Web Extra (2)

The full text of the interviews with three of the four 2003 recipients of the Robert W. Scrivner Award for Creative Grantmaking—Magui Rubalcava, Barbara Taveras and Luz Vega-Marquis—appears below. Aida Rodriguez's interview will be posted this summer. These interviews were excerpted in the print edition of Foundation News & Commentary.

Magui Rubalcava
Director of Programs, Hispanics in Philanthropy

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 and I think it's important to emphasize. Once a few more funders were added and we actually began doing grantmaking, the project took off.

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—they talked with their colleagues, personally exemplifying the added value of the project, and made a much more heartfelt pitch than staff could have ever done. 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.

The real secret of the success is the ownership of the funders, because the funders themselves do our fundraising. It's not like I go out and knock on doors; they keep saying, 'This is working so well in our state, we need to bring more funders in for round two.' Then they would call me and say, 'Hey, Magui, I talked to the director of this foundation. Give her a call; she's interested in it.' So, they would do the initial ask to their colleagues and then we'd just follow up with calling, putting the proposal together and getting them all the information they need. All of the first calls have been from the funders themselves, so as more funders have come in, that ask has spread and spread and spread. And that's why we went from 30 in one year and then it spread to 60 funders and then 90 funders. It very quickly started to snowball.

FN&C: And who were the original nine? It's Ford, Rockefeller, California Wellness . . .

Otto Bremer, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Hearst Foundation, Fannie Mae—mainly the national funders. I think the Gill Foundation might have been one of those early ones. A lot of the funders that came on, actually gave us money years before we started seeing it go anywhere, like in 1998. And so I really want to emphasize that those first funders that came in—especially Ford and Rockefeller and California Wellness—it was a much greater risk for them because they gave us funds before we really had implemented anything. It's one thing to come into a project when it's an idea and it's a whole other thing when it's already being implemented and you can see success stories all across the country.

FN&C: What have you enjoyed the most about managing the Funders' Collaborative?

Getting to work with people—both the funders and Latino nonprofit organizations—throughout the diverse regions of the country and seeing the different dynamics of the Latino community in these regions. For example, it has been interesting to see how Latino nonprofits and funders operate in a place like California, with its large number of Latinos and an older nonprofit sector, versus New Mexico, the state with the largest percentage of its population being Latino, to a state like North Carolina, where the Latino population has exploded and there are not yet any Latinos in the field, to a place like Minnesota or Milwaukee, where people think there are no Latinos, yet we have strong Latino nonprofits. I am amazed at the diversity of our population, of our presence, and what our nonprofits are doing within different areas of the country.

It has also been gratifying to see the level of interest, support and personal time that Collaborative funders have invested in making the project successful. They have worked hard and have really taken ownership of the project, both at the national level—in the development of the guidelines and policies—and the local level—in the actual selection of, and work with, grantees. One of the things I am most proud of is this ownership by the funders—they go out and fundraise, they work on developing their local grantmaking process, attend the outreach sessions, the application sessions, they read proposals, do site visits, make decisions. And then, they sit on our project committees, help us plan the national components (evaluation and training) and also attend our annual meetings. It's amazing, the level of work and commitment that they have given to the project.

It's completely funder-driven, all the way through, even in the decision-making process. I have been amazed. At first a couple funders said, 'I don't know if I can do all this work—we need some help.' Once they get into it, though, they totally take ownership of the program.

At the national level, we have an annual assembly of all of our funders, to revisit the guidelines and our policies. That's how we came up with the criteria that we weren't just going to be funding Latino nonprofits, we were going to be funding Latino-led nonprofits, which has been our contribution to the field, looking at nonprofits that are owned by the constituencies they serve. They came up with this, 'What does it mean to be Latino-led?' They set up these guidelines—we helped in terms of making suggestions, but in everything we do, we make suggestions and they make final decisions.

Another thing I've enjoyed about this project is working with our Latino nonprofits. I have been heartened by their commitment to the community, by their resilience, even in these difficult times, and by their pride in our community. Seeing the great work that these nonprofits do makes me proud to be Latina. It is these groups that should be getting this acknowledgement—since they are the ones making the difference in our communities!

FN&C: That must be gratifying to see it in action all the time, and be reminded of where the work is going.

