American Dream Fund

The ADF is an immigrant-integration initiative of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation (Knight), a charter donor to the Public Interest Projects' (PIP) Four Freedoms Fund. The ADF is the locally focused component of Knight's New Americans Initiative, which supports grassroots organizations that help immigrants become engaged, naturalized citizens in its 26 grantmaking communities (see below).

The ADF provides multiyear general and project support, in grants of $20,000 to $25,000 per year, to organizations working to foster naturalization and civic participation among foreign-born residents.

Funded activities include:

• Conducting community outreach and referrals to citizenship services to encourage naturalization
• Coordination with local, regional and national citizenship efforts
• Providing citizenship-preparedness and English-language classes, tutoring, and workshops
• Assisting with naturalization applications and screenings
• Providing legal support for naturalization filings
• Participating in efforts to reduce the barriers to naturalization

Grantmaking and projects

The ADF will make a total of $4.8 million in grants over a four-year period.

ADF funding has helped to support local and often young organizations in new immigrant gateway communities, such as the Midwest and the Southeast. Although locally focused, the ADF supports organizations able to work with national immigrant networks by participating in joint policy education, group strategizing, special events, ongoing communications or other related activities. Many of the groups play critical leadership roles as part of the wider national immigrant network. Grantee organizations participate in the national Immigrant Participation and Immigrant Reform evaluation project.

Key donor

The ADF is the local component of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation's New Americans Initiative.