GOLD2023

Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC)

aka Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC)   |   Washington, DC   |  www.searac.org

Mission

SEARAC is a national civil rights organization that builds power with diverse communities from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam to create a socially just and equitable society. As representatives of the largest refugee community ever resettled in the United States, SEARAC stands together with other refugee communities, communities of color, and social justice movements in pursuit of social equity.

Ruling year info

1979

Executive Director

Ms. Quyen Dinh

Main address

1628 16th St NW 3rd Floor

Washington, DC 20009 USA

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Formerly known as

Indochina Refugee Action Center

Indochina Resource Action Center

EIN

52-1161473

NTEE code info

Alliance/Advocacy Organizations (R01)

Management & Technical Assistance (R02)

Minority Rights (R22)

IRS filing requirement

This organization is required to file an IRS Form 990 or 990-EZ.

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Communication

Programs and results

What we aim to solve

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Our programs

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?

Health

Limited English proficiency and poverty prevent too many Southeast Asian American community members from receiving the care that they need. The traumatic experiences of war, genocide, and displacement left many Southeast Asian Americans with physical and mental health conditions that have gone untreated. Certain Southeast Asian American groups suffer disproportionately from hepatitis B and cervical cancer. SEAAs also have disproportionate experiences with mental health challenges, including major depression, PTSD, and other anxiety disorders. SEAAs also have disproportionate experiences with mental health challenges, including major depression, PTSD, and other anxiety disorders. Unfortunately, most state and federal health systems fail to tease out data on Southeast Asian Americans from “Asian Americans” overall, making it difficult to understand and address these disparities.

Population(s) Served
People of Southeast Asian descent
Older adults
Adolescents
Immigrants
Refugees and displaced people

Data about student achievement has the power to reveal—and to conceal. Schools and policymakers often lump Southeast Asian American students together with all other Asian American students, whose overall educational outcomes are much higher than average. But aggregating the data renders Southeast Asian American students’ experiences invisible.

SEARAC’s education policy work pushes for better data on SEAA student needs and outcomes. We also advocate for the rights of English learner students and their families, school engagement of our immigrant and refugee parents, college access for low-income students, community-tailored programs, and civil rights protections for students. SEARAC’s education policy work pushes for better data on SEAA student needs and outcomes as well as ethnic studies on our histories, challenges, and resilience.

Population(s) Served
Adolescents

Southeast Asian refugees represent the largest refugee community ever to be resettled in the United States, after being forcefully displaced by U.S. war and its aftermath in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam in the 1970s. Refugees were often resettled in urban centers of concentrated poverty with few social or economic supports. Families struggled to help their children navigate underresourced schools and racialized bullying. Southeast Asian American young people were disproportionately swept into gangs and violence. As a result, today Southeast Asian refugees are at least three times more likely to be deported on the basis of an old criminal conviction, compared to other immigrants.

Population(s) Served
Children
People of Southeast Asian descent
Immigrants
Refugees and displaced people
Children
People of Southeast Asian descent
Immigrants
Refugees and displaced people
Adults

Where we work

How we listen

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.

done We demonstrated a willingness to learn more by reviewing resources about feedback practice.
done We shared information about our current feedback practices.

  • Who are the people you serve with your mission?

    SEARAC serves the generations of people who came to the United States as refugees or children of refugees during the 1970s and 1980s, when there was American aggression in Vietnam, the Secret War in Laos, and genocide in Cambodia. Our work is to uplift the stories and contributions of these refugee communities while also designing policy and programming that responds to their needs.

  • How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?

    To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To identify where we are less inclusive or equitable across demographic groups, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals

  • What significant change resulted from feedback?

