Issues

 

In partnerships with funders, community organizations, and other institutions, HIP is working to increase economic equality and prosperity in U.S. Latino communities and in Latin America:

• Through the Funders’ Collaborative for Strong Latino Communities and other initiatives, HIP is providing capacity-building grants and training for more than 125 nonprofits that promote economic development by providing affordable housing for low-income Latino families, helping small businesses start up and grow, teaching financial literacy in Latino communities, and advocating for economic justice.
• In Latin America, HIP has supported productive initiatives that help grow businesses and create jobs in communities that face great economic hardship and have lost much of their populations to emigration.
• HIP brings together funders, community organizations, multilateral institutions, academics, and other leaders in the HIP network to share resources and promising practices for promoting economic development both in U.S. Latino communities and in Latin America.

Current Programs

Funders’ Collaborative for Strong Latino Communities

Through the Funders’ Collaborative, HIP has provided capacity-building grants and training to more than 125 Latino-led nonprofits that promote economic development through a variety of strategies: building affordable housing, providing loans for small businesses and homeownership, offering financial literacy and education, job training, and advocating for economic justice. The New Mexico Community Development Loan Fund has provided loans, training, and business consulting services for hundreds of small business owners and nonprofits, with a focus on helping Latinos, indigenous people, and low-income achieve self-reliance and control over their economic destinies. In California’s San Joaquin Valley, the Fresno Housing Alliance is building leadership and developing partnerships to advocate for policies that increase the availability of safe and affordable housing.

Transnational Program

Through the Transnational Program, HIP has supported economic development projects that link with diaspora organizations and individuals in the U.S. with their communities of origin in Latin America. The program has also trailblazed innovative grantmaking models that connect local Latin American donors to an international funders network, providing leverage for their investments while promoting philanthropy in Latin America.

Facilitating Funder Dialogue

HIP convenes forums and commissions publications to facilitate dialogue around philanthropic strategies for promoting economic development in U.S. Latino communities and in Latin America. At HIP’s annual meeting in 2011 in Philadelphia, the Milano School’s Dr. Aida Rodriguez presented the findings of a study on how Latino nonprofit organizations and leaders had been affected by—and were responding to—the economic challenges of the Great Recession.  A subsequent HIP Philanthropy Lab focused on the same topic, and a report on the study will be released at the end of the year.

HIP has also convened several summits and symposia around economic development in Latin America, with a particular focus on transnational economic development projects that draw on the resources of the Latin American Diaspora. Most recently, on June 27, 2011, in San Francisco, HIP held a symposium on Migration, Economic Opportunities and Social Investments: Past and Future.
 → View Symposium Videos

HIP has also convened summits on transnational migration and economic development in Puerto Vallarta, the Dominican Republic, and New York.

Why We Care

As the Hispanic population in the U.S. continues to grow, increasing the economic prosperity of Latino communities will be essential to the economic growth of the nation as a whole. In 2011, there were approximately 22.8 million Latinos in the civilian labor force, up from about 17.3 million in 2001—a 24 percent increase in just ten years.  These Latino workers are helping rebuild the nation’s infrastructure, teaching in our schools, and cultivating the food that we eat.

Unfortunately, Latinos face a number of challenges on the road to increased economic opportunity:

• Unemployment: 12 percent of Hispanics are currently unemployed, compared to eight percent of non-Hispanic whites. The rates are even worse for underemployment: 24 percent for Hispanics and 14.5 percent for non-Hispanic whites. Particularly concerning is the unemployment rate for Latino men age 20 and up, which has more than doubled since 2001. 
• Poverty and income disparity: The median personal income for Latinos in 2009 was 55 percent less than that of non-Hispanic whites. There are more than 11 million Latinos living in poverty.
• Housing: Hispanics are twice as likely as non-Hispanic whites to rent rather than own their homes.  The housing crisis has hit Latinos especially hard: a 2010 report from the National Council of La Raza found that Latino and African American borrowers were to receive the types of mortgages most at risk for default.
• Wealth disparity: For every dollar owned by the average non-Hispanic white family, the average white family has only 12 cents.
• Economic insecurity: Only 32 percent of Latino workers save for their retirement compared to 70 percent of their non-Hispanic counterparts. Latinos are the most likely population to depend on social security benefits—but the least likely to receive them. This lack of long-term economic security makes older Latinos especially vulnerable, as detailed in our Latino Age Wave report.

Latin America faces similar challenges of economic inequality and poverty, with one in four people living on less than two dollars a day. This poverty and inequality has led to large-scale emigration, reducing the population dramatically and perpetuating the cycle of economic under-development.

Whether in the U.S. or Latin America, increasing economic opportunity is one of the key building blocks of social justice for our communities. This means advocating for the protection of workers’ rights and economic security of our older adults.  It also means providing training to equip our workforce for the jobs of the 21st century, creating opportunities for men and women to start and develop their own businesses, making homeownership a more viable option for more Latino families, and offering culturally appropriate financial services to help Latinos save and plan for the future. Ultimately, it means building financial knowledge and wealth in our families, so that they no longer have to live from paycheck to paycheck or worry whether they’ll be able to retire when the time comes.

Building Latino philanthropy is an important part of economic development for Latino communities—which means developing sustainable channels and mechanisms for more philanthropic resources to flow for Latino communities.

What Our Members and Partners are Doing

HIP members and partners throughout the U.S. are working to achieve economic opportunity and security for Latino communities:

• The Ford Foundation is working to reform public systems to help families move out of poverty and build the human capital, financial and productive assets they need for long-term intergenerational economic security.
• Asset-building is one of three core issues for the Levi Strauss Foundation, which is working to provide incentives and support for low-income working people, with the belief that building assets has profound effects on individuals and families and their ability to break the poverty cycle.
• The Marguerite Casey Foundation is dedicated to creating a movement of working families advocating on their own behalf for change.
• The Mott Foundation’s Pathways Out of Poverty program funds initiatives to expand economic opportunity for underserved families and neighborhoods around the United States.
• The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s grantmaking includes a set of approaches and projects collectively called Family Economic Success (FES), which address the multiple factors needed to help families find and keep work, save and grow finances, and build assets to secure better futures for their children.
• In urban neighborhoods with concentrated poverty and historical disinvestment, JPMorgan Chase & Co. supports economic and workforce development, as well as financial security and affordable housing in an effort to improve educational and job opportunities, reduce crime and dramatically raise the community's quality of life. 
• The Fannie Mae Foundation supports organizations helping struggling borrowers avoid foreclosure, working to stabilize neighborhoods, striving to prevent and end homelessness, and creating strong neighborhoods in Washington, D.C.
• Other important HIP partners addressing elements of economic opportunity and equity include The Rockefeller Foundation and Wells Fargo Corporate Giving, among others.