Latinx Empowerment in Fundraising

0:04 well let's get started welcome everybody you're at visionality's building forward my name is emily bereni i'm the ceo of
0:11 visionality and i'm so excited to introduce our colleague Armando zumaya
0:16 who's going to be our guest star today at building forward we're going to talk about latinx empowerment in fundraising
0:24 ... so y'all know the drill we tackle a really big topic in 25 minutes so i'm gonna set my timer
0:31 for 25 minutes ... participate we have all the answers
State of Latinx Fundraising
0:37 within us if something that we're talking about resonates with you put it in the chat if you have some lived
0:43 experience about what we're talking about or a challenge you want to workshop with us we have the expert in the room y'all uh
0:51 use that raise your hand feature we're gonna do q a at the end certainly but like participate ... we're all a
0:57 community here so ... use that chat feature Armando
1:03 what is the state of latinx people in fundraising talk to me about it
1:08 well thank you first of all for visionality for hosting this ... this is a big issue in the central
1:14 coast ... because of you know the population the demographics we don't have to go into it
1:21 our racism and implicit bias are knee-deep there so ... the state of
1:28 latinos in non-profits and fundraising is pretty abysmal ... in philanthropy when you name it
1:35 the data is is pretty damning ... hey there's pavel um
1:40 Pablo works with me hi Pablo ... so what we're doing is
1:46 latinos are ignored in philanthropy okay even in when people talk about racial
1:52 justice look at a panel there'll be no latino on it i guarantee you they talk about black and brown racism and
1:59 philanthropy there'll be no latino on it it's just ... we're ignored we're the
2:04 largest racial minority twenty percent of the population ... and the most prosperous too this is
2:10 another thing people don't even think about it's a 2.7 trillion dollar economy inside the u.s the seventh largest
2:17 economy in the planet are latinos right there's more you can find latino billionaires and
2:23 multi-millionaires all over the state of california but nobody knows about them because philanthropy looks past us they
2:28 see our skin they see our last names and we're ignored so we're under three percent of board members in california
2:35 okay you can go to hospitals in oxnard and i challenge you and look at boards
2:40 oxnard there's no latinos on the board okay you can look at
2:46 non-profits leadership all around the country and you know we're one point eight percent
2:52 of foundation given 1.8 percent of our foundation there was just a report released um
2:58 by funders and racial justice that's called mismatched look it up and it's basically says hey everyone's saying
3:05 racial justice the foundation world but funding yeah not really especially latinos we're not considered
3:12 part of the racial justice discussion okay so we're not really in it somehow we don't have racism against us
3:20 ... and at the same time that's what we found at somo said for their first identity fundraising institute
3:27 to have latinos also play baseball and be in the funding game because funding isn't fair funding is
3:33 brutally competitive you can't sit at your office in oxnard and go hey we don't have any money you
3:39 got to get to the macarthur foundation you got to get to the amundsen foundation and play hardball and get
3:45 those relationships started so overwhelmingly philanthropy sees us as victims
3:53 ... non-profits don't see us ... and we're ignored ... overwhelmingly i'll
4:00 tell you a story we just started ... la van guardia which is the first
4:06 certificate program in latinx fundraising applications close friday we have a phenomenal group of 29 30 in the cohort
4:15 to learn latinx fundraising the reason we started this because this old man
4:21 i don't know why people know of me and they call me every year i get six or seven phone calls it's the same phone
4:26 call the phone call is a young latina who's an associate director of development assistant director of
4:31 development she's been there for five years six years and her white box leaves she does her
4:39 job for six months until they hire another white woman over her push repeat she can never get an
4:44 interview she can never get promoted and because they they look past her they say oh that's you know ... marisa yeah
4:52 marisa is nice but in their brain they're like that's not a development officer
4:58 so this is program is designed to give her the mad skills to say i'm certified and i can do major gifts
5:04 you know and so that's that's a litmus test of how ... we are seen in
5:10 nonprofits and so our organization will not tolerate that anymore i love it i love it so
5:18 much and i mean is this the the current

