Critical Engines of Mobility: What JFF Learned From Investing in Rural, Immigrant-Serving Organizations Across the Country

RISE: Seeding Rural Innovations

What lessons can rural communities teach us about supporting the economic advancement of immigrants and refugees? Jobs for the Future (JFF) set out to answer this question by launching the Rural Immigrant Success Exchange (RISE) network in spring 2022, with generous support from World Education Services’ Mariam Assefa Fund and Ascendium. The network was created to invest in rural-serving organizations building economic advancement pathways for immigrants, refugees, and migrants. The two-year, $3 million initiative, which focuses on breaking down barriers to education, training, and employment for immigrant and refugee workers, aimed to understand what partnerships, programmatic elements, and strategic innovations spark transformations in advancement pathways for RISE participants.

Rural communities across the United States are becoming more diverse and celebrating the contributions of immigrant and refugee neighbors, such as spurring economic growth, opening new businesses, reversing population decline, and filling critically needed roles in industries like health care. However, many of these newcomers face barriers to achieving economic advancement, including limited English proficiency and digital literacy skills, challenges transferring training and credentials obtained in other countries to a U.S. context, and a lack of social capital. RISE seeks to address these barriers. Over 18 months, the 10 organizations selected to participate in the RISE network used flexible grant funding to develop new, innovative approaches to serving rural immigrant populations or to scale existing high-impact programs to additional rural communities to best meet people’s needs. In partnership with JFF, leaders of the RISE organizations—each with lived experience in populations similar to those they serve—codesigned culturally responsive, asset-based, and community-driven programs. This collaboration allowed the organizations to deliver tailored services specific to the rural communities in which they live and serve.

RISE network members have proved themselves to be critical engines of economic mobility for rural immigrants, refugees, and migrants. JFF is proud to amplify and encourage the application of these transferable strategies toward future initiatives by both practitioners and funders to support immigrant economic advancement.

615 Individuals Served

55% male

45% female

20+ languages spoken across the RISE network

14+ home countries represented

Empowering Economic Integration: Key Strategies & Practices

Through collaboration, cross-network learning, and attentiveness to participant experiences, the RISE network has identified key practices that effectively support rural immigrant integration and economic success. While each RISE pathway is tailored to the unique assets and resources of rural communities, the following common strategies have emerged.

Amplify Best Practices and Refine Programmatic Approaches in Partnership With Community Members

The RISE network shares best practices across rural immigrant service providers, fostering programmatic refinement and growth. RISE network members enhance their ability to support diverse rural communities and immigrant populations by actively seeking and applying transferable lessons. The following are two key lessons that have driven effective adaptations in RISE projects:

Build Trust & Center Lived Experiences

The Midstate Council on Occupational Safety and Health addresses potential participants’ questions through marketing materials that spotlight alumni testimonials, which builds credibility and trust. This approach ensures that participants feel understood and valued. World Relief Quad Cities also adopts this intentional trust-building approach, by hosting employer roundtables to boost awareness of the benefits that immigrant workers can bring to local businesses.

Seek Regular Feedback & Integrate Participant Voice

The Central Valley Immigrant Integration Collaborative (CVIIC) actively responds to participant feedback. One recent example is the expansion of its standard eight-week entrepreneurship training to include daylong and weekend mini–workshops. This programmatic expansion increases the accessibility of CVIIC training pathways for rural participants with variable schedules.

These approaches emphasize the importance of listening to participants and communities as key information sources. The programmatic iterations during the RISE grant period underscore the value of sharing challenges, meeting participants where they are, and amplifying their voices to strengthen community-centered economic advancement pathways.

Explore Alternative Pathways to Economic Advancement

While economic advancement is a shared goal across the RISE network, several organizations have introduced innovative approaches to wealth-building. These innovations often stem from creative problem-solving and asset-based strategies to navigate economic barriers. Here are three notable examples:

Offering culturally specific loan products:

African Economic Development Solutions designs loan products that address the specific needs of different immigrant populations, including offering Islamic loan products that comply with Sharia law. These loans avoid charging interest (a prohibitive practice in Islam) and instead employ profit-sharing arrangements or service fees to ensure financial accessibility.

Harnessing immigrants’ expertise in agriculture:

Culturingua’s RISE program recognizes the rich agricultural expertise within the populations it serves, which is evident in its training partnership with an immigrant-owned farm and ranch. This collaboration provides participants with hands-on experience in animal husbandry to continue skill development in an area of focus where many already have background knowledge. The program has evolved to incorporate businesses that former RISE participants founded into the Culturingua training pathway, creating a self-sustaining ecosystem where RISE graduates directly contribute to the education and employment of subsequent cohorts.

Entrepreneurship education and seed funding:

Recognizing the significant barriers immigrant entrepreneurs face in accessing traditional financing, Comunidad Maya Pixan Ixim (CMPI) integrates seed funding opportunities directly into its entrepreneurship programs. This approach not only equips participants with the skills needed to launch and grow their businesses, but also provides essential initial capital, which many immigrant entrepreneurs struggle to secure. By coupling education with immediate financial support, CMPI empowers participants to overcome financing obstacles and take actionable steps toward business ownership.

