Nationalities Service Center of Philadelphia

NSC welcomes and empowers immigrants to thrive in our communities and pursue a just future.

Our vision is that all immigrants achieve a life of safety and stability, sustainable opportunities, and meaningful community connections.

Source: Nonprofit submitted responses

Goal One: Create sustainable pathways for immigrant families by becoming a hub of ongoing support, transforming employment programming to support economic self-sufficiency, and expanding supports for youth.

Goal Type: Grow, expand, scale or increase access to the existing programs and services.

Goal Two: Make NSC a great place to serve by ensuring that staff have access to development tools to grow, thrive, and ascend, and ensure continuity of high-caliber leadership.

Goal Type: Invest in the capacity of our organization (financial, management, technical, etc.).

Goal Three: Strengthen strategic partnerships by identifying advocacy priorities to guide development of partnerships and assessing current partnerships and relevancy to organizational priorities.

Goal Type: This goal reflects our commitment to further our advocacy work for our organization and or cause area.

Describe an investment in leadership

In the past 18 months, NSC senior leadership has made strategic investment in leadership development. Succession planning has been one particular area of focus, resulting in a number of internal staff promotions. Between June and December 2021, 14% of staff were promoted. In the upcoming fiscal year budget (beginning 6/1/22), a professional development fund has been created. This fund is tied directly to performance reviews, allowing managers to identify gaps in skills or training and then provide resources to address those gaps. Additionally, two senior staff members have been sent to prestigious strategic leadership certificate programs to help build their leadership skills.

This organization mobilizes for mission in the following ways:

• Strategic Partnerships

• Networks of Collective Impact Efforts

• Thought Leadership

• Raising Awareness

• Community Building

• Policy Advocacy

What are this organization’s external mobilizaton efforts?

NSC works closely with local partners in the provision of high-quality, comprehensive services & advocacy work. We share widely on our social media platforms about our impact, & have also built strong relationships with local press who share our work. NSC is the lead resettlement agency in the Philadelphia Refugee Health Collaborative (PRHC), which brings together Philadelphia resettlement agencies with local hospitals to ensure that all refugees arriving in Philadelphia receive culturally-sensitive medical care. The PRHC was featured in the Harvard Public Health Review as a national model for refugee health care. Additionally, NSC's Survivor Services team, comprised of attorneys & case workers, works with local immigration agencies to provide assistance to survivors of torture & trauma. Our staff in this unit often provide training & technical assistance to other service providers to help them better understand the effects of trauma & how best to assist these survivors.

In 2019, we had just finalized our FY20-22 Strategic Plan, with goals to expand our services into communities, establish NSC as a hub for youth to grow & excel, open two satellite offices, let data inform our programming, and more. And we’d taken steps toward realizing our priorities: we’d leased an office in a nearby suburb, hired staff for newly-created roles, and celebrated the grand opening of our Keystone computer lab. Then the COVID-19 shutdown impeded some of our plan while accelerating others. We began—by necessity—to deliver boxes of food to our clients’ doorsteps, right into their communities. We started surveying our clients on a regular basis, so that we could adapt our services to meet newly-identified needs. We formed virtual support groups for kids, distributed Chromebooks, and urged the School District to provide language access to low-English proficient kids. During the pandemic, we: - Delivered 2,500+ essential items & 1,647 gift cards or food boxes - Provided 106 virtual ESL classes & 225 educational supports - Offered 201% more therapy sessions - Accommodated 465 clients through virtual case management - Conducted 318 free telephonic legal consultations - Helped 1,300+ clients with legal services - Distributed $330,000 in direct assistance to immigrants - Raised nearly $400,000 in direct assistance from donors - Helped 100+ clients find new or first jobs, & gave out PPE to keep workers safe - Began expanding services to include youth & children to strengthen family units - Launched a succession plan & new programs to invigorate staff performance and morale -Kicked off our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee Since September 2021, NSC has also been marking is 100th anniversary. As part of this celebration, we have expanded our fundraising efforts by establishing an Opportunity Fund. This fund will allow us to innovate programs, strengthen our service delivery while expanding our reach, and steel the agency against times of turbulence.