Big Thanks To AIDNW Donors!

We want to give a big shout-out to everyone who has donated during this year of transition for AIDNW. Ours has always fundamentally been a volunteer operation, and we operate due to so many passionate volunteers who become pen-pals and visit immigrants in detention, who wait in all kinds of weather outside the gates of detention to welcome newly-released immigrants finding their way to a new life in the United States, who share their homes when immigrants need temporary shelter, and who keep AIDNW services going behind the scenes every day by volunteering in the office: answering emails and the phones – mostly requests from immigrants in detention needing funds to call family and attorneys – their calls in detention aren’t free unfortunately, so one of our biggest budget expenses is providing those funds to them.

AIDNW has grown over its 15 years to needing paid staff who can write grants, who can keep daily books and submit quarterly reports without error, who can immediately deposit those phone funds into a complicated ICE accounting system for immigrants in detention, and and who can coordinate all of us volunteers who are passionate about our particular arm of the operation. There are so many arms and foundational parts nowadays for staff to support and keep in communication with one another. Fortunately, we have a wondeful new Executive Director, Lynette Crumity, who was hired in the spring due to her extensive background in fundraising and structural capacity-building, with the result that we increased revenues in the second half of this year back toward where it was before the post-pandemic drop-off many non-profits experienced. We also have an amazing part-time Volunteer Coordinator, Aidan Perkinson who does so much office administration that our 1.5 staff now does the work 3.0 staff were doing a couple years ago.

That’s all to say how efficiently our staff works, and how hard our volunteers work – one of which logged 77 hours just last month, with the second-most volunteer hour total not far behind that number. As you can tell, we are looking at a great team to start 2025 strong, but we need to increase the staffing levels back toward 2.0 FTE for solid, sustainable services. We are incredibly grateful for the truly fundamental role AIDNW donors provide in achieving this work. As we graphed in our October newsletter, donations have been good since July, and we hope that our year-end campaign also meets the mark to ensure a solid 2025. On the other side of the balance sheet, we found ways to tighten our belt like the securing shared office and storage space, replacing our Welcome Center RV with a simpler donated one that’s easier for volunteers to use, and planning a new Hospitality House to ensure  stability and longevity for our transitional immigrant housing services.

Even with our fundraising progress in the second half of this year, there are still a couple hundred 2023 donors on our list we haven’t heard from yet this year. We hope they are waiting until the year-end giving season to help us start 2025 on a solid footing. We have exciting plans for the new year, including visions for a homey Welcome Center designed exactly as volunteers need, and expanding Host Home services to ensure immigrants have safe spaces while we work toward new Hospitality House services. Thank you so much for supporting this volunteer-centered AIDNW operation, and together, we will persist through everything to come in the new year!

Click Here to DONATE to the AIDNW Year-End Campaign