These examples show how RISE network members turn community strengths into pathways for economic advancement. By addressing and mitigating risks, whether through tailored financial products or hands-on training partnerships, RISE network members offer sustainable, community-centered solutions to overcome systemic barriers and build lasting wealth.

Bridge Silos & Interweave Services

RISE network members play a crucial role in actively making connections across services and networks to address the complex needs of rural immigrants and their communities. Recognizing the multiplicity of systems that immigrants must navigate, RISE network members take a holistic approach to capacity–building and system integration. Key practices include the following:

Braiding language instruction and digital literacy:

Lane Community College (LCC) integrates language instruction with digital literacy training that emphasizes business skills. By combining these elements, LCC ensures that participants not only gain proficiency in English but also acquire the digital competencies necessary to thrive in today’s workforce.

Building social capital through networks:

The International Medical Graduates Academy fosters social capital by facilitating network-building activities that connect participants with peers and professionals. These relationships, which provide access to mentorship, job opportunities, and professional support systems, are essential for career advancement.

Providing intergenerational program outreach:

New Vision engages multiple generations within families through its intergenerational approach to program outreach. By involving different age groups, the foundation strengthens community ties and ensures that knowledge, resources, and support are shared across generations.

These strategies illustrate how RISE network members bridge gaps within fragmented ecosystems. By fostering connections across sectors, they effectively interweave services and relationships, empowering rural immigrant communities to achieve sustainable success.

Takeaways for Practitioners

Based on the RISE network members’ lessons learned that are outlined above, JFF encourages practitioners to consider five key takeaways to enhance economic advancement work with rural immigrant and refugee communities:

Move at the speed of relationships and trust:

Building trust within immigrant communities through direct engagement and leveraging existing social ties is critical for programmatic success. This process can take considerable time, and program designers should recognize the need for and prioritize this investment, with the understanding that trust is foundational to achieving meaningful outcomes.

Forge strategic partnerships to adopt an ecosystem orientation:

Collaborate with a wide range of critical stakeholders, including lenders, workforce development agencies, and small–business support centers, to provide comprehensive resources for training and wealth-building.

Integrate holistic participant support services:

Offer language access programs, prioritize digital literacy training, and provide immigration legal services.

Emphasize storytelling to build trust and community:

Incorporate personal narratives, such as alumni testimonials, to build credibility and motivate engagement.

Engage with policymakers to amplify programmatic impact:

Communicate regularly with your local and regional policymakers to ensure program sustainability and amplify immigrant lived experiences within the workforce and education systems.

JFF advises practitioners to apply these recommendations and continue sharing best practices within their networks to amplify their effect. In building stronger connective tissue in our communities and learning from one another, we can create more inclusive and thriving economic advancement pathways for all.

Takeaways for Funders and System Leaders

Funders and system leaders play a crucial role in supporting the sustainability and scalability of economic mobility initiatives. JFF offers the following recommendations for the field:

Invest in capacity building

Support the long-term development of relationship–driven work as well as foundational building blocks such as language access, multigenerational programming, and digital and business literacy—all tailored to the specific strengths and expertise of rural immigrant communities.

Foster ecosystem partnerships

Encourage and fund relationship–building and collaboration among community-based organizations, educational institutions, and employers to create a comprehensive support system of service providers.

Promote policy engagement

Assist in making connections between community practitioners and local and state advocacy networks, with a focus on positioning immigrant-serving organizations for sustainability and enhanced impact.

Support innovative models

In addition to focusing on immigrants’ access to more traditional training models like apprenticeships, invest in alternative economic models, such as community land trusts and cooperatives, to build collective wealth within immigrant communities.

Looking Ahead

RISE’s evolution and expansion have fostered a powerful peer network, elevated worker voice, and driven continuous program improvements to ensure that the people and communities RISE organizations support are prepared for and able to succeed in quality jobs.

The success of RISE signals the unlimited potential and opportunities for rural immigrant communities across the country, and JFF is proud to support and encourage investments that promote the many pathways that advance immigrant economic and social inclusion. JFF recognizes the committed vision and inspiring efforts of field providers and remains committed to championing both practitioners and their participants by capturing and sharing proven strategies and insights. These transformative practices, driven by RISE network leaders, will continue to influence future program design and investment strategies for rural workforce development ecosystems. We urge education and workforce system leaders and partners to connect with immigrant-serving organizations in their own communities to support and advance immigrant economic advancement.

“The RISE Network continues to hold a vital role in facilitating connections among all participating organizations. This presents a valuable opportunity for us to engage with fellow organizations, collectively addressing any shared challenges or obstacles we may encounter. It also allows us to collaborate on the exchange of ideas and potential solutions that others can offer.”
Essam Bouras, Program Manager, Culturingua

Critical Engines of Mobility: What JFF Learned From Investing in Rural, Immigrant-Serving Organizations Across the Country

At A Glance