Contacts:
Roxana Moussavian | roxana@pangealegal.org
Elena Hodges | elena@pangealegal.org
March 19, 2024
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PRESS RELEASE: PANGEA AWARDED TRANSFORMATIVE YIELD GIVING OPEN CALL AWARD
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Pangea is excited to announce the award of a $2 million transformational grant that we plan to spend over the next decade to build the organization's infrastructure and ensure the long-term financial stability of our legal services and community organizing work. These investments will multiply our impact as we rededicate ourselves to working alongside our immigrant communities in the fight for justice and equity, for as long as needed.
In March 2023, Yield Giving launched an Open Call for community-led, community-focused organizations whose explicit purpose is to support individuals and families with access to the fewest foundational resources and opportunities. Today, Yield Giving and Lever for Change announced Pangea Legal Services as one of the Yield Giving Open Call’s awardees.
Receiving an award through this national open call, which included a thorough participatory review process, is a major vote of confidence in Pangea’s unique model and approach to immigrant justice work. Since we started more than 10 years ago, what we do and how we do it has always been fairly unique. Pangea is made up of immigration lawyers and organizers who believe that our country’s immigration laws are fundamentally broken. We marry community organizing with legal services, in an effort to transform the immigration system. We not only serve our clients, we invest in their leadership development and partner with them to do our advocacy and community education work together.
Pangea’s organizing happens in coalition. From anchoring 24/7 Rapid Response Networks across the Bay Area to provide emergency support following ICE arrests, to collaborating on organizing campaigns to secure our community members’ release from detention, to participating in free legal clinics and know-your-rights events with other community legal service providers, we know that we are stronger through close, long-term collaboration with our partners. As formerly detained leader Pedro Ayon explains, “participation in shared community events where you fight alongside other formerly detained folks and immigrant organizations to demand freedom and the closure of detention centers sets Pangea apart. I am very grateful and proud to be able to meet and participate alongside you in our fight against injustice and to seek the closure of the sites that hold our immigrant siblings captive.”
We do all of this while also organizing ourselves through a democratically-run, non-hierarchical management model. Every member of our organization is compensated equally for their work—from our co-founders to our front-desk staff. We are the community we seek to serve: 40 percent of our staff are either undocumented or formerly undocumented. Some of us were previously deported and detained. The vast majority of our staff and board are people of color, immigrants, and children of immigrants.
“Pangea is an amazing organization. Pangea has had a very, very, very big impact in my life in so many ways....I just see how they move, how they fight, how they talk, how they support their people,” Yazmin Elias, a formerly detained Pangea client, shared recently. “And I think that’s one of my reasons that I’m fighting even harder, because I know I deserve a second chance and I know the person that I became now....Like we say in Spanish, Pangea mueve cielo, tierra, y mar. They move sky, earth, and sea to fight for their people. They don't let us fall.”
The Open Call received 6,353 applications from all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. Pangea’s application underwent participatory peer review by other applicant organizations, and we emerged as one of the top-rated applications. In Fall 2023, we advanced to review by an external evaluation panel and a final due diligence stage. In light of the powerful work of the top-rated applicant organizations, the donor team decided to expand the awardee pool and the award amount. “In a world teeming with potential and talent, the Open Call has given us an opportunity to identify, uplift, and empower transformative organizations that often remain unseen,” said Cecilia Conrad, CEO of Lever for Change.
Receiving this award is a testament to the success of our unique approach to immigrant rights work, and a strong showing of support for our vision for the future. “We are working together to win citizenship for all nationally. And we are mobilizing our communities to close all immigration detention centers, first in California and then everywhere. This award is bringing us one step closer to making these dreams a reality,” confirmed Esperanza Cuautle, Pangea Co-Director and Detained Organizer. “We are thrilled to continue working together with our community.”
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Yield Giving
Established by MacKenzie Scott to share a financial fortune created through the effort of countless people, Yield Giving is named after a belief in adding value by giving up control. To date, Yield’s network of staff and advisors has yielded over $16,500,000,000 to 1,900+ non-profit teams to use as they see fit for the benefit of others. To learn more, visit www.yieldgiving.com.
Lever for Change
Lever for Change connects donors with bold solutions to the world’s biggest problems—including issues like racial inequity, gender inequality, lack of access to economic opportunity, and climate change. Using an inclusive, equitable model and due diligence process, Lever for Change creates customized challenges and other tailored funding opportunities. Top-ranked teams and challenge finalists become members of the Bold Solutions Network—a growing global network that helps secure additional funding, amplify members’ impact, and accelerate social change. Founded in 2019 as a nonprofit affiliate of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Lever for Change has influenced over $1.7 billion in grants to date and provided support to more than 145 organizations. To learn more, visit www.leverforchange.org.