Two Tennessee Advocacy Organizations Make Change Happen with the Databank
The Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition and the American Center for Outreach share more than just a commitment to underserved communities in Tennessee – they also share an address. They are both part of a unique nonprofit community space that contains offices of nonprofits with similar missions.
“One of the things we at TIRRC love the most about the Databank is that it changes with you. As a grassroots organization it is important for us to be able to track the progress and development of our members. This task was relatively easy for staff who interacted with members on a daily basis but, even then, they could never be sure about their accuracy. During a planning retreat, we realized we needed to develop a leadership continuum and set benchmarks to ensure we were helping develop leaders that are well-rounded and highly skilled and we needed a way to track it.
Reaching out to customer support/tech support is usually a daunting task, but not with the Databank. I filled out a support request and Sarah scheduled a call to go over the details. This was extremely helpful because she was able to ask me questions that gave her insight to how TIRRC staff would interact with the table to ensure it fully met our needs. Our new table was fully up and running within a few days of our call.
This new table allows us to better track the development of our leaders and assess the impact of our work. The benefits are endless. We now have accurate, real-time information about our members, which we’ve never had before. This information is incredibly helpful when writing grant reports. Funders love to know the impact of the work and it is because of this new table that we are able to report those numbers.” -Rebecca Hall, Project Assistant
thedatabank’s CEO, Chris Hanson, visited their office recently and was inspired by their collaborative environment. They find that through collaboration, and use of their Databank, progress is made and their goals are achieved. Read more about these organizations and how they used the Databank to reach successes below.
The Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) is a statewide, immigrant and refugee-led collaboration whose mission is to empower immigrants and refugees throughout Tennessee to develop a unified voice, defend their rights, and create an atmosphere in which they are recognized as positive contributors to the state.
The American Center for Outreach (ACO) is a Tennessee based non-partisan political advocacy organization that was established to inform, educate and empower Muslims to become engaged in the civic and political process.
“Established in late 2011, ACO was created to bring the Muslim voice to the political stage with the objective of changing the local political debate. As one of the only political advocacy organizations in the South that caters to the American-Muslim community, the Databank has allowed us to successfully engage our base, build our political power and respond to crisis situation as they occur. With the necessary capabilities and tools available to us, we are continuing to tread new territory for our community while at the same time tracking and highlighting our progress.” -Remziya Suleyman, Policy Coordinator
To learn more about Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, visit http://www.tnimmigrant.org/
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