The effects of ideological assumptions about teaching, learning, and the labor market and the impact of differing funding sources on community-based organizations' efforts to prepare immigrant/refugee women for jobs in the United States were examined through a study of programs sponsored by two San Francisco Bay area community organizations--the Women Immigrants' Group (WIG) and Community Advocates for Career Development (CACD). Staff and participants in the two programs were interviewed. The WIG program, which is staffed almost completely by volunteers, was formed in response to the needs of many low-income Asian immigrant women and is based on the principles of Freire and feminism and a commitment to "transformative" education. The CACD program, which began in the 1960s as a church program for Chinese immigrants, now works to provide tools of empowerment to diverse communities and offers job training, internship, and job placement services to immigrants from all areas and to displaced workers. The study revealed how the ideological underpinnings of the WIG program and funding constraints of the CACD program can shape workplace programs serving immigrant women. It was concluded that, although both programs have participants' interests at heart, neither is able to fulfill its commitment because of internal and external constraints. (Contains 20 references.) (MN)