Toolkit
During Welcoming Week, local communities around the world host in-person and virtual events that connect people of different backgrounds through shared causes and interests. This toolkit contains resources and guidance to support Welcoming America members, Welcoming Week partners, organizations, and individuals planning and promoting Welcoming Week events.
Below, you’ll find social media tips and assets, media relations support, logos and other visuals, event planning best practices, and event examples, as well as information about this year’s campaign theme, “We’re All In.”
Welcoming Week events are most successful when they’re tailored to the interests and needs of specific places. We encourage you to use these tools creatively and plan events that are unique to your own communities.
As September nears, we’ll update this toolkit with new resources. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay up-to-date on Welcoming Week 2024.
Questions about this toolkit and how to use it? Contact communications@welcomingamerica.org.
Celebrating Welcoming Week outside of the United States? Explore the toolkits created for participating communities in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.
About Welcoming Week
Welcoming Week is an annual campaign and celebration to showcase the movement of communities striving to be more welcoming places for all, including immigrants. Launched in 2012 by Welcoming America and its members, Welcoming Week provides individuals and communities the opportunity to proclaim welcoming values through events and local initiatives that foster mutual understanding between immigrants and non-immigrants, as well as deeper belonging for all.
This year, Welcoming Week is a call to come together as individuals and groups – to celebrate our strengths and differences – and recognize that we’re at our best when We’re All In.
Welcoming Week is on a journey to build a world that’s all in on valuing diverse perspectives, backgrounds, experiences, and cultures. Through your local events and special initiatives, share how your community is modeling this “We’re All In” approach, too.
In many ways, we intend for “We’re All In” to be the first half of a longer message that supports your community’s interests. When you’re planning and promoting Welcoming Week events, you might consider grounding them in messages like:
- We’re All In for Democracy
- We’re All In for Voting Rights
- We’re All In for The Next Generation
- We’re All In for Sharing Our Cultures
- We’re All In for Healthy Communities
- We’re All In for a Happy and Healthy Planet
How can your community show that “We’re All In” this Welcoming Week and every day? We encourage you to get creative with how you frame your Welcoming Week events this year.
Welcoming Week At Its Core
- Celebrated in communities around the globe, Welcoming Week is an annual campaign that connects neighbors of all backgrounds through community-informed activities and events.
- Welcoming Week is an actionable, holistic strategy that provides individuals and communities the opportunity to publicly proclaim welcoming values, foster a mutual understanding between immigrants and non-immigrants, and build a deeper sense of belonging for all.
- Now in its 12th year, Welcoming Week 2024 is a call for individuals and groups to come together and celebrate their strengths and differences. This year’s theme, We’re All In, invites communities to showcase how they’re building places that value all perspectives, backgrounds, experiences, and cultures.
The Bigger Picture, and How Welcoming Week Fits Into It
General Messages
- Welcoming Week is led by Welcoming America, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that leads a movement of inclusive communities becoming more prosperous by ensuring everyone belongs. Welcoming America believes that all people, including immigrants, are valued contributors and vital to the success of our communities and shared future.
- More people than ever are on the move, displaced by climate and conflict and seeking opportunity and mobility. As this migration reshapes communities, many places are unprepared and underinvested in the work needed to create welcoming infrastructure – and they’re unsure of where to start. Welcoming Week invites communities to take the first step toward creating an environment where everyone can truly thrive. In many ways, the initiative is an opportunity for communities to cultivate the awareness and energy that’s needed to sustain year-long welcoming efforts.
Customizable Messages
- We believe that being welcoming is much more than being friendly, tolerant, or peaceful. To be truly welcoming, a community needs intentional, inclusive policies, practices, and norms that enable all residents to live, thrive, and contribute fully. Welcoming Week is one of the tools that can help us achieve this vision. During Welcoming Week, we pursue equity in our community by [specific detail(s) about your Welcoming Week event(s).]
- Welcoming Week poses an opportunity for communities to cultivate the awareness and energy that’s needed to sustain year-long welcoming efforts. In [Location], this looks like [specific detail(s) about your Welcoming Week event(s)].