I was just in North Carolina. We held workshops, explaining our application process and explaining what capacity building is, what funders are thinking. This is all an effort to educate nonprofits to understand what I call "philanthro-speak". It's a language of its own— take capacity-building, for example. We always get proposals that say, 'I need a capacity-building grant because we need to build our capacity so that at the end of the grant, we have more capacity.' What does this mean exactly?

I do these application sessions all over the country and I ask, 'What do you think capacity is?' It's been great to hear what people come up with—having them define what it means to them, and providing the technical assistance so that they can make their case.

I've enjoyed decoding the language of philanthropy and helping our nonprofits, who are doing great work, but sometimes don't know how to position themselves. Our end goal is that we start to connect some of these organizations. We settled on smaller nonprofits, because the larger ones need capacity as well, but they already have access. The whole idea is to increase the access of groups that don't already have it, to increase the relationships between philanthropy and Latino nonprofits. We hope to build the relationships that will sustain those communities long after this project is over.

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 in 2003. 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. Hence, newer sites have benefited from earlier lessons learned.

My sense is that we could have maximized this even more had we staggered our implementation across the country and with our Latin America sites. Also, regarding individual sites, our first sites had very ambitious timelines and we wanted to get the funding out as soon as possible. We have since learned that it is better to have a longer timeline, to do more outreach and provide more application sessions and technical assistance prior to the grantmaking process. The nice part about this project is that we actually are changing the project as it is implemented in new sites and are now doing what I would have done differently.

Staffing has been a challenge, also, because you can't double each year and then double your staff as well. So our biggest challenge has been figuring out how to staff this, especially getting staff who know something about grantmaking. It's hard to be in this position and not be a grantmaker, because you have to be an administrator but also have a lot of program responsibilities.

We did a lot of planning on the grantmaking component of the Collaborative—we did think a lot about how we were going to get the grants out—but we could have spent more time thinking about staffing and other logistics. Diana kept saying when we first started that we were building the plane as we flew it, and that's really how it felt.

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

This one is the hardest question, because I have many success stories—of grantees and funders alike—so it's hard to choose my favorite. But I think I would say it's our North Carolina site. There is much about North Carolina that makes our work there a success story—first, the fact that it has one of the fastest-growing Latino populations in the country (in terms of percentage) and so the state is grappling with a fairly new population with whom they don't have much previous experience. Not only has the Latino population exploded, so has the number of Latino organizations. Not surprisingly, the interest of the funders was high, and in a short amount of time, they raised $1 million locally among 19 funders!

These funders have really made an effort to understand and learn about Latino issues. They recognized that, not having any Latinos currently in the field, they needed training—so they requested cultural competency training. They also have done much more outreach and listening sessions with nonprofits in the community. HIP has served as the facilitator of these training sessions and discussions—helping to bridge the Latino community with these funders and make these dialogues happen. It has been a great learning experience for the funders, the nonprofits and HIP.

And, we have found about 80 Latino-led nonprofits, and some very sophisticated organizations. There are at least 20 organizations that are in the process of incorporating right now. So, there's been huge growth not only in the population, but also in the Latino nonprofit sector. But there's also a whole group of white, mainstream organizations trying to tap into the Latino community. So when I first got there and insisted on our Latino-led criteria, funders thought there wouldn't be enough nonprofits to fund. They've since realized that there are more organizations in the state than they realized.

Another thing that's been amazing is that they recognized that they needed cultural competency training and asked for it. I think all of us need cultural competency training, but not all of us recognize it. So we put together a cultural competency training, which was unique for us. They were sensitive to not having Latinos on the selection committee, so we held a series of outreach meetings to hear from Latino organizations, which the funders attended. We have done much education of the funders about the Latino community. Even before any money has been given out, they have already told us it has been an incredible learning opportunity.

The success of the work so far in North Carolina (and we haven't even made grants yet), has also helped to emphasize the value of funder collaboration overall. At the same time that the Collaborative was taking shape, the funders were starting a North Carolina Network of Grantmakers. It has also been a successful effort, and I think it was helped by the concrete experience that many of our funders have had with the Collaborative. The Collaborative is an example: if we can collaborate around Latino issues, we can collaborate on a lot of other things. It has really fostered a spirit of collaboration that I don't think was there before.

