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SAALT Releases New Report to Highlight Needs and Opportunities
Facing South Asian Community-Based Organizations (August 2007)
SAALT is pleased to announce the release of a new report, Building
Community Strength, which provides critical insights into the
needs and opportunities faced by organizations serving, advocating
for, and organizing South Asians in America.
Building
Community Strength synthesizes the results of a needs assessment
and interviews with 31 community-based organizations serving South
Asians around the country, while highlighting best practices and
recommendations for stakeholders to better assist South Asian organizations
- and by extension - South Asian community members. Below are a
few of the findings:
- South
Asian organizations are relatively young.
Nearly three-quarters of the groups surveyed were established
after 1990 to respond to visible and immediate needs. Groups need
adequate resources and training to develop internal infrastructure
and processes related to governance, fiscal management, and organizational
development.
- The
majority of South Asian organizations operate on budgets of less
than $500,000.
Groups do a lot with little. Regardless of budget size,
groups identified development support as a high priority need,
with particular emphasis on cultivating relationships with individual
South Asian donors.
- South
Asian organizations observe the need to link service provision
with organizing and advocacy.
Organizations conduct a range of activities that stretch
them beyond their mission statements. Groups identified issues
related to immigration and the treatment of immigrants as core
concerns that need to be addressed through a variety of strategies.
The
report, made possible through support from the Citi Foundation,
includes examples of best practices used by South Asian groups,
and recommendations to guide further research and action. We hope
that organizations, community members, grantmakers, and stakeholders
will use the report as a tool and resource to increase awareness
of the South Asian community; to garner additional resources; and
to access policymakers.
SAALT
will be conducting report briefings around the country; please contact
us for further information if you would like to sponsor or participate
in a briefing.
Read the report
here.
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