Feature

The four 2003 co-recipients of the Council on Foundations Robert W. Scrivner Award for Creative Grantmaking are Aida Rodriguez, Magui Rubalcava, Barbara A. Taveras and Luz A. Vega-Marquis. Those grantmakers designed and implemented the Funders' Collaborative for Strong Latino Communities, sponsored by Hispanics in Philanthropy (HIP) and directed by its funding members.

The awardees fielded an untested idea and made it a rousing success, growing from one grantmaking site in 2001 to 15 today, from nine initial funders in 2000 to 90 now. The collaborative has made more than 100 grants to small to medium-size Latino nonprofits to provide capacity building, peer training and networking. It also educates funders about issues in the Latino community in the United States and Latin America, and has stimulated giving locally and nationally by implementing a matching-gifts program.

The collaborative's two-pronged approach seeks to increase grants to Latino nonprofits and cultivate the next generation of Latino leaders. Find out more at: www.hiponline.org/collaborative.html. The full text of the interviews excerpted here is available at www.foundationnews.org.

Aida Rodriguez
Chair, Nonprofit Management Program, Robert J. Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy at New School University, New York City

FN&C: What was the catalyst for creating the Funders' Collaborative?

There were really three things, more or less. One was . . . that there was an increasing change in the Latino population—more diversity, more immigrants, just a growing population. Yet, we didn't see a change in the percentage of foundation funds going to the population. . . . Second, I knew there was a body of people, Hispanics in Philanthropy, that were very committed Latinos and non-Latinos who could serve as a force—an opportunity to do something. And third, there was a real feeling that you needed a safe place to talk about these issues. Latinos were diverse, growing, complicated. There was no place funders could ask the kinds of questions they needed to answer.

FN&C: How risky did it feel to launch such an ambitious program?

I didn't think it was risky . . . I thought it was going to be hard . . . but we knew the mechanism had to be complicated, and we knew that we couldn't be scared by that. We all were pretty confident that we could figure it out, and we just went forward. . . . Luz mentioned the role of HIP. It was the people in HIP that were really important [to the program's success]. I kept emphasizing that this should be seen as a funders' collaborative, not a project of any organization. Having been in the philanthropic world, [I saw] what really gave it power was that it was bigger than any one project—it was a collaboration of a group of organizations.

FN&C: Do you have a favorite success story?

The collaboration as a whole, [and] the work we did with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The fact that it was an international program of the foundation, based in Argentina, that we actually competed to get into. They invited us in, so we had Latino women from the United States working together with Latinos from all over Latin America, and they were giving us not only moral support, emotional support, but really substantive responses.

Magui Rubalcava
Director of Programs, Hispanics in Philanthropy, Emeryville, CA
Housed at the Otto Bremer Foundation, St. Paul, MN

FN&C: The number of funders in the Funders' Collaborative has increased tenfold since you joined HIP in 2000—from nine to more than 90. What's the secret of your success?

It was much harder for those first nine to join—because they were funding an idea, not an actual project. For them, it was a much greater risk. . . . The critical point was when the Northern California site completed its first grantmaking cycle. At that point, we could show prospective funders templates, a process and actual grantees. Also, the funders who had gone through the process became the project's greatest PR. . . . This excitement and ownership of the collaborative and the willingness of funders to go out and bring in more of their colleagues is what has made it a success. Of course, it has also helped to have a great program.

FN&C: Is there anything you'd do differently in terms of how the collaborative has approached its mission?

The one thing we would do differently is stagger the introduction of new sites over a more extended timeline and encourage sites to extend their individual grantmaking cycles, as well. We went from having one grantmaking site in 2001, to 7 in 2002, to our current 15 sites. As we have introduced new sites, we have continuously refined our process—from doing more outreach and pre-grantmaking efforts, to streamlining our guidelines and review process, to improving our evaluation, our grantee assessments and our monitoring of grantees.

FN&C: What are the key differences of working for an affinity group instead of at a foundation?

Working for an affinity group has allowed me to play a better advisory role to funders and nonprofits alike, and to be able to bridge the power gap that invariably exists in the relationship between funders and grantseekers.

Barbara A. Taveras
President and Board Secretary, The Edward W. Hazen Foundation, New York City

FN&C: How risky did it feel to launch such an ambitious program?

It was risky because it was something that had never been tried before at the scale that we intended to do it. There have been—and there are—Latino funds all around the country, but they were pretty much local. What we really wanted to do was something that was not just going to be a project of national impact and on a national scale, but beyond that, trying to create something that was transnational both in nature and scope. And that piece, the transnational, really was risky. . . . What were the linkages? What were the common realities? How do we create a vehicle that begins to bridge that?

FN&C: Do you have a favorite success story?

Going back to the design phase, which was what I was a part of . . . my favorite story is that when the W.K. Kellogg Foundation program in Latin America launched the 'Leadership in Philanthropy in the Americas' program, Luz, Aida and I, and Diana Campoamor at the time (Magui came into the process at a later phase), saw this as an opportunity to start working on this project. However, that program was only for people in Latin America. . . . We took the risk of submitting an application to them and presented our project—the concept paper for the collaborative. We really emphasized to them that if we put Latinos in the United States together, that population was probably larger than the populations in some countries in Latin America. . . . We were so thrilled when they took us on. So we were las gringas in a program that was essentially Latin American.

FN&C: Did you really think of yourselves as 'las gringas'?

They called us 'las gringas'. . . . Yet there was such an enormous amount of support that we got from our colleagues in Latin America for the three years that we were part of that fellowship program. In terms of the design phase, it made an enormous difference that we were part of that cohort.

Luz A. Vega-Marquis
President and CEO, Marguerite Casey Foundation, Seattle

FN&C: How risky did it feel to launch such an ambitious program?

It was very risky, because we were raising expectations; we were putting our reputation out there. . . . There was a controversy about whether or not an affinity group should do this kind of enterprise. . . . Creating a structure that accommodates the different regions and the different funders—it was very, very difficult to conceive and design and then take it out to implementation.

FN&C: What has changed during your career in terms of the role of Latinos in philanthropy and in the larger community?

Obviously, the numbers speak for themselves. I would like to see more, but I am quite happy that we have board members who are well represented. . . . At first blush, we have made a lot of progress. Clearly, from 20 years ago, it's a marked difference. Is it where it should be, given the population? Probably not. Are Latino communities receiving the funding that they should get? Probably not . . . . A lot has changed, but the rate of change—and the fact that we have few people and not strong infrastructure—will be challenges for us in the future. It's nice not to have the 'only one' syndrome, because in a lot of places you are the first one or the only one. . . . HIP was a blessing for me—to find other people who understood my culture, my issues, my community.

Any additional comments?

I'm very appreciative of the Scrivner Award, and I like the fact that it is being awarded to a collective, rather than one individual. . . . I love the fact that we agree that the award itself will be in HIP's name and will be housed at HIP—because I think it is about HIP; it's not about the four of us.