How Donors Can Support Immigrant-Led Networks for Community Defense

Illustration by Mike Hoyt

When communities are praised for their resilience in times of crisis, we often hear stories about people showing up for one another, neighbors helping neighbors, and organizations stepping forward. What those stories often miss is the years of relationship-building beforehand, developing the leadership, infrastructure, and trust that make resilience possible.

During Operation Metro Surge, in the winter of 2025-26, many looked at the response in Minnesota and asked how immigrant communities mobilized so quickly. How did thousands of people know where to go? How did families find support? How did organizations coordinate legal services, communications, rapid response, mutual aid, and community defense at such a scale?

The answer is simple. The response began months earlier, when the decision was made to prepare for what was coming, together. After the 2024 federal elections, organizations across Minnesota could see that immigrant communities were likely to face unprecedented challenges in the years ahead. Rather than waiting for those challenges to materialize, we asked what it would take to build the infrastructure necessary to protect communities before a crisis arrived.

Those conversations led to the creation of the statewide Immigrant Defense Network, which today brings together more than 100 organizations, institutions, faith communities, service providers, and community leaders, all committed to protecting immigrant communities and strengthening democracy across Minnesota and the Upper Midwest. But what began simply as a convening quickly evolved into a shared commitment to collective action, community defense, and long-term power building.

The lessons we learned from building and sustaining this network are not unique to immigration. They are lessons about how communities prepare for uncertainty, how organizations build trust, and how movements create the capacity necessary to respond when people need them most.

1. Networks must be built around purpose (before they are built around structure).

Many networks begin by debating governance models, decision-making processes, and organizational charts. Those questions matter, but they are not where trust begins. Trust begins with shared purpose. From the beginning, the organizations that formed the Immigrant Defense Network understood that we would not agree on everything. We represented different constituencies, organizational cultures, geographies, faith traditions, and strategies. What united us was a shared belief that immigrant communities deserved dignity, protection, opportunity, and the ability to live free from fear.