The Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS) strives to enable and empower individuals, families, and communities to lead informed, productive, and culturally sensitive lives. As a nonprofit model of excellence, they honor our Arab American heritage through community-building and service to all those in need, of every heritage. ACCESS is a strong advocate for cultural and social entrepreneurship imbued with the values of community service, healthy lifestyles, education, and philanthropy.
Established in 2005, the Arab-American Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS) of WNY is a nonprofit organization that was created to promote understanding and the bonds of faith and friendship between members of the Arab American community and people of other nationalities and cultures living in the U.S. Our organization is non-sectarian, serving families and individuals of any faith or ethnicity. Many of the services offered by the organization are used by the region’s immigrant population, but these services are meant for immigrant and non-immigrant families alike.
Established in 1998, Access California Services is a culturally sensitive community-based organization dedicated to empowering underserved populations, focusing on Arab-American and Muslim-American communities. ACCESS California Services strives to enhance the quality of life and foster self-determination through direct health and human services.
Rooted in Arab arts and language, Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture offers artistic and educational programming that enriches cross-cultural understanding and celebrates diversity. “Al-Bustan,” Arabic for “The Garden,” serves youth and adults of all ethnic, religious, and socio-economic backgrounds, while supporting the pursuit and affirmation of Arab American cultural identity and playing a constructive civic role within broader American society.
Alif Institute was established in 2004 by the Arab-American Fund of Georgia, Inc. (AAFG) in Atlanta. AAFG is a nonprofit organization that promotes awareness about the Arab Middle East. Alif runs Arabic language programming, as well as numerous arts and culture workshops and classes.
The American Syrian Arab Cultural Association works to promote the Arabic culture and heritage, and strengthen the ties of the community.
The Arab American Action Network (AAAN) strives to strengthen the Arab community in the Chicago area by building its capacity to be an active agent for positive social change. As a grassroots nonprofit, our strategies include community organizing, advocacy, education, providing social services, leadership development, cultural outreach, and forging productive relationships with other communities. Our vision is for a strong Arab American community whose members have the power to make decisions about actions and policies that affect their lives and have access to a range of social, political, cultural, and economic opportunities in a context of equity and social justice.
The Arab-American Business and Professional Association’s (ABPA) mission is to empower and advocate for the Arab American/Middle Eastern North African community in Illinois by providing essential tools, resources, and support to facilitate the growth and success of small business owners and professionals. The ABPA creates impactful programs and initiatives that foster the growth and prosperity of Arab American business owners and professionals, enabling them to achieve excellence in their careers and businesses. As a collective voice and advocate for small business owners, they address issues that require attention from the media, government, and community organizations, ensuring that the concerns and needs of our members are heard and acted upon.
The Arab American Civic Council is a grassroots organization that builds community by facilitating the civic participation of Arab Americans toward justice and equity. The Arab American Civic Council was founded with the purpose of forming a dynamic grassroots organization that brings together Greater Los Angeles Area Arab Americans to facilitate civic engagement, build future leaders through youth leadership programs, promote positive image of Arab Americans to the general public, and promote unity among the diverse Arab American communities regardless of their religious or sectarian denominations.
The Arab American Cultural Center of Silicon Valley’s mission is to promote all aspects of Arab culture and the Arabic language to the community at large, and to organize, enhance and strengthen the Arab American community through advocacy of civil rights and access to referral community services. We were founded in 1989 to serve the needs of the expanding Arab American community in the South Bay Area.
After more than 100 years of immigration, assimilation, and growth in the United States and in Houston, Arab Americans, friends, and supporters have developed a place where their culture, art, and language are now highlighted and preserved for future generations. ACC is a facility to gather and celebrate holidays and festive occasions among friends, as well as a place where children can play and learn about the Arab world’s impressive history and heritage. On 13 acres of land in Southwest Houston, and within 15 minutes of the Galleria, the Arab American Cultural and Community Center was developed to serve the needs of Arab Americans and the general community of Houston. ACC is nonprofit, non-sectarian, and non-political.
Asians Against Domestic Abuse (AADA) is a non-profit organization based in Houston, Texas that provides culturally sensitive and language-specific services to victims of domestic abuse from the Greater Asian and the MENA communities in Houston, Texas. Since 2001, AADA offers resources, services and assistance for domestic abused clients that includes but not limited to: legal advocacy, housing, employment coaching and vocational training, financial support, and therapy. AADA is the only organization that is led by Middle Eastern women that provides services to the MENA and the Asian population in the South.
