Mark your calendars now for Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees' national convening. A longstanding immigrant destination with vibrant ethnic neighborhoods, Chicago provides a rich laboratory for exploring barriers and promising approaches to immigrant integration, civic participation, and leadership development. Foundations will glean important insights, lessons, and best practices to guide their work back home. The program will offer a dynamic combination of sessions with film, art exhibits, and live performances that put a human face on complex immigration issues. The convening will focus on some of the most critical immigrant-related issues facing communities across the United States, including:

• Strategies for integrating newcomers into community life

• Alliance building among immigrants, African-Americans, and other disenfranchised communities

• The push for comprehensive immigration at the federal level

• The influence of the immigrant vote on the 2008 elections

• Effective framing, messaging, and communications on tough immigrant-related issues

Download their funder toolkit, Investing in Our Communities: Strategies for Immigrant Integration that includes the filmography "Films about the Experiences of Newcomers in America" at gcir.org/resources/gcir_publications/toolkit.php

For more information about the covening, contact GCIR's program director, Alison DeLucca, at 323.251.6505, or via e-mail at alison@gcir.org.