Statements

Mission

Our mission is to build power, amplify our voices, and organize communities to advocate for our rights. Our vision is a stronger, more inclusive Tennessee where people of all nationalities, immigration statuses, and racial identities can belong and thrive.

Background

In January of 2001, immigrant service providers came together in a groundbreaking and successful campaign to advance a bill in the Tennessee state legislature that would provide licenses to drivers without social security numbers. As an outgrowth of this success, and the need for a statewide organization focused on the needs of Tennessee's rapidly growing immigrant population, a critical mass of groups decided to form statewide immigrant rights coalition. Since our founding, TIRRC has grown from an informal network of community leaders into one of the most diverse and effective coalitions of its kind, a model for immigrant rights organizations in the Southeast. Tennessee has one of the fastest growing immigrant population of any state in the country. The tensions and anxieties that arise from rapidly shifting demographics has created fertile ground for acts of hate and a climate for extreme anti-immigrant and anti-refugee policy. Since we were founded we have defeated more than 150 anti-immigrant and anti-refugee policies.

Impact

Now in our twenty-first year, we are nationally recognized for our multiethnic, multigenerational coalition building, effective legislative advocacy, and award-winning communications initiatives. We organize individual immigrants and refugees, as well as organizations that serve immigrant and refugee communities. We believe that real and lasting change must be led by those directed affected by injustice, and for this reason community organizing and leadership development are the core strategies we use to realize our vision. We bring together diverse immigrant communities throughout the state to examine root causes, find common interests, and organize for better conditions. We strive to lift up the voices of directly affected people and invest in leaders at the grassroots level, and to ensure our theory of change is reflected in the way we make decisions, in the work we undertake today, and in the course we set for the future. We invest in public policy campaigns as a vehicle to build community power and to improve the lives of our members. Each year our coalition has become stronger and the immigrant community has become more powerful and organized. We have increasingly marginalized anti-immigrant policies and made space for more pro-immigrant legislation -- including defeating all anti-immigrant bills every year for three years.

Needs

Our strategic planning process mapped our growth trajectory and determined where best to focus our capacity. The vision that was cast is one focused on expanding the reach and impact of TIRRC through three key areas: policy, external capacity building, and internal leadership development. In the policy arena, we have a goal of creating and leading policy change, being the key convener and coalition builder around immigrant issues, and increasingly becoming a force that builds and wields political power. External capacity building will result in training and resource offerings to develop strong immigrant leaders and organizations statewide, and allow us to mobilize the largest, most diverse group in Tennessee. We also want to build capacity that enables the implementation of strategic direct services that build the capacity of our partner organizations, defend our policy wins, and help immigrants overcome systemic barriers. Internally, we want to operate out of a comprehensive membership engagement strategy, become a recognized presence throughout the state, build a sustainable funding model, implement a balanced, effective internal organizational model, and establish a connected external communication system.

Service Categories
Primary Category:	Civil Rights, Social Action, Advocacy  - Minority Rights
Secondary Category:	Human Services  - Ethnic/Immigrant Services
Tertiary Category:	Public & Societal Benefit  - Citizen Participation

Areas Served

TIRRC's work is statwide. Tennessee's largest cities--Nashville, Memphis, Chattanooga, and Knoxville--are home to the majority of our members. As such, much of our work is focused in those areas, but we also seek to reach members in rural areas more intentionally. Our headquarters are in Nashville, where most of our full-time staff are based, and they frequently travel to other regions of the state, and we employ various part-time employees in other cities.

TN