Our Fiscal Sponsorships
handshakeIn addition, we support grassroots human rights collaborations through fiscal sponsorship and backend administrative support. Two of the projects we fiscally sponsor are Equitable and Just Greater Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh for CEDAW (the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women).
Other programs
people_outlineThe Global Switchboard brings people together for other programs including short-term projects and we also boost other local collaborations. We cosponsor events such as World Refugee Day and Pittsburgh’s International Day parade. In 2024 we cosponsored a screening of the Borderland documentary at The University of Pittsburgh. In 2023 we convened the Welcome Mat campaign (“Here in Pittsburgh, neighbors are kinda our thing.”) serving as the backbone organization for that project. In 2023 and 2022 we published annual “State of Equitable Global Engagement” reports based on data from our local partners serving immigrant and refugee communities and engaged in global education.
History
history_eduHuman rights is a long game here at The Global Switchboard. Founded in 1947 as the World Federalist Association of Pittsburgh, we have gone by different names and engaged in various strategies over the decades, but we have always been dedicated to world peace and human rights. In the early days we were a prominent local chapter of a national movement for world peace, convening activists and supporters on a variety of efforts for over 50 years. (Nationally, the World Federalist Association included members such as Albert Einstein, Kurt Vonnegut, and E.B White!)
Pittsburgh was an active chapter of the World Federalist Association, with local leaders such as Elizabeth Bloch, a holocaust survivor, and her husband Raymond Bloch, as well as Maclean McLean who served a term as Secretary General of the World Federalist Movement, living and working in Amsterdam from 1951-1955.
National membership fluctuated over the decades as attitudes towards solutions to world peace evolved. By 1995, the Pittsburgh chapter was still advocating to elected officials urging support for UN human rights conventions such as CEDAW, the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women. And in 2000 they were educating and advocating around ending genocide forever.
In 2004, the name was changed to Global Solutions Pittsburgh, and we moved forward with a focus on educating and empowering Pittsburghers to understand global issues and our connection to the world, including hosting seminars and running Model UN. In 2014, Global Solutions Pittsburgh partnered on a new endeavor with Amizade (now “All People Be Happy”), a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting volunteerism, providing community service, encouraging collaboration, and improving cultural awareness in locations throughout the world. The Global Switchboard was originally created in partnership as a coworking space where people and organizations working for equitable global engagement convened together under one roof. In 2015, Global Solutions Pittsburgh officially assumed the mantle of The Global Switchboard. The coworking space truly was a dynamic brick and mortar location for convenings and collaborations, including the All for All Coalition, a refugee and immigrant inclusion initiative that would become a flagship coalition for The Global Switchboard.
As with many organizations, the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic sparked organizational shifts. With members shifting to work from home, The Global Switchboard shifted its focus from being a physical convening space to being a digital convener. Continuing as a powerhouse of bringing people together for global engagement and human rights, we hosted events such as the 2021 Mayoral Forum on Immigrant and International Communities.
In 2022, The Global Switchboard put human rights officially in our mission and began partnering with a successful volunteer-led initiative, Pittsburgh Human Rights City Alliance, which officially came under the wing of The Global Switchboard in 2024. Other recent successes include the Welcome Mat Campaign, the State of Equitable Global Engagement reports, the Pittsburgh Human Rights Delegation to Atlanta in 2023. While managing the Human Rights City Alliance and All for All Coalition with all of their amazing programming, we also offer backbone and fiscal sponsorship support to other human rights collaborations including Equitable and Just Greater Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh for CEDAW.
