To start the year off right, here’s a story that should offer great inspiration.
On Wednesday, December 3rd, 2014 over 150 guests gathered at The Villa Victoria Center for the Arts in the South End for an evening of inspiration and celebration as the Latino Legacy Fund made its first grants to support early childhood needs.
The Fund, the first Latino-focused fund in the Greater Boston area, is focusing its initial funding on programs that help create economic opportunity by improving Latino education in Greater Boston.
Considering Boston’s population is 17.5 percent Hispanic and the national Hispanic poverty rate is 24.5 percent, dedicated funding for Latino nonprofits is especially important given that only 1% of charitable foundation funding nationwide goes to Latino organizations. In Massachusetts, that ratio is only slightly higher, at 2%.
A lack of grant funding for Latino causes “holds us back from really investing in nonprofits that are making tremendous efforts in their community to lift people out of poverty, to get them better educated, to find better health care, and to help them negotiate systems and processes so their kids can do better in school,” said Aixa Beauchamp, co-founder of the Latino Legacy Fund and Managing Director of Beauchamp & Associates.
The first round of grants, totaling $100,000, were made to five Greater Boston organizations after a competitive application process that targeted organizations focused on early childhood needs.
Live Performance: Sociedad Latina Youth Leaders provided entertainment (Photo: Richard Howard/ The Boston Foundation).
Data illustrate all-too-clearly the challenges facing the youngest Latinos in Greater Boston. Close to sixty percent of Latino children in Boston Public Schools cannot read proficiently by third grade. Research demonstrates that as students fall behind academically, the probability that they will drop out increases.
“These organizations play different roles in the Latino community, but they all provide critical information, support and/or services to Latinos in neighborhoods across Greater Boston,” said Juan Carlos Morales, co-founder of the Latino Legacy Fund and Global CFO at TIAA-CREF.
“We are pleased to make them the first of what we are confident will be a long list of grants aimed at supporting organizations that improve the lives and opportunities of Latinos in the years to come.”
The Latino Legacy Fund Advisory Committee made up of a diverse group of Latino philanthropic, nonprofit and business community leaders, reviewed the applications this summer for funding from the Latino Legacy Fund. The five chosen organizations provide a valuable array of services to Latino youth and families. The grantees (and grant amounts are):
- Horizons for Homeless Children Inc.: $15,000 for a specialized professional development course for their bilingual staff, delivered by Wheelock College’s Aspire Institute.
- Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción, Inc.: $25,000 for support of a public outreach campaign to educate families in the South End and Lower Roxbury about how to access and navigate the Commonwealth’s Early Childhood Education and Care financial assistance program.
- Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corp.: $15,000 for the Educators Helping Educators program, which seeks offer intense, individualized support for 25 Latina educators in JPNDC’s Family Childcare System.
- La Alianza Hispana, Inc.: $25,000 to support the expansion of the Madres y Ninos en Proceso home visiting program which integrates educational curriculum with health, child safety, parenting training and case management to ensure that mothers are better prepared to help educate and advocate for their children.
- The Nurtury: $20,000 to support technology training for Latino family childcare providers focused on the Teaching Strategies Gold platform, a curriculum development and assessment tool.
The Latino Legacy Fund is building a $1 million fund to create a brighter future for the Latino community in Greater Boston. The Boston Foundation and Hispanics in Philanthropy each have pledged $250,000 in challenge grants and have also received gifts from John Hancock, Eastern Bank and MFS Investment Services.
Having a Great Time: Yazmin Cruz, Program and Grants manager for John Hancock; Milton Benjamin, Founder and President of KAGE Growth Strategies and Amanda Martinez, Global information systems and contract and vendor manager for Boston Scientific Foundation (Photo: Richard Howard/ The Boston Foundation).