The Current Manifestation of Philanthropy

5:25 the current manifestation of philanthropy being built on
5:30 white supremacy and colonialism and and a white savior complex like is that is
5:37 is this like that's what we're seeing right like this is the reality of of the history the
5:43 foundation of fundraising and philanthropy and and non-profits
5:49 yeah it's you know it's a mix of things there is racism in it straight up the first
5:55 funder i talked to was an african-american person a program officer who blacked when i told him
6:01 about latinx philanthropy who told me a bunch of nonsense unrelated to data and i had to explain
6:07 to him ... are you are you a fundraiser no no so what are you talking about fundraising you know
6:14 don't ask me about accounting because i'm not into town i don't know deadly about that you have to challenge people because
6:20 there's a whole bunch of people out there talking about latinos and philanthropy latino hispanics plant or whatever
6:26 fundraising who aren't in that profession who don't know what they're talking about i'm not going to ask emily how to fix my
6:34 car because she's probably not a mechanic but everyone's expounding out there and
6:39 ask him have you ever done fundraising with latinos and the people on my board sure as hell
6:45 have i have so we know what we're talking about from experience but that you'll see foundation presidents talk about the
6:51 issues and program officers tons of them with no experience on the subject
6:57 so there's one a lot of ignorance there's tons of implicit bias tons of it
7:03 and then on top of that in the funding front see i don't call ... foundations philanthropic or part of land
7:09 this is something i really take to task with the people out there talking like edgar very nueva other people
7:15 philanthropy so why that's not philanthropy man that's eighteen percent of land okay real philanthropy is individuals
7:23 the real philanthropist we should be aiming at isn't the forward foundation it's the guatemala here in Oakland on
7:29 the streets given her women's shelter 25 bucks a month that's a huge gift for her
7:34 and there's 59 million of her okay all right so this 20 of the population
7:41 isn't giving because fundraising ignores us well i'll give you the best example
7:48 exactly is is tithing in church recorded

Examples of Latinx Empowerment

7:55 anywhere as donations or philanthropy
8:13 ... that latinos simply aren't asked they're not engaged in the same way as
8:19 philanthropy as in other places the way we engage white people we don't ask
8:25 ... so the two examples i can hit on they're very solid ... one's personal
8:31 ... is ... saying to children's hospital ... so if you're ... like me , I... I don't
8:36 live in Oakland i live near Oklahoma i wanna get teach out on this i know you guys guys call them pork rinds not the same
8:42 ... if i want to go get ... chicharrones i gotta go to this big mega store called garden that's markets in Oakland right
8:49 it's a 10-minute drive ... but i'll go to my mailbox and there'll be a big beautiful color postcard from
8:56 saint jude and because they see my name there's a cute woman on it right
9:02 so i'll turn on the radio to listen i'm gonna have a lc and there'll be a radiothon or a pitch can spam nations
9:08 from saint jude i'll go to gardeners find what i want probably pick some stuff that i
9:13 shouldn't need ... and then on the pa it's like boy
9:21 we're doing st children's hospital you know help the sick children and people will be giving five bucks at
9:27 the counter so i asked the guy the market guy and this is fruit fail this is the high high
9:32 poverty area okay hi pop hi how much did you how much do
9:37 you make for saying dude in the month this guy very calmly tells me about 220 000
9:43 so i'm like a fruit fail market one month 220 and so saint jude raises hundreds of
9:49 millions from spanish speaking latinos every year because they freaking invest in fundraising
9:55 does the diabetes association do this number one killer latinos nope okay does all these other
10:01 institutions don't do that because they think all those people are poor they're victims
10:07 but we also give when we're properly asked so the number one donor i had whenever
10:13 the next museum who gave me a million dollars okay in a check not a pledge he wrote a 1.1
10:20 million dollar gift mexican-american family grew up in oxnard strawberry pickers
10:26 okay this guy he went to a major california university that nobody
10:32 and then they have them on the annual fund asking for a hundred dollars right so i asked some you know folks
10:39 down there pavel about this they're like well i don't know it doesn't kind of fit our algorithm
10:44 so somebody there's a white researcher looking into him going oh look at that cute little company no it's not a major
10:50 gibbs prospect they still haven't engaged him in major philanthropy which is dazzling to me
10:57 but he's worth i mean i googled him he's worth over half a billion dollars
11:02 so you know what do you think about those two things well and and