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. By not being a decisionmaker (funders make all decisions on grants and do their own site visits and recommendations to the larger group), I was in the position to raise questions and to push funders to truly learn more about Latino communities. I could not have done it had I been a decisionmaker.

And with nonprofits, I could help them frame their thinking, and help them understand the funders and help them better understand philanthropy. This job has allowed me to provide much more technical assistance—to funders and nonprofits alike—than I ever thought possible. It really does help bridge the divide that exists between these two groups.

An intermediary can really help the two groups come together. Funders will call me and say, 'I have this issue with this nonprofit, it's not doing this and this.' So I can call the nonprofit and find out what's going on. I can say, 'This is what the funder is thinking. You know, I'm irritated by the sustainability question, too, but what's underlying this sustainability question is that we want to make sure that you are really committed to doing this, that you will find a way to get this project done whether we fund it or someone else funds it—that's what we are getting at. No funder wants to see you do a project and then have it fall apart when the funding ends.' I can help decode the language. Grantees will call me and say, 'Oh my gosh, Magui, I am having this problem.' Definitely the kind of thing they could never share with the funder. They don't see me as the funder; they see me as the person who can help them figure things out, so they can then present themselves to the funder. So it really is a great opportunity to influence how funders are thinking, but not actually be a decisionmaker, and to help nonprofits better understand how funders think and why they ask the questions they do sometimes.

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

Without a doubt, the 2000 Census has seen a significant change in the interest by funders and the larger public in Latinos. Although many had predicted some growth in our numbers, the Census confirmed that the rate of growth for our population was occurring at a faster rate than the predictions. The large coverage by the media on the Census figures brought even greater visibility and coverage of other Latino issues.

I think the Census numbers and the media coverage certainly have impacted Latinos, but more in the larger community. I don't feel yet that the fact that we're a larger percentage of the population or that our visibility is greater in the mainstream has necessarily increased our representation in the field of philanthropy or anywhere else. It's not like I'm seeing a surge of Latinos in the field. When I came to Minnesota, there was one other Latina in the field, and I think there are now four.

As is evidenced by the surge of funders that have joined the Collaborative in the last two years especially, I do think more funders are recognizing that the Latino community exists and are interested in working more with the community. Some are also recognizing the importance of having Latinos on staff—but it will probably still be a while before that interest translates into more giving to Latino communities and more Latino representation in philanthropy.

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

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

I think the main reason for doing this that we realized there was such a small amount of philanthropic dollars going to Latino nonprofits, particularly at a time when the 2000 Census was pointing to the fact that the community was growing at a very rapid rate. So, we were asking ourselves "How can we help our community?" By that I mean ensuring not only that the community going to be able to meet its basic needs, but find ways for Latinos to participate actively in the social, economic and civic life of this country, and looking at Latino nonprofits as a vehicle for doing that.

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 to create something that was transnational in nature and scope. And that piece, the transnational component, really was risky, because we almost discovering what that meant as we planned the initiative. Also, it was almost as if we were getting ahead of where the larger membership of HIP was at the time, in terms of how Latin America and the countries of origin of many of us—and of many in the Latino community throughout this country—connected to what was happening here. What were the linkages? What were the common realities? How do we create a vehicle that begins to bridge that? How do we create a philanthropic vehicle that is mutually beneficial to nonprofits here as well as nonprofits in Latin America?

For me, that was both risky and exciting.

FN&C: It's very interesting—that split that people have with their home country and being an American, too. How do you serve all of the population?

By dealing with the distinctions in philanthropy between national philanthropy and international philanthropy. And saying, 'Well, we're not creating something that is international philanthropy. This is something new.'—something that responds to the sort of dual reality in which many Latinos in this country live. The challenge was how to 'operationalize' that in a way that really helped people make contributions on a two-way street, both grantmakers in Latin America and nonprofits there, as well as grantmakers here and nonprofits here, mutually supporting one another around some common goals.

FN&C: In hindsight, is there anything you would change about how you launched and implemented the Collaborative?

Well, I could only speak about the design of it, of which I was a part. As I think back to the design, no, I would not change anything about the planning and design process. It was something unique—I think it has some unique elements that I hope HIP will publicize as part of the learnings, and hopefully something that is useful to others who want to do something like this.

