In addition to the policy work, programmatic initiatives expanded rapidly. Since its founding in 2017, SIIP had grown to reach 16 communities by 2019 and expanded to 40 communities by 2024. The Gateway program, launched in 2018, reached 15,000 people by 2024. During this period, the WES Mariam Assefa Fund grew from a small philanthropic commitment to a strategic funder in both the US and Canada. By 2024, the WES Mariam Assefa Fund had disbursed over USD 37 million (through both grants and impact investments) to 143 organisations working in 20 US states and eight Canadian provinces. With over five years of activity in the philanthropic sector, the Fund has begun to see how catalytic support for organisations that are working to build equitable access to opportunity, wealth, power, and justice can drive impact and build replicable solutions. For example, one of the Fund’s first Canadian grantee partners, the Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia, ran a successful pilot programme, Bridging the Gap for Internationally Educated Early Childhood Educators, which later received government funding to scale the programme throughout the province. “WES’s decision to seed a new philanthropic initiative was a key step in the organisation’s evolution as a social enterprise. Engaging as a grantmaker and investor enabled WES to bring a deeper level of support to organisations serving immigrant and refugee communities, creating space for experimentation and partnership with the ultimate goal of shifting systems.” Dewayne Matthews, Former Trustee The Fund was equally focused on how it could influence philanthropic practices to shift resources and power to those most proximate to the issues that connect to WES’s mission, especially immigrant and refugee leaders and leaders from communities of colour. Through a strategy which WES called aligned funding (which included co-funding, pooling funding, and matching funding with other philanthropic partners), an additional USD 50 million had been unlocked from other funders during the first five years of the Fund’s operations.
As WES’s approach to systems change expanded and evolved through this period, its credential evaluation business continued to grow as well, providing a critical source of revenue to fuel its social impact work. In 2024, WES completed credential evaluations for 475,000 individuals, who brought the organisation nearly 620,000 qualifications to be evaluated, with Canadian IRCC reports making up more than half of the total. Under the leadership of Benjamin and Cheryl Toto, Chief Operating Officer, WES’s credential evaluation business adopted a commercial, operational, and customer-centred mindset, aiming to maintain quality and continuously increase efficiency, serve more people, and grow revenues. In 2024, annual revenues were over USD 100 million, and cash and investment reserves reached USD 255 million. As WES’s core business continued to grow, it also expanded its global reach. In 2023, WES began a partnership with the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) to provide qualification verifications for applicants immigrating to New Zealand, creating a more streamlined pathway for newcomers to quickly enter the country’s workforce and contribute to its economy. In 2024, WES began establishing a new office in India to enhance its on-the-ground capabilities in a highly dynamic and innovative market critical to both WES’s current operations and to new strategic initiatives.
Managing Director, Canada and Deputy Executive Director Shamira Madhany and Chief Social Impact Officer Monica Munn at WES’s 50th Anniversary Celebration, New York, 2024
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