A Message For Funders: Let’s Build a New Road to Building Latino Community Power Today

There has never been a more dire and urgent time for philanthropy to stand up and support the Latino community in the US.

We are about to witness a chapter in the history of Latinos in the US that many of us never thought possible in the US.  

The upcoming focus isn’t only on expelling 11 million immigrants, the focus will be on denying long-time Latino citizens and legal immigrants opportunities, funding, and support that they have known in the past. This covers education, health, community support, the arts, entrepreneurship, immigration and so much more.  The harm this will cause to the lives of millions of hard-working, good, law-abiding people we can only imagine.

There are a few great foundations that have given significantly to Latino nonprofits. However, overall philanthropy has had a poor track record in supporting Latino movements and nonprofits. I can make that statement because before the pandemic only 1.8% of grants went to Latino-focused nonprofits working with 20% of the population.

Will philanthropy see us now?

The only bulwark against this is the Latino nonprofit community across the US. As the leader of Somos El Poder, the first Latino fundraising institute in the US. We support hundreds of these organizations helping their communities on a wide range of issues. It's important to support these organizations but it's also urgent that we strengthen them. Strengthen them by helping them learn to raise more money, especially from their own communities. Many are dependent on government grants. Community giving cannot be cut.

Whatever issue your funding, climate change, STEM education, early education, health disparities and more. Strengthening the Latino-focused nonprofits working on those issues is crucial. If they are not supported and they close their doors it will take us backwards on the same issues you’re working on.

So, firstly, see the Latino nonprofit community. Aside from politics, we need to prevent an unseen humanitarian crisis right inside the US. If that sounds a bit dramatic, it’s our reality. People are afraid—not just of vague policies but of having their parents taken away, having their education ended, losing their business, and not having health care for their aging parents.

Philanthropy needs to step up and stand beside us. It needs to not only give grants, but it needs to help us find our own community strength. A strength that lasts through bad times and lifts up the whole community. Fundraising and Giving are inherently empowering. They help people support their own families and communities. It takes them from being victims to activists.  To change agents at any financial level. When someone learns how to raise money in their community, they cannot unlearn that. When a foundation supports that learning they make a grant that just keeps growing. One example. We had a member organization that spent some of their grant dollars to be trained and supported by Somos El Poder. That investment of $550 for a conference plus travel raised them over $400,000 in new community donors.

I call that an “exponential” use of a grant. A grant that makes more money, but also teaches them how to keep doing that!

With crisis we must adapt, with tough times we can show our true colors and rise to the challenge!

So let’s back the Latinx nonprofit community, let’s make it strong!