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

Again, going back to the design phase—and I don't know if it's a success story—but my favorite story is the fact that when the Kellogg Foundation program in Latin America launched the 'Leadership in Philanthropy in the Americas' fellowship 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—for Latin American professionals. We took submitted an application to them and presented our project—the concept paper for the collaborative. We emphasized to them that if we put Latinos in the United States together, that population was probably larger than a lot of populations in some countries in Latin America, and that the focus of our work was to try to really create a project that would help our community move forward.

We were so thrilled when they took us on. So we were las gringas in a program that was essentially Latin American.

So, did you really think of yourselves as 'las gringas'?

They [some of the fellows] called us 'las gringas'—we were the strangest gringas in that group! Yet there was such an enormous amount of support 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. So that's my favorite story in this whole experience.

You probably haven't been called that before!

I know, I was like, 'Boy, I certainly don't look like a gringa!' (Laughing.)

FN&C: As a Latina foundation president, have you faced challenges that differ from those faced by your colleagues?

I don't know what particular challenges my colleagues are facing, so I really can't answer that question. I've been privileged to be at Hazen for the past ten years and to work with an outstanding board and an outstanding staff. So I don't really feel like I've faced challenges that relate to my gender or to my ethnicity. I think the challenges related to the goals that we have as a foundation. I've been very fortunate that, even in the larger field, I've worked with colleagues in projects and activities—particularly those that are focusing on young people and low-income communities—that have just been amazing opportunities.

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

What I've seen happen in philanthropy—more in the last five years—is a little bit more visibility of Latinos. For example, there are a few more Latinos who are presidents of foundations—this is a welcomed sign for the field.

I also think that there is greater recognition in the field—and hopefully that recognition will increase through the Funders' Collaborative for Strong Latino Communities—that our community has real assets that are valuable for building civil society. I'm really glad that HIP has been a part of making some of this happen, in terms of lifting up the asset that our community and Latinos in philanthropy represent.

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

FN&C: Tell me about the genesis of Hispanics in Philanthropy, the affinity group you helped found in 1983.

It's an interesting thing that I am here in Seattle, because in 1979, I was a program officer at the James Irvine Foundation, and I came to my first Council on Foundations conference in Seattle. And I was appalled, at the time, that there were virtually no Latinos attending the conference or anywhere to be found.

And at the same time, I met with a lot of my black colleagues at this conference—folks like Hugh Burroughs and others who were actively engaged with ABFE [the Association of Black Foundation Executives]. I was really excited about what they were doing and I began wondering where the Latinos were in this business. That set me on a quest to find out them. So, using the Council registration list, I cold called a couple people—two women, in fact, that had Spanish surnames. One told me, "No, I'm sorry, I just married one." (Laughing.) And the other woman declined to participate.

After returning to the Bay area, I really tried hard to find folks. And this took me a long time, mind you. I started talking to folks at United Way. I started poring through annual reports, because there really wasn't a way for me to identify where people were. I think Cruz Reynoso, who was formerly a Supreme Court justice in California, was on the board of the Rosenberg Foundation and Kirk Wilson. Kirk has been a genuine friend of HIP and myself and really helped out. He connected me with the judge and eventually we started meeting; we found a couple of other people. This took a while, and it was a period of finding out: What did we want the organization to be? What did we want to name it? On and on and on.

I think then he left Rosenberg and Herman Gallegos joined their board. Interestingly enough, the National Council of La Raza was on the same floor as the Irvine Foundation office. So I met Herman and I told him what I was doing, and he said, "I'm going to be there for you. This is great." And soon we started trying to create this organization together.

Then, the Council had that whole issue of Foundation News dedicated to Hispanics—did you know that?

FN&C: I did not know that, actually.

Yes, I believe it was the only time in history that the Council has ever done something like that. So, anyway, they held meetings in a lot of places, and HIP was trying to get started.

The Council's next conference was in Dallas, so it's poignant that we find ourselves back in Dallas once again 20 years later. You should also know that the Irvine Foundation was very, very supportive in giving me time to do this, giving me money to incorporate the organization. Because trying to organize a national group on a volunteer basis was really, really difficult. It was thereabouts, early '83 or maybe late '82, that Elisa Boone joined and then Herman came to Dallas. It was then we decided to incorporate. The three of us are the initial incorporators of the organization.

