For all of its twenty years of work, CSIO has focused on supporting immigrant organizers, leaders, directors, activists, and their organizations to overcome barriers to achieving social, political, and economic justice for immigrant communities.
Our focus for much of this history has been on promoting the leadership of those most affected by injustice in immigrant communities. At this juncture in our organizational evolution, this focus has resulted in our centering our program work on four core components that we believe are critical to the process of developing grassroots leadership:
- Democratic, participatory process
- Ongoing opportunities to analyze the root causes of social/political/economic injustice – building the understanding of the “why”
- Opportunities for and access to direct experience of collective impact; and
- Structures and processes for involvement in decision-making.
While we continue to support and include community-based immigrant organizations that already do organizing in our program work, we are working more and more with smaller grassroots organizations that are newer to organizing and often less well connected, but are looking for ways to build community engagement and organizing approaches into their work.
CSIO advocates for a multiple strategy approach to skills building and capacity development in immigrant communities. Experience has shown us that in order to increase skills and change practice, people need not only training, but onsite support (coaching, mentoring, etc.) in order to implement what is learned within their organizations and communities. In addition, we believe that opportunities to learn, strategize and build relationships across communities and issues are a critical component of movement-building work. If networks of groups and leaders who share a similar mission can be nurtured and maintained, they offer critical spaces for joint analysis, connection, and mutual support. CSIO has been able to convene and support these kinds of spaces in an ongoing way in the past and we have found that in addition to the above-mentioned benefit, these kinds of cross community networks often help seed and incubate collective efforts which magnify the impact of social justice efforts.
The heart of CSIO is ‘grassroots leadership development’ – giving members of the most affected communities the opportunity to exercise their power, experience, knowledge, and skills in social change work.
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We bring people & organizations together, creating space, promoting learning & building relationships in order to develop collective solutions to social injustices and strengthen community capacity, long-term leadership, and the sustainability of community-led organizations
We are grounded in the values of collective action & participatory leadership which are central to the transformation of relationships of power over the long haul.
