The Latino Community Foundation has hired Julián Castro as its new CEO. Castro previously served as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 2014 until 2017, was mayor of San Antonio, and ran for president in 2020. Castro will start on January 1. His charge will be to continue the growth of the foundation, which raises money to support Latino-led groups and works to bolster Latino political participation.
“It feels kind of like a full-circle moment to me. I grew up with a mom who was a Chicana activist, very involved in trying to ensure the well-being of the Latino community in Texas,” Castro said in an interview. “Throughout my time in public service, I tried to ensure that everybody could have a better opportunity in life. The work that the Latino Community Foundation does is fundamentally about lifting up the economic and the civic power of the Latino community.”
Castro is a nationally known figure — he will continue as a political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC — and has the potential to bring more attention to the need for philanthropy to better fund Latino causes. “Julián Castro is a powerhouse,” said Ana Marie Argilagos, CEO of Hispanics in Philanthropy. “Julián is in an amazing position to expand the foundation’s impact.” (Argilagos is a member of the Chronicle’s Board of Directors.)
The foundation grew significantly under its previous CEO, Jacqueline Martinez Garcel, who stepped down in June. In her eight years of leadership, she helped the foundation grow from bringing in less $2 million dollars a year to now bringing in about $20 million a year. The group built a strong network of giving circles, groups of everyday donors who pool their funds to contribute to organizations and interact directly with the nonprofits they support. That helps the donors become more engaged in their communities.
Castro has the background and skills to build on all that Martinez Garcel accomplished, said Dan Skaff, the foundation’s board chair. “He has the organizational experience, the community experience, and the activism experience. He also has the heart to do what we need to do at the Latino Community Foundation,” he said. “He has a national voice. He’s been active on behalf of the community for most of his adult life.”
For all his accomplishments in the bare-knuckle world of politics, Castro comes off as humble and even soft-spoken, Skaff said. “He really relates to people in the room. I think that comes from a real authenticity and a real attunement to those he’s with,” he said. “I’ve been super impressed with his demeanor.”
Castro had a crash course in philanthropy as a board member of the Marguerite Casey Foundation, which he joined in 2022. He says he has learned a lot from the foundation’s CEO, Carmen Rojas, and others about the creativity and innovation of nonprofits and the important work they do. “It’s definitely been an education for me,” he said.
Latino organizations have long been underfunded, said Argilagos, of Hispanics in Philanthropy. Today, she said, about 1 percent of philanthropic dollars go to groups that serve Latinos, despite the fact they make up roughly 20 percent of the U.S. population. She hopes Castro can help shift that imbalance.
That is high on his list of priorities. “There’s an invisibility in the philanthropic sector when it comes to funding Latino organizations and Latino-serving efforts. That’s a huge blind spot that absolutely needs to be addressed,” Castro said. “The needs in the Latino community are so great and so immediate that the level of investment that’s needed far surpasses what’s being invested now.”