But we had spent from '79 to '83 in gestation, holding meetings in the Bay area, making sure that Latino organizations knew about philanthropy. Because we have a very clear mission and vision that has been very steadfast in the work of the organization. That has been really terrific—we wanted to educate grantmakers about Latino issues and to bring more money to the Latino community. I think we're fulfilling those two goals beautifully.

In about '83 or '84, we hired our first executive director. A couple of people came on board. Ernie Gutierrez [Jr.], who was at another foundation and he then moved to Kresge. Mariano Guzman at the New York Community Trust was another person who was waiting to see what we were going to do.

I think that tells you about how philanthropy has evolved. Our target then was the Council on Foundations, because with such a small group, we thought that if the members could hear more about the issues of Latinos at the conference, we could begin to make a difference.

The Council had one Latino board member at that point, Luis Alvarez, [president] of the National Urban Fellows [Council on Foundations board member from 1974-1980]. We were in touch with him and trying to figure out how we could get things done. We started with making better representation of our issues at the conference and making sure that Latino communities were familiar with foundations. We tried to make sure that the few organizations which did exist were receiving resources.

And that's the genesis of HIP.

FN&C: It's a lot of work, though, to get an organization off the ground.

It was, and I think we've been so blessed in having Diana's leadership. We went through several folks that were really, really good. Henry Ramos was running the organization, then Diana took over. They've all been really terrific people. With Diana's leadership in particular, we expanded the organization by calling a meeting of all the ethnic- and gender-based affinity groups, trying to reach out to one another. Three people were really helpful and supportive in the process: Kirk Wilson, Tom Layton and Hugh Burroughs.

Another big accomplishment for HIP has been the diversification of our board. I think we were the first affinity group to do so. And the other first for HIP is expanding internationally—to really recognize the value and importance of our countries of origin, on the premise that both sides can learn a lot from each other. That has been a really significant development for us, recognizing that though we are Americans, we have this strong connection to our countries of origin—we help them and they help us. For me, it's been a stunning part of the work that Diana has been able to pull together.

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

In the early '90s, in terms of devolution, there were a lot of problems for national Hispanic organizations. It was a time like now, where there were very few resources. We were really concerned about what was happening to the national organization. Aida Rodriguez is probably a better person to speak about this, because at HIP's retreat, she came to our board and said, "We have this thing about bringing more resources to the Latino community. We see through the Foundation Center that it doesn't change that much. We have a big challenge right now with our national organizations and with the rest of our communities and we really need to think about how we pull this together." It was her idea and recommendation to the board that we collaborate and create a pool of money—a collaboration of funders—to be focused on the issues important to Latino communities. She brought that idea to the board.

At the same time, the Kellogg Foundation had issued a call for nominations for their "Leadership in Philanthropy in the Americas" fellowships, out of Argentina. Barbara, Aida and I decided that we would apply. The whole concept behind this fellowship was that each of the nine countries involved would select a philanthropic project to develop in their community. So, we took the idea of the collaborative and presented it there in the hopes that we could develop it. We convinced them that if they looked at the Hispanic population of the United States together—the entire Latino population—we would be the fifth-largest Latin American country. And they bought it!

It was great because they gave us the resources we needed to begin the work. We had to put in time thinking about the collaboration and how it would be set up and what the components would be. We had tremendous challenges. I remember meeting in a San Francisco hotel room with the three of us, Diana and a couple of funders from the local area, and talking about the idea. And also the idea that 15 million dollars would be our target. We looked at each other and we started laughing, because it seemed so farfetched. We assumed we'd never be able raise that much money! But we decided we would try and we'd encourage our colleagues to come support us. And we did.

I am very happy to say that immediately when Aida came to the board of HIP with the idea for the Funders' Collaborative, I was able to get HIP $4,500 from the [California] Wellness Foundation as a planning grant. This was before Kellogg was even in the picture. I said, 'This is a great idea and it needs to be supported.' You know, with small organizations, it's always hard to pull resources from one thing to support another. It made all the difference to have that early funding, and now here we are with 90 plus foundations.

