HNB 2023 Impact Report

Impact Report

Our mission is to provide refugees and other forced migrants in the D.C. area with what they need to thrive and feel at home in the United States.

Community Building

Dignity

Equality

Cross Cultural Sensitivity

Client First Mindset

Letter from the Executive Director

Wonderful Supporters,

Twenty-twenty-three was a year of ups and downs for Homes Not Borders. But I think through it all, the word that describes it best is EQUILIBRIUM.

We started 2023 with an ambitious budget and lofty goals and ended the year with a much leaner budget, and goals and plans focused on sustainability. This shift included hard decisions like letting go of our part-time Family Services Assistant and cutting our full-time Warehouse Manager role to part time, as well as drastically scaling back our cash-intensive Moving Up Fund.

Still, during this time we did expand strategically in some areas: extending support to those groups helping bussed-in migrants; formalizing our storytelling show into an official program—benefiting seven refugees; and thanks to a small grant from the State Department, training 48 refugee Afghan women in machine and intermediate sewing, greatly expanding our artisan pool as well.

The turning point came, however, in October when—for the first time—we switched to a fee for service model for our set up services. After pursuing larger grants with the resettlement agencies that did not pan out and a budget shortfall was apparent, we realized we had to get some support from the RAs if we wanted to continue to make homes for 1,500+ refugees a year. After much negotiation, HNB started charging the RAs a minimal fee for our set up services. And this fee has proven a huge boost for sustainability netting $57,000 in the last three months of 2023, and and expected $200,000 in 2024. This allows HNB to continue to serve the same number of refugees, as always, in our mission to have this population “feel at home” when they first arrive in the United States.

So after a few crazy years getting swept up in all that was going on with Afghanistan and Ukraine in 2021 and 2022, I can say with confidence that in 2023, HNB found some firm footing with a sustainable and exciting future to come!

Looking forward to standing strong with you all in 2024!

In Kindness,

Laura Thompson Osuri Executive Director

2023 Timeline

January

Atheer started full time, making and fixing furniture for refugees

March

First month giving away 12 Moving Up Fund awardsour maximum number.

June

Launched our first World Refugee Week of Action

February

Held second employment and training fair

April Received $42,000 in credit through Amazon Last Mile

July

Added our new AmericorpVISTA, Jack Rader

October

Held our Third Annual Storytelling Show, hosted by Mo Rocca

December

Windfall of donations from Brooks Furniture and huge community clearance day

September

Started our first cohort of Sew Successful Classes

October

Started our fee-for-service arrangement with the Resettlement Agencies

“Your support and hard work have played a pivotal role in helping give us energy and feeling comfortable during this complicated time.”

—Jalal

Picked up furniture donations from 436 donors

Passed along $800,800 in donated furniture and household goods to refugees Acquired $156,000 in donated items from Brooks Furniture

Received

$40,000 in credit from Amazon through its “Last Mile Program”

Partnered with Community Forklift, receiving $6,000 in furniture credit Made 100 new dining and side tables and refurbished three dozen additional pieces of furniture

Mohamed and his wife and three children came to the United States from Syria via Thailand after being in the refugee system for eight years. Mohamed worked as a cook in Syria, but due to the ongoing war in his home country, he fled seeking safety and stability. Homes Not Borders set up his family’s two bedroom apartment in Riverdale, Md., in May 2023. The family loved working with the volunteers and his favorite item HNB provided was the beds and blankets for her children.

“When HNB came to us and helped us by giving us furniture and all the things we needed, we felt very happy. Your support has been a great help to us.”

—Mohamed

Demographics: those whom we serve

Home Set Up Locations

# of Families by Country of Origin

Fourteen artisans earned

$6,247 selling handmade home goods and accessories Hosted six cohorts of intermediate sewing classes benefiting 46 Afghan refugee women and 2 Afghan men

Attended

9 artisan markets to sell goods

Halima came to Landover, Md., with her husband and five children in September 2021 after the fall of Kabul. Previously, Halima lived in Turkey for 10 years where she worked as a translator and photographer. Her husband Najib was a tailor in Turkey and Afghanistan.. After coming to the United States, Halima began assisting her husband Najib with sewing, bringing her photographer’s eye for composition to the pieces she creates. She attended HNB’s Sew Successful training classes to gain new skills and start making items on her own, including beautiful aprons and bags.

“It was wonderful to advance my sewing skills, as well as getting out of the house and socializing with other students. Whoever thought this out, it was a brilliant idea”

— Halima

Nine out of 10 Moving Up Fund awardees gained valuable workforce skills and 50% of awardees started working at better paying jobs. Held

Helped

28 refugees enroll in job training programs including information technology, childcare certification and auto mechanics

2 employment & training fairs serving

70 refugees

Rahmatullah and his wife moved to Hyattsville from Afghanistan in July 2022. He said they fled after seeing all the suffering and pain in Kabul after the Taliban took over. Soon after arriving in the United States, Rahmatullah started working at what he calls a “survival job” as an administrative assistant, even though he was working as a logistics professional in Afghanistan. He wanted to take bookkeeping classes to get a better-paying job, but could not afford to until he applied for the Moving Up Fund in March 2023. This gave him the extra money he needed to pay for the course and the time he had to take work to attend classes.

