Growing Latinx Power: The Four Key Elements That Will Help Latinx Nonprofits Lead the Way

The other day I went home to Boyle Heights. The house I grew up in East LA, sadly is now gone but I still remember the front steps where an 8-year-old me stood and watched a huge protest during the Chicano Moratorium unfold in front of my eyes. I watched hundreds of LAPD cops, many on horses assault the Brown Berets and other Chicano students protesting their education, the war at Roosevelt HS across the street. I watched a young Chicana thrown to the ground by two helmeted LAPD officers hit her on the ground with nightsticks. I was 8 I knew nothing about Chicano Power or civil rights, racism. But I knew hitting girls was wrong. The sight was visceral and enraged me. I instinctively moved to pick up a rock, because growing up a skinny little book nerd in East LA, that was my way to fight. I was going to get one of those cops and stop them. Luckily for me, my mother grabbed me by the collar, praying to a handful of saints, and dragged me indoors.

That was 50 years ago.

Tell me, are Latinx still treated unfairly and assaulted by the police? Yes. Not much has changed.

Why? We are almost 20% of the population, 59 million people and sometimes it seems like we are voiceless and weak. Politicians can make openly racist comments about us, throw our children in cages and get the support of almost half the country. We are nowhere near what our political, economic power should be in this country.

Here’s the big secret, we have the power. We do.

Power to make this a better country for everybody. Power to ensure young Latina’s get into Cornell, the power so that she receives a full-ride scholarship from her fellow Latina’s, the power so that farm workers are treated with dignity, the power so that we have voter turnout that make politicians listen to us, power to make sure our public schools meet the promise of our beautiful children, power so our gay sisters and brothers can fight discrimination, power to fund public health workers preventing the next pandemic in our communities. And so much more.

After my 35 years in nonprofits, I think I have identified the key four elements we need to achieve that power

Getting Organized and Focused

The good news is we mostly have this one together. I wanted to start with a positive message. Being “organized” for me, means we have good nonprofit organizations with good models for action. Working on all sorts of issues that affect our people. We have them coast to coast. There are many types of Latinx organizations, especially since 2016 that have new models, many with Latina’s in charge. Great to see! There is no count of Latinx focused nonprofits, most are small many focus on societal or education issues.

Unity

My 92-year-old father often says “we Latino’s love dividing ourselves”. I am a Chicano, but I often describe all Latinos as Latinx. Do you know how many people complain when I use that term? If I use Hispanic there is another chorus of dismay, if I use the word Latino there is a whole group who will write me. I prefer a personal term and a term that describes us all. My point is there has to be a “us”.

I use Latinx because our cultures have a long history of misogyny and homophobia. We need to be inclusive to every Latinx person. We need them all.

But it's much less important what we want to call ourselves. What’s important is the work we do. What’s important is that there is a huge part of this country that looks at us through lens of implicit bias and racism. That our people face tremendous disadvantages today. The work is much more important than going back and forth endlessly on what we call ourselves. The enemy is before us. We need unity. Racism is reaching a new level of acceptability and normalcy for the first time in our lifetimes and growing. Our enemies love our lack of unity. And yes we have enemies, anyone who would deny us our rights and opportunities because of our last name, color of our skin, country of origin.

The struggles and disadvantages of a Boricua in the South Bronx have a lot of similarities to a Chicana in Fresno. Yes, our cultures can be different. Food, music, language. But we share, good and bad, much much, more. To that end, we need to start thinking of “our people” and not just neighborhoods or our countries of origin. We need to see that our hermana’s and hermano’s coast to coast are in the same cause. Advancing our people’s lives.

Self-Reliance

Take a minute and Google African American or Black Self Reliance. You will see books, articles, Ted Ex talks. Good for our African American sisters and brothers. Our friends. Do the same for Latino, Hispanic, Latinx and there is nothing. Of course, we are very self-reliant people, very innovative people. The growth of small Latinx businesses in the US speaks to that.

But when it comes to our nonprofits we often rely on, sometimes rely completely on white-led institutions like foundations and corporations. Foundations today give Latinx-focused nonprofits only 1.8% of their giving. That’s what being ignored looks like. Yet our nonprofits subsist, that’s the word, on foundations, some corporate dollars. Some do other types of fundraising but it's small. We have been waiting for 20 years for white people to come to help us.

Our real strength is found amongst ourselves. I think of the recent remarkable work of Latinx organizers, fundraisers in Arizona. Who first threw out a racist sheriff. Then flexed their muscles and flipped a red state, blue. That’s self-reliance. They did that.

Through a pretty basic calculation, I have come up with a number or the potential of Latinx philanthropy annually in the US. That number is 24.7 billion dollars, a year! That’s incredible. I have checked this number and the methodology many times. But when you consider that Latinx have an annual buying power in the US of 2.4 trillion dollars, that calculation makes sense. But even if I was wrong at it was $5 billion a year. That’s huge. That’s power. Consider that foundations give us approx. $500-600 million a year to Latinx-focused nonprofits. They can be great allies, they can help us with the tools and skills to get to our own power, but we have the power. Ahora. 

Fundraising

Fundraising is our tool to find our own power.

We struggle here, many nonprofits do. You can have an awesome program, great leadership, even proven results. But if you don’t have enough dinero, feria, moneda, plata, you will not have the resources to have the impact or change you want. It's like a beautiful car with only a gallon of gas. Our nonprofit organizations, which I explained earlier we need to organize us don’t have the budgets to do so. They subsist on foundation or corporate giving which is a tiny slice of philanthropy (18% and 7%). The majority of philanthropy comes from individuals. Small gifts and large gifts. That is where our power is, our own people. There are many examples of Latinx giving, right now, what we need is for our nonprofits to greatly improve their fundraising. In the last section you have seen our giving potential, let’s learn to raise a lot more money.

All of this I have written brings us to a how?

I am glad to say that I and other Latinx leaders have founded the first Latinx fundraising institute in the US. It’s called Somos El Poder! www.somoselpoder.org   

We don’t have all the answers to helping Latinx move up and forward in this country but as you have read we are working on one missing piece.

We consider this a movement, join us!

It’s up and signing up new nonprofit organizations as members, individual nonprofit professionals and we are raising money. We are growing. Please take a look at what we are doing here. We are working to support our incredible Latinx nonprofits coast to coast. We are grounded in a deep spirit of unity and self-reliance. We mean it when we say “Si, Se Puede”! Here is what you can do now:

1.     If you give or are involved with a Latinx focused nonprofit ask them to consider joining Somos El Poder

2.     Give a gift to Somos El Poder. Ask your company to give.

3.     Share news of this work with your friends and familia.

Thank you for taking the time to read this! And thank you in advance for supporting Somos El Poder!