The International Center in New York (ICNY) has launched a new sponsorship program so that you can directly support a newcomer in need of our services.  Sponsored immigrants will enjoy access to our new Immigrant Support Program. Without strong English language skills, newcomers to the United States can face difficulty, and sometimes injustice, in securing employment, housing, healthcare and education for themselves and their families. Your donation will provide an immigrant or refugee with a year of English-language and cultural education classes, while opening the door for them to achieve their dreams and become full participants in American life.

How does the sponsorship program work?
Your tax-deductible donation will provide a newcomer with a scholarship to ICNY. Once ICNY receives your donation, you will receive a biography of the immigrant or refugee with whom you have been matched. Throughout the sponsorship period, you will receive quarterly e-mails with progress reports and updates about the person you have sponsored. In addition, you will be invited to attend bi-annual sponsorship receptions where you will have the opportunity to meet the newcomer you have sponsored and other donors. In a short amount of time, you will see how much progress the newcomer you have sponsored makes towards achieving their goals by participating in ICNY's Immigrant Support Program.

ICNY offers several sponsorship levels. Each giving level offers a different level of support to your sponsored newcomer.

Who receives ICNY sponsorships?
Scholarships at ICNY are given out to immigrants or refugees who demonstrate a financial need and successfully complete a one-month trial period where they demonstrate that they can attend ICNY regularly and benefit from its programs. Scholarship recipients come from all over the world. Many were professionals or studying to be professionals in their native countries and are now seeking to gain the English-language skills that they need to re-enter the American workforce in a position that utilizes their professional skills and knowledge. (Click to read profiles of past scholarship recipients.)

How does ICNY help newcomers?
Since 1961, ICNY has served as a place that has engaged Americans in providing a welcoming and supportive community for New York's foreign-born newcomers.  ICNY's teaching model is highly respected in the ESOL community for its success in building confidence and the skills necessary for newcomers to succeed in, and contribute to, American life.

ICNY is a volunteer-driven organization that engages 1,000 volunteers in the teaching of English and American culture to 2,500 newcomers each year.  By engaging native English-speaking volunteers in the instruction of conversational English, ICNY facilitates integration and dialogue between newcomers and native born Americans. Our programs provide newcomers with to the United States with:

• Strong English skills that help them secure better jobs, support their children in school, and achieve a better quality of life
• Practical and professional training that increases newcomers' earning potential and their capacity to meet individual career goals in the United States
• Opportunities to engage in American culture and civic life

What does a scholarship include?
Scholarship recipients receive unlimited access to ICNY's programming, which includes:

• More than 40 weekly English and American culture classes
• Practical and career-skills workshops
• Comprehensive ESOL library with a computer lab and internet access

In addition, sponsorships provide newcomers with one-to-one conversation partnerships, ICNY's hallmark program. Through these partnerships, English learners meet with a trained volunteer for 10-weeks in what we term "an interaction of equals".  Learners practice and improve their pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary skills through talking with native English speakers in a one-to-one partnership. They also learn other useful information that can help them adjust more quickly to life in New York, such as how to find an apartment or open a bank account. 

Why does ICNY need my donation?
As a non-profit organization that relies on contributions to run our programs, we can not serve all of those in need of our services without your help. ICNY is a membership organization - we ask our members to pay a modest membership fee to cost-share some of our expenses.  However, many immigrants and refugees cannot afford our membership fees - this is where you come in!  ICNY has a scholarship program so that newcomers in financial need can benefit from all that the organization offers. Your sponsorship will increase the number of scholarships that we can provide to newcomers in need.

Ready to support an immigrant or refugee in need? Follow one of the links below:

Click to donate on-line

Click to download donation form to print and mail

Click to donate to ICNY outside the scholarship program

Click to find out more about ICNY