Getting our first dollars, from Kellogg and the Ford Foundation, made a huge impact. Wellness was also there early on with a large grant of $300,000 to support the collaborative. I think that once we started putting a couple of pieces in place, it worked. And I'm sure you heard about the wave of controversy that creating this type of project at an affinity group caused.

FN&C: I actually haven't heard that.

I was on the board of NFG [Neighborhood Funders Group] and people were concerned that we were taking money from communities. Within HIP, people said, 'That not the role of the affinity group, and how are we sticking to our mission?' Our answer has always been that the project helps us fulfill our mission of bringing more resources to the Latino community.

It's a new mechanism and we are learning a lot as we grow. I think we are going to see very different outcomes at the end of this process, by targeting this particular ethnic group and dealing with the lack of infrastructure. The two important goals of the Collaborative, in addition to bringing the funders together, were that the funders were going to learn more about Latino issues—we wanted to create infrastructure for the largest ethnic group in this country. We had a couple of big national groups and a couple of regional groups and then it kind of disintegrated after that. The other advantage is the creation of a new cadre of leaders that will connect nationally—I think those parts are very significant for the development of the Latino community in the future.

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

There are so many. My favorite is, I understand the funders in North Carolina who are dealing with the demographic changes in the deep South came together and wanted to join the Collaborative. Their willingness to come together was impressive. There was not a Latino represented on the foundation staff. They did a training on diversity; they tried to understand the issues. And I believe it is now one of the largest pools of funds for Latinos in the Collaborative.

If I wanted to look 20 years back and think about that in North Carolina, how willing these foundations are to provide these kinds of resources, it's amazing how things have changed. Given all the things that I went through, I've skipped all the ugly parts about dealing with the program committee of the Council when it was constituted separately. Not like it's now constituted, where there are all these different committees and subcommittees. At that time, back in the late '80s, it was just 20 people, and I served on it for three years, having to struggle to sell to that crowd. When the Council was in Los Angeles, I remember struggling to get one session on Latinos. People were like, 'Why do you want to do that?'

To come now to 2002, and hear about North Carolina, and to talk about successfully fulfilling the missions of HIP, I feel pretty good about it.

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 reputations out there. Like I said, there was a controversy about whether or not an affinity group should do this kind of enterprise. There were all kinds of concerns, so it was not simple. 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. There were all kinds of naysayers. There were all kinds of issues about, why focus on an ethnic group? At least in California, foundations were not so interested in funding diversity at that time, because they were stressing more of a multicultural approach. We heard criticism of the Balkanization of communities, so it was a very risky enterprise.

FN&C: As a Latina foundation president, have you faced challenges that differ from those faced by your colleagues?

I have to tell you that getting Marguerite off the ground, launching the grantmaking program, setting up the foundation has been an all-consuming enterprise. We've been so focused on getting the foundation started that I really haven't had a chance to reflect on whether my role is different or not. I would like to believe that it isn't. I would like to believe that I am contributing to the development of an excellent foundation, that I'm advancing the field by thinking differently about how we develop our programs, by building on the knowledge that is available to me already from the good work of many, many foundations.

I'm sure there are specific challenges, but I haven't thought about them yet. I also want to reach out to my colleagues, because I haven't gotten out that much. We've been focused the internal operations, so I'm trying to get out more now, and I'm having meetings with other foundation presidents when I come to the Council conference. And I'm going to set up other meetings in New York and other places. Maybe a year from now I can tell you a little better.

FN&C: If the answer is no, then that shows a lot of progress.

I have a great board; I have a great staff. The challenge is just trying to move the development of the foundation very, very fast. We probably did what would take two years in one year, so there's been very little time to reflect on my ethnic group and whether it would make a difference or not.

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. Not in all foundations, obviously. 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.

As the deep South grapples with the growth of the Latino population, the black-Latino issue, all of those things, there are tremendous challenges for Latinos and for the rest of the country. But particularly for Latinos in philanthropy, we have a strong responsibility to ensure that Latinos are part of civil society.

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. This is where HIP was a blessing for me—to find other people who understood my culture, my issues, my community. Trying to get a bridge through philanthropy and how to make that happen, that's a godsend.

Any additional comments?

I'm very appreciative of the Scrivner Award, and I like the fact that it is a collective. (That probably makes life a little more difficult for you to write about four people.) 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. And that, to me, is what's exciting.