LEVEL up!

Migrant-led organizations strive to improve social participation and fight racism and discrimination, with society as a whole benefiting from their commitment. However, the organizations themselves often lack the necessary resources to continue to grow, to improve visibility and representation, and therefore achieve even greater impact. With “Level up!”, we have chosen ten projects to support in their further development.
The Robert Bosch Stiftung sees this program as an exciting opportunity to expand its knowledge of migrant-led organizations and hopes to incorporate what it learns into its own strategic work moving forward. In so doing, the Foundation hopes to meet the challenges of our immigration society with both greater impact and efficiency.

We firmly believe that our society will achieve greater equity if we can strengthen migrant-led organizations and operate on the assumption that these organizations themselves are best-positioned to determine where they want to go and what they need along the way. “Leveling up” could mean improving communication and public relations (including social media) for a louder voice in public discourse on its subject area. Equally, a developmental step forward could involve diving deeper into a specific issue, for example addressing racism, discrimination, or violence in public life, education, the world of work, or public agencies. Going one step further, organizations could also level up their own structures, for instance by renting a much-needed space to host the services their members need. Ultimately, the ideas themselves are just as varied as the projects. 

Following a call for proposals, ten projects from migrant-led organizations and new German organizations across Germany were jointly selected from a pool of over 400 applications by the TGD, ndo, and the Robert Bosch Stiftung. The chosen projects are now receiving support to broaden their sociopolitical impact and achieve more widespread social participation, including funding amounting to €38,600. Alongside financial support, each project receives ongoing administrative and topic-related coaching from the project team, general support led by external coaches, and targeted visibility for their activities through lobbying. Meanwhile, two network meetings serve to boost exchange between each of the partners and projects.