Major Gifts vs Minor Gifts

11:08 you know when we were prepping for this we we talked about this difference between
11:13 you know grant funding and foundations versus major gifts versus collective
11:19 philanthropy sort of let's call them minor gifts you know small repetitive
11:26 individual gifts and you know so many organizations are myopically focused on
11:33 foundations and grants and they don't want to do individual giving ... and then
11:38 if they do individual giving they're so focused where's my million dollar gift i've got to get my million dollar gift
11:44 and i would way rather build a cohort of five and ten dollar and twenty dollar a
11:49 month monthly giving like that's how you can start to build ... strength and
11:55 resilience in an organization because you're not waiting for that big fish to come you're you just have like little
12:01 nibbles that consistently roll in such a little bit about that
12:07 there's tremendous ignorance of fundraising and nonprofit leadership in this country and i said it out loud the
12:14 executive directors boards and directors i mean this vast amount of them are
12:19 ignorant of fundraising but want to judge it so the deep investment including latinx
12:25 focused organizations i can tell you of the thousands of latinx organizations
12:31 focused organizations ... maybe one maybe has a real individual major giving
12:36 program and that's staggering you know they are foundation dependent and there
12:42 is this colonial model of we're going to give them grants we're going to live on our grants and so you have these little
12:47 tiny latinx organizations all over the country every little town has one and they survive barely on the minimum
12:54 grants and that's about it and they don't do much and so our institute stomach up there is hoping to
13:01 teach them major forgiving teach them direct marketing teach them small
13:06 business ... of fundraising all kinds of different methodologies ... but the major thing that you're
13:13 talking about is yeah that works there are examples in the in the california around the
13:19 country that the organizations ask everyone give me 10 bucks a month and they do it and they have there's a
13:25 great one here in Oakland who does i'm a donor
13:32 they do phenomenal stewardship you get these beautiful homemade cards from thanking you somebody wrote in it
13:38 and yeah that's and they have broad-based flat giving that's powerful and that has to be
13:44 taught what's interesting is nobody teaches them okay nobody it used to be
13:49 the grassroots fundraising conference gift that's gone and went bankrupt right i hope i think they're trying to
13:55 revive it is what i've heard which is wonderful but that and again is it costs money to
14:00 send people to a conference you have to know about it the organizations i've been reaching out to it's almost members 59 members now
14:07 none of them have ever had access to fundraising training professional development this is it's an
14:14 alien concept so we actually have the trouble now to teach them hey come to a class this is part of your
14:20 membership remember it's 100 bucks a year join and it's a new idea that wait this
14:27 isn't some scam some business these people just want to help and so this is ... something we've got to
14:33 get over but teaching the kind of funding raising there's nobody to teach it out there except expensive consultants which they can afford and
14:40 even if they could afford it there's ignorance about the investment of yeah you've got to spend this amount
14:46 of money to make this amount of money which isn't all non-profits but extenuating with
14:52 latinos have a culture of survival and subsistence that we're not we don't have a culture
14:58 of entrepreneurial growth as much as we should we have this a culture right now okay we made budget thank god
15:05 not hey let's think about next year i want another million dollars in a bank account we don't
15:10 that's that's kind of been beaten unto us by you know harsh economic realities
15:16 and so i'm trying to shatter that you know which is crazy i know bible's helping me
15:21 so we'll do it we got it we got it we got it yeah well and and
15:28 you know truly trying to hire

Hiring Not White Professionals

15:34 a not white professional fundraiser with five to seven years of experience
15:40 is really hard it's really really hard which is why programs like yours are so important
15:47 because because it well and and it's
15:53 and this is part of why our partnership is so important it's not enough to say
15:58 well no one applied so we can't hire someone who doesn't apply like that's not enough
16:04 so if you're if you're maintaining that statement well i can't hire someone who
16:11 doesn't exist i can't hire someone who doesn't apply you're perpetuating the issue and so we
16:17 all need to look at ourselves and say what can i do to change this situation
16:24 i mean i do searches myself and help people hire diverse development officers
16:30 the problem is most search consultants don't do real research and they're not networked
16:35 just like anybody they know who they know in their circles and their job is to really expand we
16:42 have a linkedin group for i started about four years ago which are latino fundraisers
16:48 to about 250 people on that and there's four consultants in it who are like whoa i want to be in this out of all the all
16:55 these search consultants in the country there's four so there's a few who got the message
17:00 a visionality has been wonderful and being the first financial sponsor of la
17:06 Vanguardia and helping us bring people in the door ... so there is a few more extra people from the central central
17:12 coast because you guys so that's super groovy as i like to say ... but it's
17:19 it having latinx training fundraisers in a cohort in a pipeline is super
17:24 important supporting those out there right now who are not getting training professional development and fundraising
17:32 is a luxury unfortunately you go to these conferences in afp and like 60 70
17:38 percent of the people attending universities and hospitals big museums who have the budgets and it's the rich
17:44 getting richer of course being more you know ... 90 of non-profits have budgets under 5 million for a reason
17:51 okay 72 have never had a major giving program of nonprofits in the country so there's this huge
17:58 you know the harvard's stanford's shoveling in the money because they invest in fundraising and
18:04 the rest of the nonprofit world is that's a waste of money i don't want to hire development officer i'll write a
18:10 grant so we got to shatter that reality wait come on , I... I always say non-profit leaders are
18:16 like fish that hate swimming you know ... so it's like guess what kids i have a whole
18:23 bunch of fishing analogies coming well i don't fish either which is weird

