2016 APPLICATION FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENTS

BUILDING INTEGRATED COMMUNITIES (BIC)

UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA at CHAPEL HILL

Building Integrated Communities (BIC) is a multi-year community planning process that helps North Carolina local governments to successfully engage with local foreign-born, refugee, and Hispanic/Latinx residents to improve relationships, enhance communication, promote economic development, andfacilitate newcomers’ civic engagement and leadership within local government.

Since 2010, BIC has partnered with the cities of Greenville, High Point, Winston-Salem, and Sanford to create and implement four citywide action plans for immigrant integration.To date, more than 1250 foreign-born residents from 26 countries of origin have participated in these planning processes. To learn more about these efforts, visit

The expectation of all program partnerships is that local governments and diverse stakeholders—including organizations from non-profit and private sectors as well as diverse foreign-born, refugee, and Hispanic/Latinx residents—will collaborate to achieve the following:

  1. Conduct participatory assessments of community demographics, resources, experiences, and challenges;
  1. Generate effective, consensus-based, and locally-relevant strategies to strengthen relationships, address assessment-identified issues, and support foreign-born and Hispanic/Latinx residents’ civic engagement and leadership in local government.

Projectswill take place over a period of two yearsstarting in the spring of 2017.All towns, cities, and counties in North Carolina are eligible to apply.

Facilitation and Technical Assistance from UNC

The staff of the BIC initiative at UNC-Chapel Hill can provide the following to program partners:

  • Project coordination. We will facilitate general communications, in both English and Spanish as appropriate, between participating government staff and community/resident stakeholders.
  • Participatory community assessment. We will work with community members and local government agencies to collect and analyze assessment data, as well as to report assessment findings and disseminate same to residents. We are able to provide in-kind support from experts in local government, community collaboration, and immigration to support this research.
  • Planning and facilitation. We will plan and facilitate bi-/multi-lingual workshops to help stakeholders discuss and document community challenges and potential solutions.
  • Assistance in designing next steps. We will help government/community partnerships to develop strategies that address challenges and to design targeted action plans for implementing those strategies.
  • Promising practices from North Carolina and beyond. We will provide examples of promising practices from other communities and help particularize those solutions to the participating communities.

Expectations of Local Governments

Local government partnersare expected to:

  • Provide logistical support, meeting space,and food for workshops.
  • Print meeting materials for participants.
  • Help identify and recruitdiverse community stakeholders to participate in the project.
  • Be willing to engage in, and benefit from, processes that are inclusive of marginalized residentstakeholders, including those with diverse abilities andbackgrounds and from U.S.-born black communities.
  • Be open and willing to entertain change and strengthen systems.
  • Participate in all workshops.
  • Invest in sustained development and implementation of action plans.

Application Deadline and Partner Selection

Submission Deadline: 5:00 PM Thursday, January 26, 2017

The application form and submission instructions are contained on pages 4 and 5 of this document.

There will be a site visit or conference call prior to a final determination. Final decisions will be made, and applicants notified,the week of February 13.

For questions about the application or statewide BIC initiative, please contact:

Jessica White, MPH, BIC Researcher and Coordinator

, 919.962.2414

(Habla español.)

Application Form

  1. What is your local government’s motivation for participating in this program?
  1. What knowledge, structures, relationships, and/or other resources currently exist in your community to support this work?
  1. What are your desired outcomes fortheproject?
  1. How will you ensure that this is a city-wide and/or county-wide effort, i.e. that staff from many departments in your local government participate in the project on a sustained basis?
  1. What is your plan for engaging local government leaders, including city councils and/or county commissioners, in the local project?
  1. Please describe the commitment from government, organization, and resident stakeholders in your community to participate in the project. Please also provide at least two letters of support from individuals who would potentially participate in the project. If possible, we ask that you submit at least one letter from a leader in local foreign-born, refugee, and/or Hispanic/Latinxcommunities, as well as one letter from a mayor, city/county manager, or city council member/county commissioner.
  1. Who will be the project liaison? Please provide contact information.

Submission Instructions

Please email your application form, as well as all letters of support,in electronic format (PDF) by5:00 PM Thursday, January 26, 2017to Jessica White, BIC Researcher and Coordinator, at .

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