- Belonging and welcome are at the heart of Welcoming Week because we all thrive when We’re All In. [Provide context about your event. How does it help build a community that’s “All In” on valuing diverse perspectives, backgrounds, experiences, and cultures?].
- This year, we’re showcasing [Location]’s collective approach to creating welcoming places for all by [provide background on your event(s)].
What Welcoming Week Looks Like In Practice
General Messages
- Welcoming Week looks different in every participating community. For some, Welcoming Week provides an annual opportunity to host a local voter registration drive. For others, Welcoming Week includes launching a community-wide book club geared toward discussions about social justice, equity, and inclusion. No matter the topic or type of event, Welcoming Week activities strengthen a community’s broader welcoming efforts by building bridges among the people and organizations advancing a more just society.
- Welcoming Week has also served as a key inflection point for local governments to issue proclamations that emphasize the importance of building inclusive, equitable, and welcoming communities for all.
Customizable Messages
- Welcoming Week looks different in every participating community. In [Location], We’re All In on our [list 2-3 values] values by [specific detail(s) about your Welcoming Week event(s)].
Who Welcoming Week Aims to Engage
- Belonging and welcome are at the heart of Welcoming Week because we all thrive when We’re All In. Welcoming Week aims to engage neighbors with diverse perspectives, backgrounds, experiences, and cultures in discussions and actions that advance more welcoming places.
The History of Welcoming Week
- In 2012, Welcoming America launched Welcoming Week with the belief that our communities are strongest when everyone who lives in them feels welcome. Back then, Welcoming Week engaged 20 communities in the United States. Today, more than 600 events take place in-person and virtually across the globe for Welcoming Week.
Why Welcoming Week Matters
General Messages
- Cultivating a welcoming spirit in any community requires ongoing, consistent work. Welcoming Week creates space to reflect upon these year-round efforts, celebrate progress, and set new goals for inclusion and belonging in the community.
- Welcoming Week is not only a celebration but an opportunity to go deeper in our conversations about equity and inclusion for all communities. We can’t talk about immigration without also acknowledging the roles of race, gender, religion, culture, and other identity factors. Welcoming Week poses an opportunity to identify and discuss those intersections.
- Welcoming Week poses an essential storytelling opportunity. It assists communities nationwide in crafting values-based messaging that showcases how they are building welcoming communities.
- Welcoming Week is an opportune moment to unite as individuals and groups, celebrate our strengths and differences, and recognize that we’re at our best when We’re All In on building more welcoming places, together.
- Celebrated alongside Constitution Day, Welcoming Week highlights the cultural, social, and economic contributions of immigrants – today, and throughout history – that are essential to the foundation of our society. [This is a United States-specific talking point].
Customizable Messages
- Welcoming Week is one crucial part of our greater inclusion and belonging initiatives. At our Welcoming Week events, community members come together as individuals and groups, celebrate our strengths and differences, and showcase our collective approach to creating welcoming places for all. These special initiatives help us advance important community goals, including [details about your community’s specific welcoming goal(s)].
What is Welcoming Week?
Celebrated in communities around the globe, Welcoming Week is an annual campaign that connects neighbors of all backgrounds through community-informed activities and events. Every Fall, local communities will gather to celebrate their diversity, advance inclusion, and come together around shared causes and interests.
Why is Welcoming Week only one week long?
Establishing a welcoming culture in any community requires ongoing, consistent work to foster equity and inclusion. Welcoming Week acts as a recurring point in the year for communities to reflect on how far they’ve come, celebrate their progress, and map their priorities for the coming year. Welcoming Week can also act as a launch pad for communities that are taking their first steps toward building truly welcoming places, and those actions can go well beyond one week!
Who Can Host Welcoming Week Activities?
Anyone - including individuals, nonprofits, businesses, and governments - can host Welcoming Week events in their community. Welcoming America makes its Welcoming Week resources accessible to the public, and they can be found here.
