Welcoming America Inc.

Programs: Welcoming america was recognized as one of eleven recipients worldwide for the 2014 intercultural innovation award, presented by the united nations alliance of civilizations and bmw group at a ceremony presided by un secretary general ban ki-moon. President obama recognized executive director david lubell and welcoming initiatives during a speech in nashville in december 2014 and has incorporated our approach into his executive action. In april 2015, the white house task force on new americans announced its strategic action plan on how the federal government will advance immigrant integration, making building welcoming communities a centerpiece of the plan and institutionalizing most of the recommendations that welcoming america put forward. Our annual event, national welcoming week, featured over 160 events attracting over 15,000 participants in 2014 more than doubling turnout from the previous year. We formalized and grew our vibrant national network to 73 nonprofit and local government members (56 welcoming cities and counties and 17 nonprofits) in 89 communities in 32 states and the district of columbia. 23 member communities are engaged in a multi-sector process to develop a welcoming plan or have already issued a plan, and 12 have institutionalized their welcoming efforts through an office of new americans or similar. We released a letter signed by 13 mayors and county executives who committed to compassionately supporting and welcoming children fleeing violence in central america a significant gesture showing tremendous leadership on this issue. The global great lakes network, which merged with the welcoming america network in april 2015 and has now been re-branded as the wegn. Already, we have released a report highlighting immigrant entrepreneurs and are laying the groundwork for the wegn convening in dayton, ohio in july 2015.