Somos Alpoder

18:31 so we need we as an industry need to invest in this change so talk to me
18:37 about how the work that you're doing now will pay dividends in the next five to
18:43 ten years yeah ... so somos alpoder is the first
18:49 latinx fundraising institute and yes it's designed for two purposes to help
18:54 latinx focus non-profits raise more money so if your institution is 51
19:00 latino servant or more ... you can join your whole organization could join and ... you know if you're a white ally
19:07 and your development officer there come on down we can have you join the main idea is to raise more money for your
19:14 institution with a an emphasis on raising money from latinos
19:19 so and that's all kind of fundraise secondly is ... latino fundraising
19:24 professionals wherever you work you're welcome to join membership is ridiculously inexpensive on purpose i
19:31 said it that way because when i first talked to the latino nonprofits before i could explain to them what i was doing the first words
19:36 of the mountains we can't afford it so i'm like well members of your organization for a year is a hundred dollars they're like what
19:42 we can't afford it what okay oh all right you know and that's for
19:49 crazy services , I... I made it so good you gotta buy it that's why i've done it because if i did
19:56 it but show the fee for service afp model where our services will be paid for by your
20:01 expenses fees i would have zero members right now maybe two because people won't pay
20:07 for for that because they don't know the value of it yeah so this the idea of the long-range
20:13 ... uh model is not only that they'll raise more money but that they'll gain more confidence
20:21 ... something happens when people raise more money on their home it's different than a foundation ground
20:26 this i've been trying to get foundations to figure out is that you can you know again fish
20:32 keep giving us fish or teach us the fish and give us a fishing boat ... you know it's it's powerful i've seen
20:38 latinos change when they're able to do effective fundraising in sustainable organizations
20:44 it creates confidence and self-reliance and that's for the racial justice and equity movement that's a powerful
20:51 that's the essential thing you need to have happen the essential is that 59 million phoenix in the country wake up
20:57 and find their own power okay there's nothing more powerful all the all the foundation grants in the country cannot
21:03 do that so for me the number one thing we need to do is wake people up to identify their own
21:09 power their own strength like that like the women at moa they're not going to be abused
21:14 domestically or have waged up to being made anymore they're they found their own freaking power and they're organized
21:20 and they're supporting each other financially so take that and extrapolate it and
21:25 fundraising is literally the number one piece missing the racial justice and equity movement in the country today it
21:31 cannot be sustained by foundations okay it cannot because they don't give enough money i i've estimated the latinos in the us
21:38 can give 24.7 billion dollars a year say that number again
21:45 24.7 billion dollars a year foundations give latino focused organizations almost
21:52 500 million dollars a year so where should we be investing our time in getting those people to give more or
21:58 getting foundations to give more it's it's a no freaking brainerd so even if it's almost barely succeeds and we
22:05 get two billion dollars in latino giving to happen that's gonna be game changing for this
22:10 country game changing ... because and also just generations of young people realizing
22:16 i'm a fundraiser i'm gonna raise news from a non-profit whatever it's for if it's for immigrants it's for women's
22:22 rights for lgbtq rights whatever we're doing education
22:28 if we're funding it well you know the difference in the nonprofit when you're well-funded you're making a difference if you're not it's just hopes and dreams
22:35 okay so funding is the missing piece in all of this and nobody talks about it nobody talks about fundraising is the
22:42 essential piece in racial justice equity moving the country it is quiet i'm the
22:47 only lunatic google it you'll see no one's talking about this subject
22:52 so just some i think this up in like a one
22:59 sentence quotable what i heard you say is that the impact of the work that you're doing right now
23:07 is self-reliance in five to ten years by doing this by investing here
23:13 what we will gain is self-reliance which it like i just got goosebumps like that's
23:19 that's it right that's that's the whole it's like it's a whole mood and concept
23:25 ... you know if you google african-american black self-reliance there's articles there's books there's
23:31 ted talks if you google like phoenix hispanic latino whatever you want to do self-reliance no i'm not there's nothing
23:38 right why because we don't talk about it that way we talk about survival
23:43 we talk about subsistence and i'm saying you know let's we have our own power we have tremendous power in this country
23:50 and the way this country is looking right now we need to vote and save this country ... you know and so there's literally a
23:58 massive moral imperative and so that's why this there's a lot more than fundraising and
24:04 nonprofits in this movement okay it's helping everybody not just brown people everybody have a better country
24:12 i love it ... we've reached our 25 minutes it felt like five

Questions

24:18 so i mean we think they need questions either well we'll get to them so everyone put your questions in the chat
24:24 raise your hand if you want to come on camera and share some questions comments
24:29 feedback lived experiences successes and i want to kick it off while people um
24:35 get busy with their fingers i want you to talk to me about the value
24:42 of native bilingual individuals in the nonprofit space and the the value
24:51 of that and the undervaluing of that these individuals who have grown up natively speaking both english and
24:58 spanish it's massive i mean you need to understand
25:04 you need to understand the community 42 of californians are spanish latinos
25:09 and good look good luck finding senior development leadership in the state
25:14 there's more now than when i started i mean i've been a fundraiser for 36 years so
25:20 back in the old days ... you know there were four latinos above vice president in the usa in
25:26 fundraising i was i was one of them at one point i mean i've been i'm currently a cpo
25:33 ... but it's it's missing ... in so many ways so if you're in oxnard and you have
25:40 no latinos in your board or fundraising team you're blocking by half the population
25:48 i don't know can you imagine if fundraisers we said you know what we're not going to fundraise in l.a or chicago
25:54 or new york okay you know and that's 24 million working latinos you just did
26:01 that this is it's stupid even if you're the most crass person you don't care about racially justice it's
26:06 still stupid because we have money you know turn on the toyota or the honda or the pepsi
26:12 commercial and that's a mexican family okay because they know who's buying stuff
26:17 right and so but nonprofits don't nope nope ... cristiano posed a great question do

