Immigrant-serving nonprofits have drawn under 2% of U.S. grantmaking since 2011, NCRP finds

Foundation funding for immigrant-serving nonprofits has stayed under 2% of total U.S. grantmaking every year since 2011, according to a brief the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) published on October 20.

NCRP, a research and advocacy group that describes itself as philanthropy's independent watchdog, published The Infrastructure of Welcome with World Education Services (WES), a nonprofit that works on the inclusion of immigrants, refugees and international students, and the WES Mariam Assefa Fund.

How did NCRP measure it?

From public tax filings. NCRP identified more than 3,000 501(c)(3) organizations whose filings since 2010 explicitly describe their work as serving immigrants and refugees, then tracked foundation funding to them. The brief's chart puts that funding at 2.1% of total grantmaking in 2010 and 2.2% in 2011, and between 0.8% and 1.9% in each year from 2012 through 2023.

The dollars grew even as the share stayed small: foundation funding to these groups more than doubled from $1.4 billion to $3 billion between 2017 and 2021, the brief says.

Which groups are in the count?

Mostly service providers. NCRP sorts the organizations into four types: groups serving a broader community that includes immigrants (47%), groups serving mainly immigrants and refugees (27%), core movement groups that build immigrants' political power (16%) and multi-issue movement groups (8%). The power-building groups rely most on grants and contributions, while service providers lean more on government money.

The brief also says NCRP tracked $215 million given to organizations with explicitly anti-immigrant positions and programs from 2020 to 2023. It does not explain in the brief how it classified those organizations.

What does NCRP recommend?

Five calls to action, according to the release: align health, education and workforce funding with immigrant-serving groups; invest in underfunded regions such as the South and the Mountain West; give long-term general operating support and shift power to community-led groups; fund advocacy, organizing, civic engagement and leadership development; and mobilize resources against threats to immigrant communities.

"Immigrant communities are central to the nation's economic future and democratic promise," said Aaron Dorfman, NCRP's president and CEO, in the release.

What should funders and nonprofits take from it?

NCRP is an advocacy-minded research group, and the brief argues a position. In our view, the most useful finding is about who is missing: the release says funders working in economic development and health, and in the South and Mountain West, are often absent from pro-immigrant funding entirely, even though the brief argues their goals overlap with this work. For a similar share-of-giving measure in another field, see Candid's finding that democracy grants are about 1.3% of foundation giving, and for how cuts in public money hit small charities, our report on the Urban Institute's funding-disruption survey.