BCNH receives Nonprofit Center’s Impact Award

The NH Center for Nonprofits today annoucned that BCNH would receive its prestious “Impact Award” in recognition of its effectiveness and purpose. Rudra Timsina, BCNH board chair, acknowledged the award from his temporary assignment in Kuwait: “Since 2009, BCNH has been helping refugees in New Hampshire succeed as individuals and as communities within our cities’ cultures. We are thrilled by the recognition.”

“Over the past year, nonprofit leaders stepped up to meet the challenges of our communities with heroic determination and compassion,” said Kathleen Reardon, CEO of the NH Center for Nonprofits. “We are pleased to present these awards to celebrate the resilience, vision, and dedication that we see throughout the nonprofit sector. Each of the honorees has made an extraordinary impact on our state.”

The Center continued: “BCNH will be celebrated for ensuring that refugees from many countries get the essential services and cultural connections to become established and thrive in New Hampshire, and eventually become American citizens.”

We shared the spotlight with Cross Roads House, which was selected as the large nonprofit (annual budget over $750,000) with a powerful impact.

In his nomination of BCNH for the award Executive Director Rick Minard answered the Center’s questions this way:

Q: Using specific examples, please describe how this organization has exemplified high standards of quality in its strategy and execution (in 1-2 paragraphs).

BCNH has pursued a dual strategy to ensure that refugees from many countries get the services and cultural connection they need.  We have supported our own case managers through a long series of successful grants from local and regional foundations and agencies: some grants focus on employment services, others on nutrition and mental health, others on care for elderly refugees.  To achieve our broader goals, we secured and implemented a three-year Ethnic Community Self Help grant from the US Office of Refugee Resettlement. With those funds, we nurtured the establishment and growth of two other organizations: the Rohingya Society of Greater Nashua and Overcomers Refugee Services in Concord.  We helped them establish bylaws, boards, and personnel policies while paying the salaries of key staff members.  Today, Overcomers is a flourishing organization with independent funding, and the Rohingya Society builds cohesion within a very vulnerable community while its director remains a key BCNH employee.

When COVID demanded new strategies, BCNH responded with typical flexibility.  Early on, our Bhutanese board members organized a streaming event that brought a Nepali-speaking physician to 8,000 Bhutanese refugees across the northeast.  Our English class went on-line and added regular sessions on COVID.  Our case managers distributed PPE to households, and then helped laid-off workers deal with an overwhelmed unemployment system.  In October, in response to a call from the NH Commissioner of Education, we launched a program to help teachers and guidance counselors in Nashua and Manchester find and communicate with refugee kids and their parents who had lost touch with school because of remote learning and quarantine.

 Q. Please explain why this organization is uniquely qualified for an award focused on Nonprofit Impact in 1-2 paragraphs.

BCNH isn’t uniquely qualified.  We do amazing work and we do it well, but we succeed because we work closely with similar organizations who are also doing their best to make New Hampshire a multi-ethnic community.  We would share this honor with Overcomers Refugee Services, the Rohingya Society of Greater Nashua, Ascentria Care Alliance, the International Institute of New England, Victory Women of Vision, the Organization for Refugee and Immigrant Success, Welcoming New Hampshire, and others.

Within the sphere of New Hampshire’s nonprofit world, BCNH is doing something different: not only trying to serve the immediate needs of individuals but also modeling the multi-ethnic community New Hampshire is trying to imagine.  BCNH’s staff and board are multi-racial, multi-ethnic, and span the religious spectrum.  We work together and we will be ready to include refugees from other cultures when they arrive.

Q: If you were presenting this organization with the award, how would you sum up its impact in 1-2 sentences?

New Hampshire is home to thousands of people who were forced from their homes by attempted genocide, ethnic cleansing, and war.  Many lived for 10 or 20 years in harsh refugee camps before the U.S. State Department resettled them in Concord, Manchester, and Nashua.  When the Bhutanese arrived, they created something beautiful: an organization, now known as Building Community in New Hampshire, dedicated to helping other refugees and their neighbors build a new community where all can flourish.