The mission of Arab American Family Services is to change and impact the quality of life by serving and building stronger and healthier generations of Arab Americans in our communities. The vision of Arab American Family Services is to be a nonprofit organization that provides accessible and effective social services to communities in the Chicagoland area. AAFS is committed to empowering, educating, and supporting individuals, families, and organizations to foster and enhance the economic well-being of Arab Americans.
The Arab American Heritage Council strives to preserve and celebrate Arab heritage as well as support and unite all Arab Americans in the Greater Flint, Michigan, area. The AAHC works diligently to broaden understanding and appreciation of Arab culture as well as encourage Arab American involvement in civic, economic, and humanitarian efforts.
The Arab Cultural and Community Center is a non-profit, non-sectarian, charitable and educational corporation that provides community services. Its mission is to preserve, promote and strengthen Arab culture and the community through art, education and culturally relevant events and services in the San Francisco Bay Area. San Francisco, CA.
The Arab Film and Media Institute (AFMI) was founded to fight bigotry and hate with powerful art and storytelling that fosters empathy and understanding of our common humanity, and to support Arab talent in the United States. We were founded by the team behind the largest and oldest Arab Film Festival in North America. AFMI aims to be a complete ecosystem to find, nurture, and showcase Arab talent in the United States. Starting with organizing school screenings, and growing into offering filmmaker services and original programming, AFMI is the place for Arab cinema and its fans, and is the home of the Arab Film Festival.
We were established in 1994 to provide culturally and linguistically competent, trauma-informed, multigenerational social services to immigrants and refugees. Arab-American Family Support Center strengthens families through four key priority areas and our work extends to communities globally. We empower immigrants and refugees with the tools they need to successfully acclimate to the world around them and become active participants in their communities.
Through voter engagement, education, and mobilization, AAVP helps the Arab and Arabic-speaking communities in Northeast Ohio to engage in the American political process, building collective power through civic participation and education efforts. In doing so, AAVP aims to increase the community’s visibility and representation, ensuring their concerns are addressed by their local, state, and federal representatives. Since 2022, AAVP has hosted a variety of programming, including a candidate townhall, educational workshops and registration drives. This Summer, AAVP will be deploying groups of grassroots canvassers to meet, educate and register the Arab American community to vote. Through this process, AAVP hopes to connect with more members of the community, understand their needs better and work to address these concerns and challenges using measurable methods of outreach and engagement.
The Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC) serves poor and working class Arabs and Muslims across the San Francisco Bay Area, while organizing to overturn racism, forced migration, and militarism. Recognizing the diversity of experiences within our community, AROC utilizes a multi-pronged strategy providing a centralized space for social services meeting material needs, developing analysis, creating strategy, and leading grassroots campaigns for systemic changes that make tangible impacts in the lives of working class SWANA communities.
Founded in 2003, ArteEast is a leading New York-based nonprofit organization dedicated to engaging a growing global audience with the contemporary arts of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Through public programming, strategic partnerships, and dynamic online publications, ArteEast is a forum for critical dialogue and exchange aimed at supporting the development of a sustainable MENA art sector.
The mission of the Center for Arabic Culture (CAC) is to promote Arabic Culture and the Arab American experience through education and the arts. The Center for Arabic Culture works to open channels of dialogue for cultural exchange, promote the Arabic language, empower Arab American youth, and encourage Arab American and international Arab artists. We do this through visual arts, performance arts, scholarly activities, and an Arabic language program.
Culturingua believes in heritage assets as a paradigm-shifting call to action. Since 2018, Culturingua's innovative programming has been building bridges to foster human development and civic engagement. Our programs are focused on three main areas: Education, Community Development, and Art & Culture. Our mission is to cultivate, promote, and preserve Middle Eastern, North African, and South Asian (MENASA) cultural, linguistic, and artistic heritage to invest in human, community, and economic development.
Founded in 2019, Elmahaba Center board, staff, and volunteers are the first Coptic-led organization that is inclusive, intersectional, and intergenerational, serving all Arabic-speaking immigrants, refugees, and their children, as well as anyone who asks for help in Nashville. Elmahaba Center aims to build community, especially among Arabic-speaking people in South Nashville. We respond in a culturally inclusive way to the serious challenges that our community members are facing.