“HNB connected me to invaluable resources and provided valuable support. Sometimes a little support is life-changing and empowering for a refugee,”

— Rahmatullah

Held one series of 5 storytelling workshops benefiting seven refugees and immigrant individuals.

Formalized our storytelling event into a full program

Held a storytelling show involving five refugees and immigrant storytellers presenting to

250 attendees

Sandy was one of our 2023 storytelling performers. She came to the U.S. as a child fleeing persecution because her family was ethnically Chinese in Vietnam. She founded a nationally-recognized nonprofit serving Vietnamese refugees and was a former White House appointee.

“It meant so much to me because I had the opportunity to learn from teachers from The Moth and they taught us how to tell our stories and I got to meet many other refugees and their stories were so compelling and inspiring. It really reignited my passion to help refugees.”

— Sandy Dang

9,440 volunteer hours

105 volunteers on average each month

386 new volunteers

2023 Volunteer Groups

Accenture Refugee ERG*

APO Mu Alpha Georgetown*

CADRE

Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency

Dupont Rotary

FEMA/ DHS Returned Peace Corps Volunteers*

Gallaudet University

Georgetown Day School

Good Counsel

Holton Arms

KAMA DC*

Kehila Chadasha*

KindWorks*

Marcus Partners

Morris Cafritz Center for Social Responsibility ( Edlavitch DCJCC)*

National Community Church Youth

No Lost Generation, George Washington University Chapter

Passion City Church

Science Applications International Corporation ITIOD

Sligo Seventh Day Adventist Church*

Somerset Volunteers

St. Matthew’s Presbyterian Church (Silver Spring)*

St. Peter’s Episcopal Church (Arlington)*

Temple Shalom*

University of Maryland

World Bank Afghanistan & Pakistan Country Management Unit

Washington Center for International Education/English Now!*

*Indicates groups that came three or more times in 2023

2023 Partners

2023 Donors

Grantmakers

The Good People Fund

Hello Neighbor Network

Howard G. Buffet Foundation

The Morris & Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation

Prince George’s County Council

Welcome.US

Partner Donors ($6,000 or more)

Laya and Stephen Aaron

David & Anne Grizzle

Anna Jenefsky

Diane Karlik

Roy Kaufmann

Stephen & Erica Mongelli

Swinitha & Michael Osuri

Sameel & Laura Osuri

Benjamin & Jennifer Ottenhoff

Alder Fund

Kyle Todd Public Service Foundation

Sligo Seventh Day Adventist Church

Whispering Bells Charitable Trust

Sustaining Donors ($2,500 to $5,000)

Kala Carruthers Azar

Donald Baker

Margaret Crandall

Jeanne Drewes

Joe Fuld

James Gianiny

Hannah & David Koilpillai

Shurui Li

Jessica & Stuart Trevelyan

Judy Villedrouin

Alison Voudrie

Jessica Wagner

Roger West

Jim & Amy Wrona

Democracy Fund

Hogan Lovells

Metro Trading Corp

National Community Church

ServePro

2023 Board & Staff

CHAIRPERSON

Melanie Coburn, Chief Relationship Officer the networking community CADRE

VICE CHAIR

Joe Fuld, President of The Campaign Workshop

TREASURER

Abbas Mousa, Economist with the Department of Commerce

SECRETARY

Maura Fulton, Vice President of Global Pro Bono at PYXERA Global

Borzou Azabdaftari, Founder and CEO of Nickelbronx

Lauren Cherry, Navy Judge Advocate

Samad Saifudin Founder and Lead Strategist at FunnelWorkSuite, Robin M. Stutman, Recently retired Chief Administrative Hearing Officer at the U.S. Department Justice

Hannah Koilpillai, Recently retired from the World Bank

Paula Sweeney Recently retired from the Central Intelligence Agency as a Senior Intelligence Service attorney.

Mira Mendick, Program Manager with the Community Sponsorship Hub

Adam Zissman Senior Attorney with National Public Radio

The Staff (left to right):

Linda Goldman, director of warehouse operations. Laura Thompson Osuri, executive director. Amy Hoang Wrona, development director. Noah Klose, director of community outreach. Nicholas Grossmann, director of operations.

Manizha Azizi, director of family services and partnerships.

Atheer Abdullah, in-kind donations assistant.

Not pictured: Waleed Yasin, mover & driver. Jack Rader, Campus Compact VISTA.