PA’LANTE! FUND

The Pa’lante! Fund aims to raise $62.5M to be disbursed over five years to more than 50 organizations working to provide support to immigrant, refugee, day laborer, domestic workers, and other low-income earners. This amount allows for over $200K a year to be predictably distributed to each organization on an annual basis, critical for the long-term planning our communities need in order to effectively promote change.

The Fund will ensure the continuation of vital services, increase organizational capacity to do our work, and strengthen our collaboration around critical advocacy areas including, ensuring workers have access to emergency aid and advancing worker protections. Above all, our goal is to save lives. The Pa’lante Fund is critically needed to ensure both the short-term survival of our community members and the long-term policy changes needed to move our country toward equity and justice.

Fund Goals

Increase Support for Individuals
Collectively, NDLON and partner organizations serve over 100,000 people directly (and millions more indirectly) with a variety of critical services, including direct cash assistance, food security, job and day-project placements, rental assistance, and health and education services. With the pandemic and economic crisis ongoing, we know these needs will continue. The Pa’lante Fund will allow each of the 50+ organizations to distribute significant resources to thousands of vulnerable workers and their families.

Build Organizational Capacity
Multi-year unrestricted funds give our organizations the stability to plan and to invest in our infrastructure, including staffing, financial management, community outreach, evaluation, and other systems. The increase in capacity will allow us to continue providing consistent, vital services and increase our reach and effectiveness.

Strengthen Collaboration on Advocacy
The fund will help strengthen our collaboration around critical advocacy areas including, ensuring workers have access to emergency aid and advancing worker protections. By engaging in this work, we are not only advocating for much needed immediate resources, but also lifting the floor for long-term policy changes to turn the tide following years of brutal policies directed at immigrants.

NDLON is launching the fund in collaboration with the following organizations:

CASA Latina LogoBased in Seattle, Casa Latina, empowers low-wage Latino immigrants to move from economic insecurity to economic prosperity and to lift their voices to take action around public policy issues that affect them. In addition to directly serving the Latino community in King County, Casa Latina has national impact as a model day worker center whose programs, curricula, and operations have been shared and implemented at worker centers throughout the country.

Community Action Board LogoThe Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County, Inc. (CAB) has the mission of partnering with the community to eliminate poverty and create social change through advocacy and essential services. CAB has existed for over 55 years and operates 6 programs assisting close to 10,000 low-income people with emergency, sustaining/self-sufficiency services and serves an additional 7,000+ with requests for information and referrals. CAB has operated the Day Worker Center of Santa Cruz County for over five years serving over 400 day workers on an annual basis.

Inclusive Action for the CityInclusive Action for the City is a community development organization whose mission is to bring people together to build strong, local economies that uplift low-income urban communities through advocacy and transformative economic development initiatives. IA has deployed over $500,000 in capital to 51 low-income food entrepreneurs and home based businesses, many of whom are street vendors; delivered over 89,500 lbs. of fresh and affordable produce to 60 small markets located in underserved, food desert communities; and convened over 7,000 community development practitioners and multi-disciplinary professionals to come together to dream up actionable solutions to the problems we see in our cities.

Meeting the Moment Report

Upon the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, NDLON launched the Immigrant Workers Safety Net Fund to provide immediate cash, food, and subsistence aid to thousands of workers excluded from state and federal relief efforts. Meeting the Moment, a report by Nik Theodore and Agustin Chiarella of the University of Illinois-Chicago, provides an early assessment of these efforts. Additionally, the report outlines the impact of the pandemic on low income immigrant workers and their families and the role of workers centers in responding to the crisis.

Download the report here.

Contacts
Pablo Alvarado, Co-Executive-Director of NDLON, pabloalvarado@ndlon.org
Ishell Linares, Co-Director of Development, NDLON, ishell@ndlon.org