While an organization doesn’t need to be directly affiliated with Welcoming America to participate in Welcoming Week, many Welcoming Week events are hosted by the member organizations and governments in Welcoming America’s Network. Composed of nonprofits and local governments, members of the Welcoming Network are working to build more inclusive and welcoming communities in the places they call home. The Welcoming Network extends to around nearly 300 governments and nonprofits - including libraries, schools, universities, and more - in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, and the United Kingdom. No organization is too small nor too large to participate in Welcoming Week events.
What other work does Welcoming America do?
Welcoming America is committed to supporting communities in building a welcoming society where every person, including immigrants, can fully contribute and shape our shared prosperity. Year-round, Welcoming America advances several initiatives that:
- Connect community, government, and nonprofit leaders,
- Build on the work happening in local communities by providing tested methods and approaches for inclusive and welcoming places,
- And help communities create policies, reinforce welcoming principles, and communicate the benefits of inclusion.
You can learn more about Welcoming America on their website.
How can I get involved in Welcoming Week?
Each year, more than 600 events take place in-person and virtually across the globe for Welcoming Week. You can use our Welcoming Week event map to get involved in your local community. Interested in launching your own Welcoming Week campaign? Check out our toolkit to get started.
How can I start conversations with people in my community who are hesitant or opposed to supporting Welcoming Week?
It can be challenging to start conversations about our changing communities, immigration, and racial bias – especially with those who remain unsure about immigration and the impact of migration on their communities. Welcoming America designed this toolkit with these conversations in mind. In it, you’ll find messaging tools to help you begin those challenging discussions and navigate them from start to finish.
You can find additional messaging support on Welcoming America’s resources page, linked here.
Communications Tools
Included below is a visual breakdown of a suggested timeline for your core communication activities. We understand that every organization operates on its own timeline, so feel free to personalize this chart to fit your unique deadlines and goals.
We recommend making a copy of this sheet and adjusting the color blocks to match your internal schedule.
Connection is at the heart of Welcoming Week! Social media is a useful tool to connect with others, share resources, and learn more about the welcoming work happening across communities. Use the following tips to inform your social media engagement plan and strategy.
Using This Year’s Theme
This year’s Welcoming Week theme is We’re All In: a call to come together as individuals and as groups, celebrate our strengths and differences, and recognize that we’re at our best when We’re All In. Learn more about the theme.
Consider how it applies to your locale and how it may be customized for your planned event(s). Weave the theme into your social media copy, bios, and captions to create a connection between other welcoming efforts during Welcoming Week.
Key Hashtag: #WelcomingWeek2024
Leading up to Welcoming Week, we encourage you to create a social media engagement plan to amplify your Welcoming Week events, tag and follow other peer organizations, and provide information to your communities about engaging with the welcoming movement in your local community. Use the Welcoming Week 2024 Communications Timeline to help guide and plan your organization’s activations.
Getting Started
Welcoming Week is a great time to refresh your platforms and attract new followers. Ensure your header/banner images are sized correctly across your social channels. Add relevant hashtags to your posts and add websites for event registration or information pages to your social media bios. If you have multiple website links, install a link management tool, like Campsite.bio or Linktree.
Best Practices 101
Social media can be somebody’s first introduction to your organization. Ensuring your channels are up-to-date, accurate, and engaging is important to build a supportive base of online followers. Consistency is key across your channels, so post regularly for steady engagement and also consider the following for strengthening your social presence:
- Voice: Welcoming Week is a collective movement that is stronger with your organization’s brand. Customize the social graphic templates, apply the theme to your organizational messaging, and align your wording, emojis, responses, and values to your mission and purpose.
- Inclusivity: Remember the many needs of your audience when creating content, like linguistic diversity, disabilities, and cultural differences. Use the translated materials and create posts and graphics in the languages that are most commonly spoken in your community. Center accessibility in your design to ensure content remains accessible to a diverse audience. Learn more about best accessibility practices.
- Timing: Review your analytics! Divide your content throughout the week and post content on the days and times of the week when your audience is online and engaged.
