ABOUT US

CSIO Mission and Approach

The mission of the Center to Support Immigrant Organizing (CSIO) is to support and help develop the work of individuals, groups, organizations and communities dedicated to organizing immigrants around the issues that affect their lives. Our goal is to help immigrants in the forefront of community and workplace struggles develop their power and leadership not only to succeed in their immediate context, but also to contribute to the broader effort to build a more just and democratic society.

Since 2000, CSIO has been developing and coordinating various projects to link community organizing, organizational development and capacity building to help immigrant groups to:

increase their capacity to organize their immigrant constituents around the issues that affect them, particularly by integrating service, advocacy and education work into community organizing;

build constituent (immigrant) leadership in their organizations;

create organizational structures and practices that promote immigrant participation and leadership over the long haul; and

ensure organizers, directors, and other staff and board members develop a shared understanding of leadership and organizing, develop structures that reflect and promote this understanding, and get the training and support needed to advance their work in this area.

The heart of CSIO’s work is constituency leadership development. CSIO defines “constituency leadership development” as the process of giving people opportunities to exercise power and offer their experience, knowledge and skills to the work of positive community change. In the context of immigrant organizations, this process includes creating access for members of the organization’s immigrant constituency to decision-making roles within the organization including staff positions, board positions, community and workers committees, membership bodies, etc. Within organizing activities, constituency leadership development means creating processes and structures which allow immigrants the opportunity to define the problem they wish to work on, determine the direction of that work, and be actively involved in planning, implementation, and evaluation of the work.