization received 84,726 visits to its citizenship websites (ciudadania.yaeshora.info and naleo.org/citizenship).

NALEO Educational Fund’s 2022 voter engagement program was implemented nationally with a focus on: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The organization leveraged voter engagement tactics that reflected the organization’s knowledge of effective strategies to reach the Latino community. These strategies included: mailers, SMS messages, social media advertisements, a hotline, and a website. Overall, these strategies led to 900,000 direct contacts and over 9 million impressions via social media paid ads.

NALEO Educational Fund also continued to lead national and local efforts to ensure that the naturalization process is fair and accessible by promoting the stabilization of the naturalization fee and the elimination of other barriers to U.S. citizenship. In 2022, several of NALEO Educational Fund’s recommendations have been adopted, which have helped produce a 62 percent reduction of the naturalization application backlog between the end of federal FY 2021 and FY 2022. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) will also simplify the naturalization application form to make it more accessible, and will issue automatic two-year “green card” extensions for naturalization applicants. In addition, the White House is reinstating the Task Force on New Americans, to examine immigrant integration policies and make appropriate recommendations.

The organization's Staff Up Congress initiative held a Communications Academy and Legislative Academy in 2022. As of this writing, 89 percent of the 185 participants in Staff Up professional development Academies have secured more senior positions on the Hill or in other organizations.