Foundations and Latinx Nonprofits

26:24 you think that foundations don't take these small latinx organizations seriously because they aren't quote
26:30 unquote organized in the same way as legacy white organizations
26:36 well ... first of all they don't know about them ... at all generally
26:41 those organizations generally send in blind proposals they don't have highly paid development officers like me
26:48 who go see a program officer which is hard to do and have a relationship with them they'll send a blind proposal
26:54 across their fingers guess who wins ... not to be nice to the program officers
27:00 the program officers often don't look hard and do their research and get out there
27:06 for whatever reason they don't know the community but there is no association of latino
27:11 nonprofits there's no there there ... so it is challenging but that's your freaking job doing it you know if you're
27:18 gonna fund racial justice why why are there no latinos being funded by
27:23 your grants okay ask yourself and you're in chicago i see this all in texas you can see
27:30 latino you know great example of this ... and not to knock our african-american sisters and
27:36 brothers bless them for doing this and they're they're you know more organized and louder than we are and
27:42 you can look at community foundations all over the country and there will be black focused ... black
27:47 led funds in them and there's two latino ones in
27:52 the whole country one's dormant and one's trying to come to life in the whole country so the focus has
27:58 been you know has missed that altogether go ahead i'm sorry no don't no sorry the

White Fundraisers

28:05 ... a follow-up question do you think white fundraisers would benefit from the academy and i'm going
28:12 to tweak that to say how of course that we're all going to benefit so talk to me about how how white fundraisers benefit
28:18 from the work that you're doing well the the guava cabbie is for the phoenix folks um
28:24 that's what it's for ... you can join as a white fundraiser for a latino organization and join the
28:30 the institute and go to classes get mentoring ... all the time we welcome you
28:35 know any color ally ... whatsoever ... but the the academy itself is just
28:40 just for our hint as we like to say ... and ... so that's
28:46 you know that's how that works yeah yeah well and and just you know speaking

Diversity at the Table

28:52 even from like a leadership or a business owner's perspective when we have diverse backgrounds and
28:59 perspectives and lived experiences around the table we are all better and so philanthropy and fundraising and fun
29:07 development in boards and individual organizations will be better when we have diversity at the table
29:14 yeah it's just a you know ... i worked for a major organization in health many
29:20 years ago and health you know health care and everything and we had no statewide we
29:25 had no latinos like active on the board and so the ignorance of the whole
29:31 community 40 40 of the population was massive people started asking me the
29:36 most naive questions about latinos and how one i'm not an expert in health but why i mean this is
29:42 crazy you know ... and so that's classic there's it needs to be
29:48 for program for program it's like if you're going to institute program you better understand that
29:55 and also too people want to fundraise amongst latinos you should be able to show you're in the
30:00 community doing things okay ... people people should know
30:06 hey you know i know that organization and unfortunately saint jude is a hospital in tennessee that 99 of these
30:13 people will never use but they've had so much pr people feel
30:19 like they know it and it's like they have a little kid who speaks spanish you know with you know
30:24 with going through cancer treatment that's all they need that's all i need so they know but the local children's
30:31 hospital here in Oakland do they fundraise for latinos who literally save the lives of their children nope
30:37 nope they just walk by them there's no campaign in spanish parental campaign they make millions in
30:44 this town doing that because there's a lot of love for them but if you have an organization that comes from the outside that wants to raise money from latinos
30:51 that's tougher because you're not known you're not a vet just like anybody you would ask for money you can't i
30:57 can't ask Emily for helping the yamas in tibet because that's not her cause she
31:02 doesn't know about that didn't care about that don't be so people have tried to raise money from atheists and thrown up their
31:08 hands like that's not what i told you about originally because you're asking for money they don't even know what you're talking about right so don't be surprised when
31:14 they don't give you money just treat us like you would treat every other prospect
31:20 yeah yeah yeah Meredith has a great question ... how can i as a white person be an

Being an Ally

31:27 ally for people of color in fundraising and i'm not a manager or a supervisor
31:36 well you can speak up but when you see the population being missed ... when you see your efforts whatever
31:42 you're fundraising on it's not including latinos ask why and you'll get stunning answers too i
31:48 have a wife she calls herself the whitest woman alive um
31:54 she's ... she's she's been in the room where people were saying things about our populations because yeah that's not
32:01 factually true actually and ... you should we should reconsider this you know she's down in Texas
32:08 the major major gifts fundraiser challenging their perceptions and ... one of our friends just made a 20
32:16 million dollar gift out from Mexican America and Texas and she brought it into one of these
32:21 means where they're like oh wait a second hold on wait there are people here who have lots
32:26 of money and so she's been fighting that ... in our court and helping us and she calls
32:32 me for tips and stats once in a while so that's how i know about it but yeah
32:37 help us that way help us open up people's minds ... and you know fight with us

