Evangelina Montenegro’s philanthropy roots can be traced to her childhood journey across the Mexican border into the United States.
Ms. Montenegro, a financial analyst at Visa, in San Francisco, was attending an event for Hispanic executives when she learned about an effort to aid young illegal immigrants who had come to America as she had.
A representative of the local Latino Community Foundation urged the event’s attendees to get their friends together and donate to defray the application fees of so-called Dreamers seeking work permits and waivers from deportation.
“It spoke directly to me because that was my story, too,” says Ms. Montenegro, 47.
Her family became legal residents under a 1987 law that provided amnesty to more than 3 million illegal immigrants and became citizens in 1992.
“I fulfilled my dreams and went to college. Now I want to give back and help open the door for these kids,” says Ms. Montenegro.
She gave to the cause and ultimately convinced six of her friends to donate, too—her first foray into volunteer fundraising. Together, they gave $400. “It was a lot of work, but it was definitely worth it,” she says.
Next-Generation Giving
Donors like Ms. Montenegro are pioneering a path in organized philanthropy among Hispanics, says Raquel Donoso, executive director of the 25-year-old Latino Community Foundation, in San Francisco.
The foundation, which raised $1.2-million in the 2013 fiscal year, is one of dozens around the country that serve America’s fastest growing minority.
Though currently about 16 percent of the population, Hispanics are expected to reach 27 percent by 2045, contributing to an increase in minorities over all that will total more than half of the country’s population by then.
“You have a growing population of Latinos, but within that you have a group that’s the first generation to have wealth and wants to do something meaningful,” says Ms. Donoso. And as Hispanics make up an increasingly large share of America, such upwardly mobile young people are the potential supporters that fundraisers need to reach, say experts.
In addition to wooing young Hispanic donors with causes that appeal to their experiences, San Francisco’s community fund has also focused on the long term, accepting small gifts now to plant the seeds for larger support later.
For instance, last year’s Dreamer appeal, the foundation’s first attempt to reach the growing number of rising Latino businesspeople in the Bay Area, raised only $12,000.
But the foundation signed up 150 new donors ages 20 to 40.
“It was the first time that many of them had ever given,” says Ms. Donoso.
The community fund is now working hard to keep those new supporters involved.
They invited some to a focus group to brainstorm the best ways to cultivate new donors; one idea that sprang from that session, a giving circle for young Latinos, is about to get started. The foundation also hopes to tap into local Hispanics’ interest in technology with a year-end campaign to donate computers to needy children.
Donors of All Incomes
In Denver, another fund aimed at Hispanics—the Latino Community Foundation of Colorado—is also seeking to boost giving by accommodating small donors.
Before the Colorado group was formed five years ago, Hispanics had been all but absent from the ranks of Denver’s philanthropists, even though they account for 20 percent of the city’s residents.
The foundation, a project of the Rose Community Foundation, came to life when 17 prominent local Latinos and organizations pledged $25,000 each. But as word of the new organization spread, more potential donors came forward, including some who had very little to give.
“We started hearing from people who asked if they could give $50,” says Yolanda Quesada, managing director of the Latino Community Foundation of Colorado. “We’ve really tried to promote the idea that anyone in this community can be a philanthropist, and that’s made our foundation stronger.”
Since its launch, the Latino Community Foundation has raised $875,000, which it has distributed to nonprofit organizations that serve Latinos across Colorado.
Ron Montoya, a businessman who supports many local charities, led the effort to create the new foundation.
A past chairman of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, he now leads the Latino Community Foundation’s board and is always on the lookout for new donors, regardless of their income.
“One of the myths about Hispanic culture is that we’re not givers but takers, and it simply isn’t true,” says Mr. Montoya, a 73-year-old who is managing partner of Innov8 Solutions, a Denver telecommunications and electrical-equipment company. “We have a wonderful tradition of supporting one another that had never been formalized.”
Cues From Others
Like the Latino Community Foundation in San Francisco, the Denver fund is focused on changing demographics among the constituents it serves. The Denver group recently began to raise money to meet the needs of a projected surge in elderly Hispanics.
While the effort, Colorado Latino Age Wave, now gets all of its money from grant makers, including the Rose Community Foundation and the Colorado Health Foundation, Mr. Montoya says that he expects the project will appeal to individuals, too.
“We’re really responding to the needs of our community, and that’s what effective philanthropy does,” says Mr. Montoya.
As the Denver fund seeks to formalize the giving impulse of Hispanic donors, Mr. Montoya is taking cues from another minority group that has become a giving powerhouse: Jewish philanthropy.
Denver has a long and extensive tradition of giving by Jewish donors, he says. For instance, the Rose Community Foundation, of which Mr. Montoya is a trustee, originated from an historically Jewish Denver hospital, created at a time when Jewish doctors were restricted from practicing in the city’s other medical centers.
It’s impossible to miss the contrast between Denver’s Jewish and Latino residents and their approach to philanthropy, he says. While one group quickly developed an organized tradition of giving, the other had none. He feels the community foundation he helps lead can change that.
“The Jewish community here has a history and culture of giving that’s really remarkable,” says Mr. Montoya. “They have a giving heart but have also figured out how to give effectively. Our Hispanic community in Denver is learning from their example.”
Diverse Hispanics
Reaching new and potential Hispanic donors can be a challenge, says Ms. Donoso, of the San Francisco community foundation, largely because the Hispanic label applies to a diverse range of people.
“The reality is that even here in the Bay Area, people reflect a huge range of experiences,” she says. She points to Napa Valley, which is home to both immigrant farm families as well as a growing number of Latino vineyard owners.
As a result, her organization uses an array of tactics to reach potential donors.
“There isn’t one monolithic Latino demographic,” says Ms. Donoso, “so there isn’t one way to appeal to Latino donors, either.”
For instance, in addition to the Dreamer campaign, which used social media and networking groups to reach young donors, the foundation recently created its first giving circle. Members of the circle are primarily women from Mexico, each of whom agreed to donate $1,000.
In May, giving-circle members made their first donations to a handful of small California charities that provide services, including job training and English-language classes, to recent immigrants and farmworkers.
Giving-circle members had a sense of what sorts of charities they wanted to support. But before they could pick specific beneficiaries, Ms. Donoso says, they needed a crash course in philanthropy basics, and the mechanics of foundation giving in particular.
By contrast, the younger, tech-savvy, affluent Hispanic professionals were familiar with the technology of giving, but most had never donated.
A series of focus groups Ms. Donoso held five years ago, when she started at the foundation, revealed some of the reasons: financial constraints, a fear that philanthropy meant only giving large gifts, and—the most common of all—the simple fact that they had never been asked.
While a shift may be under way, however, she cautions fundraisers not to expect immediate results from appealing to Hispanics, especially young ones.
Says Ms. Donoso: “We need long-term planning for 10 years down the road so that our organizations are ready to work with this demographic.”
Nicole Lewis contributed to this article.