The Majdal Community Center seeks to empower all members of the Arab community in San Diego. Through campaigning, advocacy, and cultural programming, our mission is to uplift Arab youth, workers, families, and elders in their pursuits and to support them in overcoming whatever social, economic, and political challenges they may face. The Center works to cultivate a communal identity based on a deep understanding of the rich histories and cultures present among us. We aim to foster an environment rooted in trust and support that can help to realize the goals and pursuits of our community members while ensuring a continued right to both individual and collective self-determination. San Diego, CA
MIRA, the Middle Eastern Immigrant and Refugee Alliance, was originally founded in 2009 as the Iraqi Mutual Aid Society by newly arrived Iraqi refugees, in response to the challenges they faced while adapting to their new lives in the United States. MIRA forges connections between Middle Eastern and American society, and facilitates the preservation and exchange of Middle Eastern culture. Our goal is to foster well-being and self-sufficiency for resettled refugees and immigrants from across the Middle East and beyond, and to use our multilingual and multicultural expertise to tailor our services to the unique needs of our clients and who they serve, regardless of gender, religion, ethnicity, nationality, or family size.
Mizna is a critical platform for contemporary literature, film, art, and cultural production centering the work of Arab, Southwest Asian and North African artists. For more than 20 years, we have been creating a decolonized cultural space to reflect the expansiveness of our community and to foster exchange, examine ideas, and engage audiences in meaningful art. Named City Page’s Nonprofit of the Year in 2020 and a Regional Cultural Treasure in 2021, we publish Mizna, an award-winning SWANA lit and art journal; produce the Twin Cities Arab Film Festival, the largest and longest-running Arab film fest in the Midwest; and offer classes, readings, performances, public art, and community events, having featured over 400 local and global writers, filmmakers, and artists.
The Palestinian American Community Center’s mission is to sustain and strengthen ties to Palestinian heritage while empowering the success and well-being of the entire community. Their vision is to be the home of an empowered and organized community in New Jersey, and to build a modal center that will be exemplified across the nation.
Philadelphia Arab-American Community Development Corporation (PAACDC) was incorporated as a nonprofit in 1997. Our mission is to preserve the Arabic culture and language, to empower the Arab-American community and promote its economic development, and to combat racial, ethnic, and religious discrimination. The PAACDC works to serve the complex needs of the estimated 25,000 to 30,000 Arab-Americans living in the five-county area. We work closely with the Philadelphia community to help Arab-Americans with immigration, healthcare, jobs, English and citizenship classes, and more.
Somali Action Alliance Education Fund’s mission is to educate Somali individuals and other interested people regarding civic engagement, voting rights and responsibilities, and participation in democracy. Somali Action Alliance Education Fund is based around leadership development. We are a multi-issue organization that engages the voices of everyone in the Somali community.
Somali Family Service is a community-based social service organization that provides culturally and linguistically appropriate programs and services to refugee and immigrant communities of San Diego. Somali Family Service, guided by our community champions, empowers immigrants, refugees, and other underserved communities in San Diego through our programs that promote health, educational and economic success, and leadership development.
Syrian Community Network is a refugee and immigrant support organization that builds community and serves families by addressing their evolving needs. Born out of the Syrian refugee crisis, Syrian Community Network was founded with the purpose of easing the transition of newly arrived refugees as they acclimate to life in the United States. We wanted to create a community for new arrivals that was welcoming and combatted the misinformation, politicization, racism, and xenophobia that directly impacted refugee resettlement and, specifically, Syrian refugees.
The Washington Street Historical Society (WSHS) aims to restore to the Great American Story the forgotten history of the earliest Arabic-speaking community in the United States. Our mission is to foster education and awareness about the history of Arab migration to the lower Washington Street neighborhood of Manhattan, once known as the Syrian Quarter. By working to preserve the few surviving historic buildings on Washington Street, promoting educational activities and events, as well as collaborating with the City of New York to install public art in recognition of the literary legacy of the early community, WSHS aims to highlight Arab immigrant history and how it fits into the New York and wider American experience.
The Yafa American Community Center (YACC) is a 501(c)3 organization created in 2015 when a group of Arab Americans from Yafa, South Yemen, in and around New York City, recognized a need for connection, recreation, education, and organization in the ever-growing and thriving Yafa community. Determined to meet that need, these champions established YACC. Hundreds of Brooklyn residents have gained access to community programs since YACC’s founding. YACC offers a variety of programs and events at our Brooklyn facility including youth sports, cultural classes, festivals, civic education, immigration support, leadership courses, and more. Additionally, they help members support family and friends living in Yemen and are currently establishing humanitarian projects abroad.