Community Action

32:45 thank you so i see susie is raising her hand so i'm going to add her in susie
32:51 welcome welcome
32:58 ... so i am with community action Ventura County ... i am the executive director ... going
33:05 on three years so everything you're saying is like you know ... Catalina who actually it's a
33:10 susana lopez on there but Catalina is also on ... just moved her to be our ... community
33:17 development person because we didn't have a position we've been working with Visionality um
33:24 and everything you said kind of really resonates you know at some point i can't i started off you know entry level i
33:30 became a manager right before executive director i was getting moved or kind of pushed into fund development i had no
33:36 background on fund development ... my background was in program and now as executive director you know i
33:43 i am having to be out there and yes it makes me nervous to ask for money it makes me but as you're talking about
33:49 those smaller asks you know from community members ... my parents are from oaxaca i grew up
33:56 where there was kid missus and you you went and attended and you bought food
34:02 and you know and that's how people fundraise and they would send money to you know my parents pueblo to upkeep
34:07 things or for whatever so as you're talking about that , I... I remember them coming once a year to ask for that money
34:14 donation to send back you know my parents put in their money to send back so you're you're right and my parents
34:20 you know my mom was to stay at home mom my dad worked in agriculture he was you know field worker but they figured out a
34:26 way to to send back something ... so you're right you know reaching out to those populations
34:32 ... and feeling comfortable and thinking about them because you know
34:38 i'm i'm also sitting here like am i thinking about them like am i thinking of asking them or am i thinking of providing services to them
34:45 ... so this is a problem with all of our latino organizations your organization is classic there's literally a thousand
34:52 of them across the country you can go to Dearborn, Michigan and there's an organization doing almost exactly what you're doing
34:58 surviving on government and foundation grants please join the institute ... are you
35:03 guys please please so when you join you get two classes a month you get two hours of counsel with
35:10 me or with any of my board members ... you get all our recorded webinar
35:16 library okay and you get first shot at juntos which which not only sponsor so you can hire a fresh development officer
35:23 who just got trained but you're part of a community also there's ... juntos is of our list serve
35:29 which you can write in ... something and then somebody from anywhere in the country will write you and say this is
35:34 how you do this i'm an executive director just like you so we have we're forming
35:40 so that's important but it's so important you have i mean ventura i know it well
35:46 there's so many things you guys could do ... with giving and a lot of us are not trained to give
35:52 and not not trying to raise mom overwhelmingly executive directors have a fear or disgust with it and so it's
36:00 okay and ... our job is to train you and to support you to develop whatever
36:05 fundraising works for your community maybe it won't be major giving you know maybe you won't be going up to montecito
36:10 asking for money maybe it'll be something different ... some other type there's a
36:16 i counseled an organization someone team valley one member of ours they're doing a tamale sale
36:22 they raise a hundred thousand dollars a year for people who hate their mission who can't resist the tamales that's
36:28 pretty awesome latino power like i know
36:34 i'm a right winger but i love your tabanas kind of humorous you know
36:40 so there's that ... this you know so whatever would work for you guys to broaden your fundraising and strengthen
36:46 your programs will do ... but yeah i mean si se puede i like to
36:52 say si se puede but it's also we're all already doing it now so it's not like we're gonna yes we can i like to say yes
36:59 we are so it's different thank you thank you
37:07 questions comments successes Pablo can make fun of me
37:12 he knows all my secrets now paul's running live on guardian academy so he's our
37:18 head of that so and also too susie you can enroll your
37:24 person you got till friday do you want to enroll your person i believe she did i think she just
37:30 showed me yesterday that she got eaten Catalina is that right
37:37 yeah i just have to do the ... fill in the survey but yeah i mean the survey actually really lived an island after
37:43 her right yeah right you know how like you say you know how you said yes we are you
37:49 know what i like to say we are they because everybody says they should do
37:56 something about it they no we are they
38:01 uh
38:10 and so i love that sister when she says that that's awesome fantastic that's great i'm glad to have
38:16 you guys part of it Catalina i'm sorry that made that mistake i don't know i'm misnamed for some reason i don't know
38:22 why but yeah yeah well mary thanks for all that we're
38:29 looking forward to it ... just just yeah this is wonderful
38:35 yeah thoughts you know comments you guys have
38:40 how much more time do we have well for as long as the questions and comments and feedback last so
38:48 so last chance to raise your hand if you want to come on camera and have a conversation put a a question or comment
38:55 in the chat and ... Armando i can't
39:01 i can't tell you how excited i am about la Vanguardia and and the work
39:07 that you're doing and i'm so excited to yeah just to
39:13 have this conversation again and just yeah no luella's raising her hand oh
39:19 llewellyn i'm sorry i'm sorry here she is i saw her do the work

