Latinos start businesses at higher rates than the population as a whole, but they struggle to get the capital they need to expand their enterprises.
Hispanics in Philanthropy has set an ambitious goal to raise $60 million over five years to propel Latino-led small businesses across the country, with an emphasis on women entrepreneurs. The figure is symbolic — $1 for each Latino who calls the United States home. But the PowerUp Fund has the very real objective of building Latino economic power and wealth.
“It’s not just a moral imperative about social justice and economic justice,” says Ana Marie Argilagos, CEO of Hispanics in Philanthropy. “This is about if we want to have a fully functioning economy.”
The PowerUp Fund got a big boost this week with a $3 million grant from Google.org, which builds on the company’s $180 million commitment to small and medium-size businesses led by women and people of color.
“Latino-owned small businesses are key to the economic backbone of the United States,” Hector Mujica, the Economic Opportunity Lead, Americas, at Google.org, said in a statement. “We are inspired by the resilience and entrepreneurial tenacity of the Latino community and are proud to support efforts — like PowerUp Fund — that advance economic opportunity.”
Grant-Maker Qualms
Hispanics in Philanthropy has been working on the PowerUp Fund for more than a year. Initially, it was envisioned as a way to make loans and equity investments in growing businesses. Because of the pandemic, however, the fund added cash assistance to the plan to help struggling enterprises.
“Covid got us going faster and got us thinking about the cash assistance, which was not on our radar before,” Argilagos says. “We need to make sure that we have some of our businesses surviving.”
Raising money for the fund from foundations has been slow going, Argilagos says.
“The response is always, ‘Not right now. We need more data,’” she says. Foundations ask whether the group’s two decades of grant making will translate into success in investing in small businesses.
Argilagos argues that it does. “The same type of skill set and experience is needed for the impact investing work,” she says. “But since we don’t have an attributable track record, we are hitting walls.”
But she says she’s undeterred. “The PowerUp Fund is HIP’s next generation of work.”
