Organizing for justice since 1967
For more than five decades, the Intereligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO) has assisted hundreds of community organizations and public policy groups - by providing technical assistance, training organizers, making and administering grants, and using our global network of grassroots organizers, clergy, and other professionals to advance the struggles of oppressed people for justice and self-determination.
IFCO's mission is to support the poor and disenfranchised in developing and sustaining community organizations to fight human and civil rights injustices. In pursuit of this mission, IFCO promotes funds and coordinates domestic and international community development efforts - programs designed to improve people's own communities.
Join our Campaigns for Cuba!
Cuban Kids Count Too!: IFCO/Pastors for Peace and the Hatuey Project are partnering with Cuban doctors to fight childhood cancer in Cuba. Cuba has the most doctors per capita in the world, but the blockade doesn’t allow for the purchase of vital saving medicines for them to provide the necessary life-saving care. It’s on us to make a difference. Although aid is not enough, it will have a major impact in these children’s lives.
Bread For Our Neighbors: What would you do if your neighbor was starving? This is not a hypothetical. Right now the U.S. government is deliberately starving the Cuban people 90 miles to our South. We all must act now. As the food crisis is unfolding on the island of an unprecedented scale. A country where hunger had been made a thing of the past is now running out of bread and other essential food items. IFCO/Pastors for Peace has partnered with The People’s Forum to launch an emergency campaign — Let Cuba Live: Bread for Our Neighbors
Download our newest zines!
Education is key is the battle of ideas and we have the tools for free! Check out our organizing tool kit and download our newest zines that explain the complexities of the blockade and the effects of the recent designation of the States Sponsors of Terrorism List by the U.S.
Check out our new store!
Donate now and get your IFCO gear! We have all new items including T-shirts, stickers, and more! We appreciate the support you offer our work. Visit The Little Yellow Store for the opportunity to help us sustain our work and grab some of our new merchandise.
Come with us to Cuba on the Friendshipment Caravan!
Throughout our visit we will speak and discuss in greater depth the enormous challenges that Cuba faces because of the US economic blockade and how the people are creatively responding to those challenges. We will discuss the recent passing of the Families Code and speak to the impact of the State Sponsors of Terrorism List designation We will learn about how Cuba has responded to the COVID pandemic to protect its own people, as well as its exemplary internationalism in sending medical brigades and its very own vaccines around the world.
Scholarships to the Latin America School of Medicine: Applications due February 2024
For the past 20 years, IFCO has helped hundreds of young people pursue their dreams of studying medicine so that they can better serve their communities. Continue reading to learn more about this incredible opportunity and how you can apply.
Caravans to Cuba
Since 1992, IFCO/Pastors for Peace has organized Friendshipment caravans to Cuba. With each Friendshipment caravan and each successive effort made to resist the US economic blockade of Cuba, the US government has been compelled to back down, to relent, to soften its enforcement of the blockade. The proof that our efforts have worked lies in recent changes announced by the Obama Administration to move toward normalizing relations with Cuba. We welcome this first step toward the reversal of a blockade policy that has caused decades of pain and suffering for the Cuban people. But we know that our work continues.
A History of Organizing
In September 1967 a group of progressive faith leaders and activists founded the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO) to direct funds from US churches to communities struggling for self-determination and justice. A young pastor, Rev. Lucius Walker, Jr., became the first Executive Director of IFCO. Ann Douglas later became Executive Director from 1974-1978 when Rev. Walker worked for the National Council of Churches. Under their leadership, IFCO would quickly emerge as the largest foundation in the US controlled by people of color by the mid-1970s.
