The Colorado Trust grants $4.5 million to strengthen immigrant integration

While immigration reform remains a hotly contested issue nationally, immigrants and “receiving community” members are working together in innovative ways to strengthen their Colorado communities. Colorado’s rapidly growing immigrant population and the initial successes of 10 community grantees currently funded under its Supporting Immigrant and Refugee Families Initiative, led The Colorado Trust – a statewide grantmaking foundation – to
expand this effort. The Trust today announced grants awarded to support nine additional Colorado communities in strengthening immigrant integration.

The additional $4.5 million in support makes The Colorado Trust’s total commitment $18 million over a 10 year period (2000-2010). The Trust is the first foundation in the nation to provide support for immigrant integration to multiple communities across one state.

Each of the nine new grantees will receive initial grants of $10,000 to bring together broad collaboratives to develop comprehensive immigrant integration plans tailored to the needs of their communities. Collaboratives will include such members as health care providers, educators, businesses, law enforcement, libraries, local government, faith-based organizations, immigrant-serving organizations and immigrants themselves. Following the six- to eight-month planning process, each of the nine new grantee communities will be eligible to receive grants of up to $75,000 per year for four years to implement their plans. Grantees will also receive significant technical assistance from The Spring Institute for Intercultural Learning which manages this initiative. The nine newly named grantee communities are:

1. City and County of Denver
2. Cities of Greeley and Evans
3. City of Commerce City
4. La Plata County
5. Montrose and Delta counties
6. Original Aurora
7. Routt and Moffat counties
8. San Luis Valley
9. Telluride Region.

The Colorado Trust defines immigrant integration as a mutual commitment between a receiving community and its individual immigrants and refugees. Coming here from another country and learning a new way of life is a highly individualized process during which an immigrant both keeps and sheds some elements of his or her previous culture and adopts elements of the mainstream culture. Immigrants and members of the established community both have roles to play in this process. Immigrants commit to building a life here, learning the language, contributing as soon and fully as possible in civic life, and adapting to a new lifestyle without losing their own identity or rejecting their past. Members of the established community come to know and build relationships with new residents, and offer immigrants opportunities to  participate in their new community.

The 10 other current grantee communities that were previously named under this initiative are: Aspen to Parachute region, Boulder County, El Paso County, Gunnison County, Lake County, City of Littleton, Mesa County, Morgan County, Pueblo County and Summit County. With the planning process now complete for these initial 10 grantee communities, they have begun to put strategies into place, including such efforts as helping immigrant parents to become more involved in their children’s schools, helping immigrants better access English classes and strengthening local health care providers’ ability to offer competent care to people from different cultures.

An independent evaluation of the initiative, which is being conducted by a team of evaluators led by the Association for the Study and Development of Community, is examining how communities formed collaborations to support immigrant integration and whether outcomes identified in the community plans are achieved. In addition, a community survey will provide insight into residents’ sense of immigrant integration in the 19 grantee communities.

[ Back ]