Building Capacity for Sustainable, Powerful, and Enduring Networks

For Rx Foundation's August newsletter issue, we are thrilled to spotlight our grant partner the?National Network for Arab American Communities?(NNAAC). We share highlights from our recent?Power is a Social Determinant of Health?session with NNAAC?and one of their member organizations,?Culturingua?in San Antonio, Texas. Since 2022, NNAAC has built a powerful and effective capacity-building program to support their national network of community-based organizations. No matter your focus area or seat at the table – as a funder or practitioner – you will find value in learning more about NNAAC’s national model for advocacy and how they’re building a network of organizations committed to long-lasting and durable change at the local, state, and national levels.

Established in 2004, the?National Network for Arab American Communities?(NNAAC) is a growing network of independent Arab American community-based organizations across the country. The strength of these member organizations is built around the grassroots constituencies they serve through a range of direct service programs, outreach and advocacy. NNAAC’s primary mission is to build the capacity of Arab American nonprofit organizations that focus on the needs and issues impacting their local community while collectively addressing those issues nationally.

Earlier this month, we gathered with colleagues from NNAAC, and one of their member organizations,?Culturingua, for a Power is a Social Determinant of Health session to showcase their national model for advocacy and capacity-building efforts to strengthen their growing network of 36 community-based organizations (CBOs) in 13 states.

For years, as policy changes were made, “we didn’t see an improvement in our communities”, Rima Meroueh, Director of NNAAC, shared during the Power session. “Whether harmful or positive, with no demographic data it’s difficult to see the trends either way.” Moreover, nonprofits serving Arab American communities have historically been deeply under-resourced or funded. And without demographic data to demonstrate need, it was even more difficult to secure funding.?

NNAAC began their foray into advocacy after recognizing the need to build an ecosystem of institutions serving Arab Americans that are sustainable and enduring. In 2022, NNAAC launched a capacity-building program to re-grant $50,000 to select member organizations, to support each of those organizations in hiring an advocacy specialist focused on policy, advocacy, and civic engagement efforts.

Since its inception, NNAAC’s advocacy capacity-building program has re-granted funding to five organizations. NNAAC also provides technical assistance and peer-to-peer cohort support for its member organizations to build sustainability and endurance. The type of support given can vary –?an organization may need assistance with diversifying their revenue streams, while another is seeking partnerships with similarly situated organizations focused on a particular issue area. Whatever the capacity needs of these CBOs, NNAAC helps its member organizations create an advocacy plan to begin to answer the question of how to build out a strategy from the ground up.

Nadia Mavrakis, CEO of Culturingua, a NNAAC member org in Texas that participated in their capacity-building program, shared more about her experience during our Power session. “It was a transformational experience to think about advocacy in the context of our direct service work, and realize it’s a phenomenal lever for change for our communities.” With the capacity-building support, Culturingua was able to hire a full-time advocacy specialist, and “add a whole separate pillar to our work: policy, advocacy, and civic engagement”. The results have been fruitful for Culturingua, as they now have dedicated staff to focus on base- and coalition-building, growing state and federal level advocacy efforts.?

NNAAC’s focus on capacity-building has paid off, not just for member organizations like Culturingua, but for the national network too. For instance, in 2024 NNAAC celebrated the success of a major step towards being accurately counted and represented – under newly revised standards for data on race and ethnicity, the federal government will now collect and report data on Arab American communities under a “Middle Eastern or North African” (MENA) reporting category.

NNAAC has been closely involved in the lengthy process to achieve this administrative change, working with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) when it began its own detailed?process in June 2022. Through their #CountMENAIn campaign, NNAAC collectively submitted nearly two-thirds of the 20,000 comments reviewed by the OMB’s Interagency Technical Working Group, which also?held almost 100 listening sessions?to finalize these important standards. NNAAC crushed its public comment goal of 10,000 submissions, after mobilizing countless individuals, member organizations, partners and allies to submit their comments!

NNAAC’s national advocacy was focused on one clear goal for the community: to require the collection and publication of detailed data on Middle Eastern and North African communities through a combined question on race and ethnicity. NNAAC supported its members in multiple ways to make this happen, including through the creation of a #CountMENAIn toolkit and several in-network trainings on storytelling, legislative advocacy, and more. They assisted organizations in educating community members on this issue by providing trainings on community engagement; and hosted annual advocacy days on Capitol Hill.?

Meroueh shared, “It was a win, not just for Arab Americans but for greater data equity. We’re not just an Arab American organization in this case, we pushed for greater data and health equity.”

For Culturingua, prior to NNAAC’s capacity-building funding, they had never been involved in state level advocacy efforts, “it was a whole other world that we had never dabbled in”, Mavarkis shared. With an advocacy specialist, Culturingua has been able to expand its state and federal advocacy efforts. Just this year, Culturingua celebrated when the City of San Antonio and the San Antonio Area Foundation submitted public comments to the Office of Management and Budget in support of #CountMENAIn. Moreover, both Texas-based groups agreed to institute their own MENA category into their own data collection efforts. “It’s been so awesome to be a part of this national movement, and also bring it close to home”, Mavarkis shared, “because this has been impacting us nationally and locally.”

The creation of a MENA category on all levels, in Texas and federally, will have impacts on education, political representation and voter protection, healthcare, small businesses, arts & culture, and more. It’s symbolic of the years-long capacity-building efforts of NNAAC paying off, and a win for Arab Americans across the country. With clear data, organizations and communities can begin to address the many inequities – including health inequities – Arab Americans face that have been systematically ignored by government, philanthropy, and other resource holders.?

The story of NNAAC’s capacity-building program is a hopeful one about the transformational force of power-building and what it can accomplish. You can watch the full Power session on-demand on the Rx Foundation's website, to hear directly from NNAAC and Culturingua about how NNAAC built the program and lessons learned.