    SEARAC recently completed our 2023-2026 strategic planning process, and constituent groups were invited to be a part of the development of this strategic plan. Our facilitator hosted group conversations and conducted surveys of these constituents -- in addition to SEARAC staff and board members, as well as staff of our partner organizations -- whose feedback was ultimately used to shape our organization's goals in the years ahead. One example of this is our shift in mission and language to be more inclusive of communities from Southeast Asia. Our constituents and partners helped us recognize that there is a growing community of people in the United States who came here as recent refugees from Burma and Bhutan, and we would like to reach those individuals with our programming as well.

  • Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?

    We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We take steps to get feedback from marginalized or under-represented people, We aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We look for patterns in feedback based on demographics (e.g., race, age, gender, etc.), We look for patterns in feedback based on people’s interactions with us (e.g., site, frequency of service, etc.), We engage the people who provide feedback in looking for ways we can improve in response, We act on the feedback we receive, We tell the people who gave us feedback how we acted on their feedback

  • What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?

    It is difficult to get the people we serve to respond to requests for feedback, The people we serve tell us they find data collection burdensome, It is difficult to find the ongoing funding to support feedback collection

Financials

Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC)
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Operations

The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.

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Connect with nonprofit leaders

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  • Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
  • Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
  • Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations

Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.

Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC)

Board of directors
as of 03/21/2023
SOURCE: Self-reported by organization
Board co-chair

Ms Kabo Yang

Propel Nonprofits

Term: 2018 - 2024


Board co-chair

Vân Huynh

Vietnamese Association of Illinois

Term: 2021 - 2024

Ana Phakin

United Way of Northwest Arkansas

Anthony Nguyen

Rady Children’s Institute for Genomic Medicine

Huong Nguyen-Yap

The Women's Foundation of California

Kathy Duong

Amazon

Mike Hoa Nguyen

New York University

Seng So

Asian Pacific Environmental Network

Hieu Pham

Monsoon Asians & Pacific Islanders In Solidarity

Lue Vang

The McKnight Foundation

Roseryn Bhudsabourg

Santa Clara Valley Water District

Julie Mao

Just Futures Law

Phal Sok

Youth Justice Coalition

Michael Tith

The Trustees

Board leadership practices

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.

  • Board orientation and education
    Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes
  • CEO oversight
    Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes
  • Ethics and transparency
    Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes
  • Board composition
    Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes
  • Board performance
    Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? No

Organizational demographics

SOURCE: Self-reported; last updated 3/21/2023
info Candid has made improvements to the race and ethnicity options.

Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.

Leadership

The organization's leader identifies as:

Race & ethnicity
Asian/Asian American
Gender identity
Female, Not transgender (cisgender)
Sexual orientation
Heterosexual or straight
Disability status
Person without a disability

Race & ethnicity

Gender identity

 

Sexual orientation

Disability

No data

Equity strategies

Last updated: 03/21/2023

GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more

Data
  • We review compensation data across the organization (and by staff levels) to identify disparities by race.
  • We ask team members to identify racial disparities in their programs and / or portfolios.
  • We analyze disaggregated data and root causes of race disparities that impact the organization's programs, portfolios, and the populations served.
  • We disaggregate data to adjust programming goals to keep pace with changing needs of the communities we support.
  • We employ non-traditional ways of gathering feedback on programs and trainings, which may include interviews, roundtables, and external reviews with/by community stakeholders.
  • We disaggregate data by demographics, including race, in every policy and program measured.
Policies and processes
  • We use a vetting process to identify vendors and partners that share our commitment to race equity.
  • We have a promotion process that anticipates and mitigates implicit and explicit biases about people of color serving in leadership positions.
  • We seek individuals from various race backgrounds for board and executive director/CEO positions within our organization.
  • We have community representation at the board level, either on the board itself or through a community advisory board.
  • We help senior leadership understand how to be inclusive leaders with learning approaches that emphasize reflection, iteration, and adaptability.
  • We measure and then disaggregate job satisfaction and retention data by race, function, level, and/or team.
  • We engage everyone, from the board to staff levels of the organization, in race equity work and ensure that individuals understand their roles in creating culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.