Make Videos and Go Live Across Channels
The value of videos and engaging live with your audience cannot be underestimated. In addition to sharing resources and event information in feeds and stories, consider sharing videos and going live to relay the importance of Welcoming Week, similar to a webinar. Use the following prompts to guide your videos and/or live sessions:
- Share excitement about Welcoming Week 2024 and what it means for your organization.
- Explain the importance and value of being a welcoming community.
- Share how people can get involved with your organization’s efforts. Relay event(s) details, dates, and the website(s) to visit for more information.
Photos
Post photos from your events across your social stories and feeds. Consider using photos from previous events for promotional purposes. When posting photos to your feed, add descriptive captions.
Take a photo of yourself or with a few members of your team with our multilingual "I'm a Welcomer" signs, available in our Welcoming Week Toolkit. If a sign in your language is not available, edit the template or download the blank version to customize the sign in any language.
Take photos at your event(s) this year! When you take photos, remember to ask the subjects in the photography for sharing permissions and consider noting their names for attribution purposes.
Share Your Stories
Share inspiring stories from your community where you and other welcomers are creating spaces of belonging. Highlight the stories of immigrant and refugee leaders or how immigrant and non-immigrant residents work together to improve your community.
If you’re sharing these on social media, remember to tag @WelcomingUSA on X and Instagram, and @WelcomingAmerica on Facebook and use #WelcomingWeek2024. You can also email your stories to communications@welcomingamerica.org to discuss other ways to amplify them.
Connect with Others
Get with other organizations in your community to combine social media efforts and further amplify your messages of welcome.
Not sure who else is planning a Welcoming Week event? Request to join the private Facebook group for Welcoming Week planners.
Consider collaborative posts on Instagram or co-hosting an Instagram Live, and syncing on captions, hashtags, and websites to strengthen efforts and underscore the mission of Welcoming Week.
Reshare posts from other organizations, partners, and community members, and encourage them to tag your organization.
Repost tagged content on your organization’s feeds and stay engaged!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September XX, 2024
###
[CITY/ORGANIZATION] celebrates Welcoming Week
This week, [NAME OF MUNICIPALITY OR ORGANIZATION] celebrates Welcoming Week by [EXPLANATION OF ACTIVITY]
[INSERT QUOTE FROM ORG EXECUTIVE OR PROMINENT COMMUNITY MEMBER ON WHAT WELCOMING WEEK ACCOMPLISHES LOCALLY]
[ORG NAME] will host the following event(s) in September:
[ADD DETAILS OF EVENT – WHAT, WHERE, WHO, ETC]
###
About Welcoming Week
Welcoming Week is an annual campaign and celebration to showcase the movement of communities striving to be more welcoming places for all, including immigrants. Launched in 2012 by Welcoming America and its members, Welcoming Week provides individuals and communities the opportunity to proclaim welcoming values through events and local initiatives that foster mutual understanding between immigrants and non-immigrants, as well as deeper belonging for all.
About Welcoming America
Welcoming America is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that leads a movement of inclusive communities becoming more prosperous by ensuring everyone belongs. Through the Welcoming Network, we work to change systems and culture by providing communities the roadmap they need to create welcoming policies and share new approaches to inclusion to create an environment where everyone can truly thrive. Learn more at welcomingamerica.org.
Media Contact:
[LOCAL MEDIA CONTACT INFO HERE]
Welcoming America:
communications@welcomingamerica.org
In the weeks leading up to Welcoming Week, the following email templates can be utilized by Welcoming Week participants to promote events within their communities. Each email has placeholders for you to include details about your specific event. Participants can also alter the closings/final calls to action as needed (i.e., if a community’s event does not require an RSVP, a participant can feel free to omit that call to action).
Logos and Visual Assets
Use the Welcoming Week logo on event materials, including banners, fliers, social media graphics, swag, and more.
Logos are available in English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish.
Remember to follow the logo's brand guide to ensure the brand's integrity. Brand guides are available in multiple languages.
Show your community that you're a welcomer by printing out welcome signs and taking pictures with your community!
