• (215) 279 7060
  • nsm@sanctuaryphiladelphia.org
  • Mailing Address: PO Box 46242, Philadelphia, PA 19160
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Our Model

Immigrant led Community Organizing

NSM is a BIPOC immigrant-led organization whose staff and board represent the beautiful diversity of the immigrant and diaspora community within Philadelphia. Composed mostly of BIPOC women, immigrants, and single mothers, our staff are deeply rooted in Philadelphia’s immigrant communities. In addition to being reflective of the community we serve, NSM staff also organize periodic listening campaigns among our members which ensure that NSM’s services, campaigns, goals, and structure are guided by the needs and priorities of Philadelphia’s immigrant community. 

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Leadership Development

In 2022, we launched a new Immigrant Leadership Development Program to orient new members and prepare them to join our working committees. After losing the campaign for a pathway to citizenship, we spent eight months meeting with members, talking with movement elders in the US and abroad, and processing lessons. We realized we needed to scale up our base building. 

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Build Community Power

“When you move out of your country to another country, it is like you lose half of your strength. You feel like you don’t have any power and that’s how you just accept any injustice that comes your way. When I started doing this community organizing work it was like I was regaining some power, the power to induct changes. This is the work we are doing as a community with the Driver’s License for All campaign. We are building power among our immigrant communities so they can fight for themselves.” -NSM Community Organizer Coumba Faye

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Win structural change

Committees - they are plugged into committees that fight for concrete changes. Long-term change - short-term reform and long-term system. TO: Ensure that values of dignity, justice, and hospitality are lived out in practice and upheld in the policy.

Anti-racist practices work

We do all this with practcing anti-racism BECAUSE: the immigration system is not broken but works as designed--to keep white people in power and hoard resources by denying the humanity of Black and Brown people and treating them as less than human. Be specific Faith Rooted - our faith teachings and traditions guide us in our work - challenging us to act, inspiring visions of how we can live together in community, showing us how we engage our opponents, and how we plan our actions. We creatively bring our faith traditions and practices into the public sphere to call for a more loving and just world.

Faith Rooted

Our faith teachings and traditions guide us in our work - challenging us to act, inspiring visions of how we can live together in community, showing us how we engage our opponents, and how we plan our actions. We creatively bring our faith traditions and practices into the public sphere to call for a more loving and just world.

All this moves us toward a broader vision

Belief that even as we work rigorously to dismantle systems of oppression, we must simultaneously build lasting systems of mutual support, collective liberation, and respect for all people. NSM works with immigrant communities and mission-aligned organizations to bend the arc of the moral universe towards justice and transform our communities into a place where immigrants, families, friends, and neighbors are safe, respected, and welcomed; where economic, spiritual, and emotional wholeness are realized; and where borders and divisions disappear as we build a community welcoming to everyone.

Immigrant led Community Organizing

Our staff manages our campaigns and programs while our members join our working committees to inform our programming, choose our campaigns, and plan our strategies to win. Through conversation and listening, our members and the community on the ground are the ones directing the organization. When people reach out to NSM, they connect with someone who speaks their language, looks like them, and is committed to empowering immigrant communities because they understand their journey and struggle. At NSM, our communities see their peers guiding our mission, creating trust, and allowing members to recognize NSM as an immigrant-led organization.
NSM works to lift the skills of the affected community and dismantle systems of oppression while promoting systems of mutual support, collective liberation, and respect for all people, which is why we provide interpretation services, respect childcare needs, schedule our sessions during times that work best for members who work multiple jobs or cannot meet in person, and allow members to inform us about their individual needs before meetings.
The community leads our work at every level to eliminate unnecessary barriers and meet the varied needs of our members.

Leadership Development

Our Leadership Development Program is a step in recruiting and training new leaders and training. The program blends the skills and experiences members bring from their home countries with NSM’s signature faith-rooted and anti-racist organizing model.

We have curricula for each level of membership, which includes workshops on the history of detention, community organizing, nonviolent protest, campaign strategy, and ongoing anti-racism training. Our programming encourages immigrant leaders to find their voice, understand the power of collective resistance, and join a community of immigrant leaders fighting for transformational systemic changes rooted in social and economic justice.

Leading this initiative is Bertha Murcia, one of NSM's Community Organizers. She is an alumna of NSM’s Promotoras de Justicia immigrant leadership program and oversees member engagement.

Build Community Power

NSM’s organizing efforts emphasize community building, inviting people to new roles, deepening Black and Brown solidarity, long-term leadership development, and impactful campaigns.

We build a base of people from our 33 congregations and Accompaniment Team and direct that people-power to fight specific campaigns. Staff members work with immigrant members to choose our campaigns, guide our strategies, lead events, and ensure our work is focused on meeting the needs of Philadelphia’s various immigrant communities.

Having a hands-on role in changing policy allows our members to gain a sense of empowerment, confidence, and self-respect. Empowering immigrants of color to organize collectively is part of NSM’s long haul work to create a people-powered movement for immigrant justice.