Interview with Armando

39:25 thank you so much for being here i just want to say thank you we're so happy and excited about this partnership and
39:32 ... one of the things that's just front in my mind right now about ... the community where i've grown up in
39:38 augusta is that you know if you are out in oxford on the weekends you might see
39:43 a car wash or in particularly for raising funds for
39:48 a funeral you know you know this concept like this is a
39:54 this is a community grassroots fundraising model that exists
40:00 and that is the Latinx community like showing up for each other is it's just
40:05 something that's in my mind how interesting that ... that you know
40:11 these models exist in in ways that like someone who doesn't live in that
40:17 community would never understand or be able to connect with or tap into
40:23 yeah yeah but ... the question that i wanted to ask was just kind of as you've been building Vanguardia for the first
40:29 time like ... what has been the most surprising thing for you well we struggled initially to get um
40:37 people interested ... because it's never been done there's it's never
40:43 there's no reference people have for this they do have roofs for certificate programs so i should be fair
40:50 ... but the challenge was getting the word out i mean we're getting some major grants
40:55 but this is a weird thing to market because there's no there's no place to market it
41:01 so we sent it out to college counselors hobble's been working the internet um
41:07 but partnering with local organizations and local firms is probably the way we're going to go in the future and do
41:12 more of that we reached out to community foundations crickets ... it's it's amazing you know people
41:19 don't understand this as much as i thought they would ... but i think it's catching fire now
41:26 we're probably 29 30 31 people in the cohort ... so
41:33 it sort of got viral eventually so getting the word out has definitely been the biggest surprise it's it was
41:39 pulling you know a heavy sled for a long time ... but i hope it creates some momentum
41:47 so our next cohort is 50. ... and so to really affect this nationally we're going to have to
41:53 do this for many years to create a standard recognized branded pipeline
41:58 so that an employer looks at a linkedin profile and sees the little Vanguardia logo and says oh yeah holy hell let's
42:06 give that woman an interview ... so that's what we need to get to and that's that'll be a long hike you know
42:12 and there's so many naysayers in this you know it's amazing ... how many people
42:18 told me this is a good thing to do a real thing to do nobody will show up nobody will understand it
42:23 and ... we just got to push through and just you know i'm an old guy and i have
42:28 experience and you know sometimes when things are right i knew right off the bat that this would fly
42:33 i didn't know it would be this hard but i didn't fly so
42:38 anywho's it's that's that's the thing about new ideas right everyone tells you you're crazy until

New Ideas

42:46 the thing you know worked does work and then everyone's like oh yeah i believed in you the whole time of
42:51 course this was a great idea oh man i've had that too with the institute people have told me
42:58 oh we did this i'm like well explain to me what what you did in the past it didn't work
43:03 and it's never never the same thing people are you know like oh that's wacky you're teaching grant writing i'm
43:09 teaching fundraising fundraising yeah it's it's a hysterical uh
43:16 there's so many people who want to talk about fundraising who've never been a fundraiser ... so you gotta you gotta be cautious
43:23 and consider the source every single darn time but i mean luellen yeah it's been a it's
43:28 been a hike i do think over time it'll be our most recognizable program in the institute
43:35 because people understand yeah i can't find a latino development officer let's create more
43:41 and it's about equity so it's not a hard lift but getting the program officer say you
43:47 know the Kellog foundation or whatever foundation it's just an example to turn their head and go wait a second look at
43:53 this that's hard because they bombarded with things all the time and also there's lots of
43:58 organizations out there saying they have the solution to racial equity and stuff through programming
44:03 to me it's not about the program it's about empowering the population
44:08 so it's certainly worse yeah i think that there is great potential for there to be a really incredible alumni
44:17 group that comes out of the program and i do i think that you're right that
44:22 ... it's just about building traction this year and that next year when people hear
44:27 about it coming back around it'll be like oh yeah that was interesting last year , I... I predict you will have great
44:33 numbers yeah you look at the courses we didn't design a
44:38 i didn't want to have adequate fundraising i wanted to have the best fundraising set i've ever seen
44:45 and i teach at afp icon every year i teach at i teach afp chapters all over the
44:51 country i teach in student fundraising in London ... to me this is more practical more effective
44:58 ... 12 different classes in the modalities fundraising no overviews of theory or bs like that
45:05 hardcore this is what you're gonna do here's how to do it step by step for the
45:10 people who you know are good at learning that way it should be very important
45:15 so that's what we're going for as a higher standard unfortunately because latinos just like women you know you've got to
45:22 like dance and sing at the same time you got to go higher than your competitors
45:27 you got you got to show it more unfortunately because it's not a fair playing field ... so you know and for
45:34 latino women even more so so that's why we're trying to make something so they're supercharged
45:39 i guess that's a good model supercharged no it's awesome to Luella's point i mean this idea is that you're right on point
45:48 you want to create community and so successive classes or cohorts would be able to help the next class or just
45:53 support each other through their respective careers right so super excited about that it's a great lineup
45:58 we have great instructor just thank you Armando for teaching more than two classes but ... we're also going
46:05 to look at the future fundraising and teach in a way that's specific to the causes that matter to our students so
46:11 just it's i've never seen anything like this i met Armando years ago and i was like oh my gosh this guy
46:17 i want to learn as much as i can this is like you know 15 years ago and to do this ... for our community
46:23 cuban heritage i'm super excited yeah so Pablo i'm gonna put you right on