The Welcoming Week templates are designed to help you promote your event and activities, add Welcoming Week branding to your content, celebrate Welcoming Week through social media, reach new audiences, and much more.
Social media graphics templates (portrait)
Social media graphics templates (landscape)
Use these templates in Canva to create and/or download unique graphics for your social media posts around Welcoming Week. A Canva account is required to edit the templates. Additionally, video scripts to be used with Instagram Reels and TikTok videos are available for you to use. Participants are also welcome to pair these scripts with their independently designed promotional videos.
Event Planning Guide
Events are the heart and soul of Welcoming Week. They build stronger communities by bringing together immigrant and non-immigrant residents, encouraging dialogue, and building connections between people who are different.
By hosting a Welcoming Week event, you are part of a growing movement of communities across the world who recognize that building welcoming communities makes us stronger.
Welcoming Week event hosts build bridges through events that bring people of different backgrounds together to work on a shared activity. Use the following event planning guide to help guide the planning of your event. The guide is available in the languages listed below:
Welcoming Week includes events ranging from community discussions, volunteer opportunities, naturalization ceremonies, cultural festivals and fairs, and beyond.
Learn how organizations around the world used Welcoming Week events to build more welcoming communities:
- Case Study #1: Bridge-building through neighborhood clean-ups
- Case Study #2: Building a coalition to increase belonging
- Case Study #3: Centering Black newcomer communities during Welcoming Week
- Case Study #4: Reaching new audiences through art events
More event examples:
- Nonprofit example: Nashville Food Project
- Community foundation example: West Central Initiative
- Local government example: City of Philadelphia
- Tourism board example: Visit Bentonville
If you are a government staffer or work closely with local or state government, consider issuing a Welcoming Week proclamation or resolution. By formalizing your community’s welcoming values, a Welcoming Week proclamation or resolution can strengthen belonging among immigrant and non-immigrant neighbors.
Sample Proclamation/Resolution | Download Word version
Welcoming Week 2024 By [THE GOVERNOR/MAYOR/COUNTY EXECUTIVE]: A Proclamation
Our [COMMUNITY’S/STATE’S] success depends on making sure that all [RESIDENTS] feel welcome here. Today, new [RESIDENTS] are a vital part of our community — bringing fresh perspectives and new ideas, starting businesses, and contributing to the vibrant diversity that we all value.
This week, we celebrate the spirit of unity that is bringing neighbors together across [COMMUNITY/ STATE]. During Welcoming Week, I invite all [RESIDENTS OF COMMUNITY/STATE] to join this movement of communities nationwide by renewing our commitment to our core American values and by taking action in the spirit of welcoming. By working together, we can achieve greater prosperity and make our [COMMUNITY/STATE] the kind of place where people from around the world feel valued and want to put down roots.
Regardless of where we are born or what we look like, we are [RESIDENTS], united in our efforts to build a stronger [STATE/COMMUNITY]. By recognizing the contributions that we all make to create a vibrant culture and a growing economy, we make our community more prosperous and more inclusive to all who call it home.
Let us come together to build communities where every resident has the opportunity to contribute at their best. Let us come together to create more prosperous communities and to reaffirm that [STATE] still stands as a beacon of freedom and opportunity.
Now, therefore, I [NAME, TITLE], by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of [STATE/COMMUNITY], do hereby proclaim the week of September [DATE], 2024, Welcoming Week. I call upon the people of [STATE] to join together to build stronger communities across [STATE/COMMUNITY].
Examples of past proclamations and resolutions:
- State of New York
- Arlington County, VA
- Salt Lake County, UT
- Scott County, IA
- Aurora, CO
- Bend, OR
- Bettendorf, IA
- Dallas, TX
- East Moline, IL
- Erie, PA
- Moline, IL
- New Orleans, LA
- Knoxville, TN
- Takoma Park, MD
- Tulsa, OK
- Kansas City, MO
- Winona, MN
- Rock Island, IL
- Davenport, IA
- Glencoe, MN
- State College, PA
- Humboldt, Saskatchewan, Canada