The organizations surveyed by the National South Asian Task Force also talked about the various barriers they encounter as they work with South Asian communities. It is important that we view these stated barriers not just as that – but that we look with an eye toward strategies and solutions. These barriers serve to explain the diversity of contexts in which these organizations serve and they also reveal the commonalities that are shared.

When asked which communities they want to work with but were unable to, the most commons barriers cited were:

Community-related

• No access to the community
• Lacking community participation. Several cited that it was challenging to serve the broader Asian American community and they needed to begin to prioritize the communities they serve.

Organizational Resources

• Lack of necessary staffing
• Lack of necessary funding
• Not having the necessary language capabilities

Organizations were also asked what challenges they faced with regard to building coalitions or alliances with other community organizations:

Lack of forum for non-profit collaboration

• It was logistically very difficult for some organizations to work with so many non-profits.
• There are not enough forums where many nonprofits get together to exchange ideas.
• Often collaboration is conditional – so that organizations will help each other to a certain point ‘as long as not stepping on each others toes.’
• Some organizations felt that sometimes collaboration could lead to their efforts being co-opted by larger organizations and continually being the lone South Asian voice to work on various large scale campaigns.

Collaborating with other “Asian American” agencies

• Some talked about the difficulty surrounding outreach to other Asian communities because of their South Asian focus.
• Some organizations noted that they had greater success in collaborating w/ non-South Asian organizations while others felt that non-South Asian organizations lacked the basic understanding of what it means to be South Asian (e.g. religious, ethnic, class issues).

Different issues, different priorities, different values

• Some organizations revolve their mission around a specific issue, for example, domestic violence. Collaboration is often unrealistic if other organizations do not acknowledge the importance of the issue.
• “Different agendas; not enough time/focus in our groups and in their organizations”
• The different political and ideological focus of the organizations interviewed point to the heterogeneous nature of those who serve South Asian communities. For example, some organizations served the Pan-Asian communities, or South Asians, or Indians, or only Hindus.
  

Organizational Resources

• High board turnover decreases institutional memory of the organization, which in turn makes it difficult for long-standing collaborations.
• Lack of staff time to deepen collaborations and coalition work as current staff is spread too thin and not able to take on “extra stuff”.

 
Organizations were also asked about the barriers they have experienced within their organization as they try to achieve their goals and missions:

Organizational Resources

• For the organizations that were volunteer-run, one of the biggest barriers is that “there isn't enough time and people don't commit.”
• Time commitment in reaching new communities.
• Internal conflict undercut comprehensive policy approaches;
• No stable fundraising mechanism.

The “isms”

• Homophobia, classism, sexism.
• Some organizations felt that their own staff or volunteers lacked of awareness about current issues, which feed biases.
• Issues relating to differences that arise from first and second generation issues.
• Sexism on the board level, competition for power, communicating are big obstacles - different opinions of empowerment and services.
• Some organizations felt that the “young professional organizations” weren’t as conducive to working with new immigrants and older community members.
• One organization pointed to the disparity in their organization that had approximately 80% middle to upper class members and only a few working class.