The gulf between philanthropy and Latino-led nonprofits in Silicon Valley is large. Leaders of those organizations feel cut off from major foundations and donors, and their groups receive a small portion of all giving. If that is going to change, donors need to find ways to learn more about the needs of Latinos, provide more open-ended funding, and support leadership development, according to a report from the Castellano Family Foundation released Tuesday.
According to the report, Latinos make up about 25 percent of the population in Silicon Valley. But nationally groups that serve that population receive only one percent of all philanthropic dollars.
“Our leadership of color is not funded or trusted in the same way that white leadership is,” says Armando Castellano, a trustee of the Castellano Family Foundation.
Silicon Valley philanthropy has been on the rise for many years. According to the report, individual giving there jumped by 150 percent from 2008 to 2013. But community-based nonprofits have not benefitted. Those groups make up 84 percent of the area’s nonprofits but receive only 26 percent of the donations. About three quarters of nonprofits in Silicon Valley have annual revenues of less than $1 million.
As part of the research, which was conducted with support from the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, Carmela Castellano-Garcia, president of the family foundation, took part in conversations with leaders of local Latino groups; more than 65 groups participated.
“To sit with these Latinx leaders and hear them say they don’t feel that their work is valued by mainstream philanthropy or that they have that trust or the assumption of the competence, that was very hard to hear,” she says. (Latinx is the gender-neutral term for people from Latin America.)
Struggle for Dollars
Some local Latino nonprofit leaders are exhausted by the constant hunt for money and the lack of multiyear general operating support.
“There has been a very deep and longstanding, persistent inequity in funding that people are starting to talk about now,” says Diane Ortiz, executive director of Youth Alliance, a group that provides services to young Latinos in the more rural southern part of Silicon Valley. “I’m very sincere when I say it’s been a hustle.”
Ortiz has put in a great deal of time developing relationships with staff at local foundations and educating them on the needs of organizations such as hers and the people they serve. She was one of the nonprofit leaders consulted as part of the research for the report — titled “Blueprint for Change: A Call to Action for Silicon Valley Philanthropy to Engage and Support Latinx Organizations, Communities and Leaders for the Common Good” — and says she is glad that the authors took the time to consult local Latino leaders.
Catalyst for Support
The Castellano foundation will work with the Silicon Valley Community Foundation — the country’s largest community foundation which gave out $1.9 billion in 2018 — to tackle some of the problems outlined in the report. It hopes this affiliation will draw broader attention to its findings and recommendations and result in more support for these groups.
As part of this work, the community foundation is creating a fund that will provide grants to Latino nonprofits and will also try to meet some of their organizational needs. It will likely also provide opportunities for leadership development, succession planning, fundraising, and governance, says Manuel Santamaria, the community foundation’s vice president for community impact . He and leaders at the Castellano foundation hope to create an advisory council made up of community members to ensure more people have a say in the fund’s decision making.
The Castellano foundation plans to put in $1 million, and the community foundation hopes it can raise a total of $50 million from donors for the fund.
Castellano says both organizations benefit from the collaboration. The family foundation brings cultural competency, connections in the Latino community, and an understanding of the needs of the nonprofits that serve that population. The community foundation brings credibility, deep connections with the region’s large donors and other philanthropic institutions, as well as the structure and resources of a large grant maker.
“The Castellanos have been a force for a long time in the valley,” Santamaria says. “Their indefatigable focus on ensuring that Latino organizations and the Latino community has equitable opportunities has been amazing.”
Cut Off From Relationships
The report makes a series of recommendations for local donors and grant makers. It encourages them to provide more general operating support and help staff at Latino nonprofits develop leadership skills. It encourages foundations to do a better job of opening doors to Latino groups so donors can learn about the community and its needs.
Santamaria envisions pitch days when Latino nonprofit leaders can talk directly to potential donors, as well as neighborhood and site visits and other ways to educate supporters.
That would help address one barrier Castellano heard about from the nonprofit leaders he spoke with. Many feel that the increasingly common electronic grant-application process prevents grantees from developing personal relationships with potential donors, which he says can be helpful.
According to the report, only 3 percent of Silicon Valley’s Latino professionals work in computer, math, or engineering fields compared with 19 percent of the non-Latino population. To address that disparity, the report calls for collaboratives involving community leaders, businesses, and nonprofits to focus on education.
The paper encourages more engagement with businesses, donors, and leaders who can help mentor individuals and provide funding and expertise to aid innovation. It also points out that many small organizations cannot realistically provide the kind of data that foundations demand to judge effectiveness. When groups are focused on large, systemic change, short-term data may not be helpful in judging long-term success, says Ortiz, the leader of Youth Alliance.
The report advocates for more personal relationships and give and take between donors and grantees, an approach the Castellano Family Foundation has taken from the beginning.
The philanthropy was set up by Alcario and Carmen Castellano after they won $140 million in the lottery in 2001. After setting up their foundation, the couple met with potential grantees in their living room, says their son, Castellano. That kind of personal connection is important to develop a deep understanding of issues and needs and is often missing at a time when so many foundations are distanced from their grantees he says.
“My parents have this history of giving to their community,” says their daughter Castellano-Garcia. “We’re really just hoping to inspire other leaders in Silicon Valley to see the value of what they’ve done and what it’s meant to our community.”
Ortiz hopes the report will finally shine a light on the work that she and other Latino leaders are doing — and that the attention will attract interest and support from the valley’s vast philanthropic sector, one that has not always focused on its own hometown.
“We have been invisible for a very long time, and this is a great opportunity to expand the dialogue to include not only the issue of philanthropy but greater systemic change and what that looks like,” says Ortiz. “Communities can partner with philanthropy as allies, and this is really a critical step in accomplishing that.”
