The Immigrant Justice Movement is Leading the Fight for Democracy; It’s Time for Philanthropy to Catch Up

Co-Authored by Farrah Parkes, Gender Justice Fund and Juliana Cabrales, Four Freedoms Fund, PA FIRE Advisory Committee Members

Over the past year and a half, Pennsylvania’s civic activists and community organizers have used their voices, their feet, and the ballot box to stand up for immigrants and push back against unprecedented attacks on civil rights, human rights, and due process. At the same time, funders across an ecosystem of priorities and issues continue to examine and fund organizing, immigrant rights, gender justice, and civic engagement as distinct and siloed issues. But as we have seen over the past year, the dismantling of democracy and our constitutional rights is being pilot tested on immigrant communities, right now. And it will take an intersectional “all the above” approach to fight back.

The organizing response from communities and individuals across the country has made it clear: organizing with immigrant communities is one of the most potent and visible exercises of civic power that we have witnessed in our lifetimes. Frontline organizers and tens of thousands of individuals have responded swiftly to attacks on their friends and neighbors that undermine and blatantly disregard basic human and civil rights. This bravery and moral clarity is all the more uplifting because it comes from incredibly broad and diverse coalitions. Immigrant justice is the litmus test for civic power and democracy of our time.

A New Kind of Organizing

In Pennsylvania, a network of immigrant rights groups foresaw what would unfold across cities, towns, and states across the country. The Commonwealth typically receives philanthropy’s attention in the lead up to midterm and federal election years, on the promise that civic engagement in Pennsylvania will have an outsize impact nationally. Yet it’s been in 2025 and 2026, in work outside of election cycles, that Pennsylvania organizers have demonstrated some of the most potent forms of civic power building across urban and rural communities, and it has been for immigrant rights.

The Pennsylvania Immigration Coalition (PIC), a network of 37 grassroots organizations, prepared a coordinated statewide plan to support, protect, and strengthen immigrant rights across communities. The plan addresses multiple needs simultaneously: expanding direct services and legal representation while also building and wielding the civic power of Pennsylvanians to protect immigrant communities now and to advance long-term systems change that will strengthen the commonwealth. The plan was led in large part by immigrant leaders, women, trans, and gender non-conforming organizers, and people of color. They had the plan. What they needed was for philanthropy to power it.

Flipping the Script on Funding

A group of allies in foundations, collaborative funds, and advisory roles sprang into action. To support this organizing across the state, a cohort of local and national funders in partnership with the Pennsylvania Immigration Coalition launched the Pennsylvania Fund for Immigrant Rights and Equity (PA FIRE). This participatory fund flips the script on the usual top-down approach to grantmaking. Instead of a multi-year strategic analysis and closed door deliberation, the fund is designed to resource the activities of the statewide plan designed by the immigrant rights organizations in the coalition. In nine short months, the fund has raised over $2 million new dollars to support the work organizations are doing in immigrant communities right now. In this same period, PIC members have achieved civic victories that have swept across the state: passing the ICE Out package in Philadelphia; Welcoming City legislation passed in Allentown, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Erie, Reading, Carlisle and Cheltenham, to name a few, and Welcoming County legislation passed in Allegheny, Montgomery and Bucks counties; ending ICE detention in the Erie County prison, and to-date 8 municipalities and 1 county ending 287g contracts, contracts that deputize local police to do immigration enforcement. This is the civic engagement equivalent of a supermajority for immigrant justice.

Over the past year, we have had the great privilege to serve on the Advisory Committee of PA FIRE. We are thrilled to report that we are not alone in understanding immigrant justice as a pillar of a healthy democracy. Across the country, donors and institutions are rising up to meet the urgent rapid response needs in defense of immigrants and community organizing. From Minnesota to Chicago and California to New York, public support has swelled behind impacted individuals and families along with organizers and activists.

Questions Philanthropy Must Ask Itself

Advocates and civil rights groups with decades of experience remind us: they were built for these challenging times, because they rose up from the challenging moments that came before. Individuals are standing up to speak out against injustice. Grassroots organizations running on shoestring budgets are stretching themselves, their staff, and limited resources to respond to what their communities and constituents need—direct aid, organizing, and waves of rapid response. These courageous organizers and advocates are fighting for our collective future.

And what of our foundations, our collaborative funds, our major donors? Are we the kind of philanthropy that is built for these challenging times? Do we have the clarity and capacity to act with urgency, beyond the business and siloes as usual?

In these dark times the need is greater than ever for moral courage and bold action. As the very pillars of our democracy are under attack, philanthropy must also reckon with ourselves, our power, the limitations of our systems, and our fundamental duty to act in the public trust.

We urge our colleagues in philanthropy: what’s at stake at this time requires willingness to reexamine old strategies and priorities, and most importantly to listen to those on the ground and deliver on what is being requested. Communities across the country have been showing up everyday to make it clear to their elected officials that immigrants belong. Now it’s your turn. Here are four things that all funders and donors can do:

1. Start talking across siloes. Ask your peers in philanthropy what they are doing at this moment.

2. Get organized. Join philanthropy groups with expertise in immigrant justice, such as Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees or Four Freedoms Fund.

3. Coordinate at the state level. Whether you’re funding direct services or systems change, it’s essential that funders understand and leverage their grantmaking with their peers in state. This is the organizing level where meaningful solutions are possible.

4. Fund immigrant justice and organizing at the state and local level. Organizers and groups are already leading efforts and showing incredible impact and resilience. Our duty and function is to fund this kind of leadership in action. Join this work to fund immigrant justice because human rights, democracy, gender justice, and civic engagement depend on it.

Join the second annual Philanthropic Convening on Immigrant Rights in Pennsylvania, taking place July 23rd, 2026, in Harrisburg, PA. This event is open to members of philanthropy only — private and community foundation staff, collaborative funds, donor organizing groups, and philanthropy-serving organizations.