Vanguardia

46:29 the spot which i normally wouldn't do but if you work with Armando i'm sure you're used to you know just hopping in
46:35 with with two feet right so give me the give me the rundown like what give me your 30 second elevator pitch for
46:41 Vanguardia and like like some of the topics that y'all are going to cover in the 12 sessions like
46:47 give it to me yeah we'll start with the basics and
46:52 just provide a firm foundation what fundraising is and then we'll drill down to specific causes that matter to our
46:57 population that are current ... both to the nonprofits in the group but also like issues that are rising in
47:03 society and to figure out how do we tackle them and then ultimately we'll look at how do we reach our community
47:08 and engage them in this process it's you you invest in what you've given and
47:14 what you what you donate to you invest in and you own it right and so how can we share
47:20 this with our broader community and last bit about Armando he's
47:25 he's tough and that's great you know we don't need a 12-month program that's nice and soft
47:32 and and fun this will be lots of fun but it'll be to the point so you're well equipped that's more than
47:37 30 seconds but hey that's the truth we kept that the 30 mile march of the backpack
47:43 so it's called the the title is the vanguard ... and
47:48 that's a military term and it basically means the people who break through the defenses first
47:55 ... and that's what it's about it's about you know Catalina and her colleagues being the people who
48:00 find new ways and learn new methods there's a whole world of that phoenix fundraising we haven't developed yet you
48:06 know i talked about the tamale cell jokingly but that's a methodology let's look at let's
48:12 find what appeals to our people i mean i know a few tricks ... but what let's find obviously the
48:18 sick kid thing it gets to latinas ... latina you remember saying dude oh yeah my dia gets to that
48:25 you know that's the classic response i talk to rumors of hundreds of people and everyone does that
48:30 right and so let's find that that's create something that's new our way of
48:35 fundraising whatever that's going to be you know so
48:41 i'm not that's a nice guy come on resilient
48:46 that's weird i'm psychopathic on the subject i'm too old for you
48:52 know i'm it's just like when i hear people telling me about this i just i call them you know these days i
48:57 just say hey are you a fundraiser you know shut up
49:03 yeah shut up if you don't you've never raised money for a living and put your kids through college on fundraising
49:09 shut the hell up well it's like fundraisers need that
49:14 we're too quiet or professional of an op-ed called the silent service that's us we don't speak up we're always the
49:20 guys women in the background and people take ... you know credit for our work all of the time
49:26 but we need to speak up and say you know what you know this is not true about fundraising
49:31 so anyway i love it i want to before i forget i want to give
49:37 a quick shout out to llewellyn on our team she ... saw you speak at afp and was so
49:45 impressed and ... you know she had been working within visionality to to create
49:50 something like this how can we create a mentorship program or like
49:57 how how we can't sit on the sidelines and say and do nothing so what's the way
50:02 that we can dig in in a measurable meaningful way to make a difference and then she she saw
50:09 you speak and it was like emily we don't have to build it someone else built it we can just support them
50:16 and we can just help them do it and we don't have to do it on our own and so i i'm like thank you llewellyn for being
50:24 such a passionate champion of this and continuing to move the needle forward i appreciate you and Armando thank you for
50:30 building this so that we don't have to because we've got lots of other stuff to do
50:35 well i've done it with lots of other good people ... like pavel and our board it's 157 years of experience of
50:41 fundraising on the board la phoenix fundraising and ... did luella tell you she threw a tomato
50:46 at me when i was speaking this topple i dodged it like that well and she loves the the dodgers so i bet she has a good
50:53 arm okay be careful with that one never had
50:58 that happen i had somebody throw a shoe at me once but never
51:04 long story oh no well i'm gonna i'm gonna close out with a a plug
51:10 to invest in for the need for non-profits to invest in
51:15 their infrastructure right it's always programs programs programs new programs
51:20 new programs new programs and my pitch is for sustainability you know like and
51:26 and you keep using these fishing metaphors we need to teach organizations how to fish we need to build resiliency
51:33 and self-sustainability into organizations because they can do all the programs they want to when we
51:40 invest in the infrastructure and that's fundraising so
51:45 sign up you know we'll send out the recording of this and we'll include all the links
51:51 that you talked about thank you for putting that in the chat so thank you so much for being here today
51:57 ... thank you for your your careers worth of work moving the needle on this and i'm so excited to
52:04 watch Catalina go through the program all right we'll be nice to know we're not going to
52:10 make you cry don't worry we'll take care of you i don't come back
52:18 she that that lady is unstoppable so you've been warned
52:23 yeah well let's go thank you all so much for being with us today look out for that email with all
52:28 the links and i just appreciate you so much Armando impovel and all the work that your organizations are doing
52:37 Thank you everybody for coming and ... i'll talk to you soon! All right sounds good, thanks so much