Transnational Programs

Strengthening the Ties Between U.S. Latinos and Their Communities of Origin

About the Program
Funding Partners
Program Grantees
Program Evaluation

About the Program

HIP’s transnational program connects funders, individual donors, nonprofits, and communities in the U.S. and Latin America to support productive partnerships that offer economic opportunities in regions with high emigration rates. In 2006, HIP launched two initiatives that linked Latino diaspora communities in the U.S. with their communities of origin in Latin America for economic development projects and organizational capacity-building.

In Mexico, HIP invested more than $700,000 in productive projects that helped develop farming cooperatives and other small local businesses, all of them drawing on the resources of their Diaspora communities in creative ways. Our funding partners included the Ford Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, as well as Fundemex, the Daniel and Karen May Fund, and the Western Union Foundation.
In the Dominican Republic, our longstanding partnership with Fundación Falcondo and a score of banks, businesses and individual philanthropists helped spearhead the search for projects that would build capital for Dominicans in the United States and the Dominican Republic.
In Argentina, under the leadership of Fundación Minetti, Standard Bank and others, HIP developed a similar process.

HIP continues to explore new models to strengthen the ties between U.S. Latinos and their communities of origin, and to provide a strong voice for issues of economic development, human rights, and social justice that cross the national boundaries of the Americas.

Funding Partners

The Transnational program connects funders and communities in Argentina, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and the United States:

Daniel and Karen May Foundation
David and Lucile Packard Foundation
Ford Foundation
Fundación del Empresariado en México, A.C. (FUNDEMEX)
Fundación Falcondo
Fundación Los Grobo
Fundación Minetti
Fundación Standard Bank
Inter-American Development Bank
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
Western Union Foundation

Grantee	Start Date	End Date	Amount	Grant Goals
Asociación Mutual de Empleo y Gestión Solidarios (Mutual Gesol) ˜ Argentina	1/2/2008	6/30/2010	$54,400	Through the project “Comercio Exterior Solidario- Hecho por Argentinos y Argentinas,” Mutual Gesol will expand and diversify the products of 600 entrepreneurs in Hurlingham, Buenos Aires, with an eye toward opening export markets. These small producers and craftsmen and women already work through various networks and associations with social as well as productive goals. Each network is a productive cluster specialized in a particular product. Through the project new clusters will be formed that produce products for which demand in export markets has been identified, such as wood furniture, shoes and local food products that have been certified authentic, among others.
Fundacion Pedro Antonio Marzano ˜ Argentina	1/1/2008	6/30/2010	$154,355	With this project more than 30 olive growers from Maipú will begin to press their own olives to make oil. These producers currently dedicate themselves to the cultivation of the olives, but sell them without any processing to large scale industrial producers who then make and market the oil. This initiative will help the producers rise within the productive chain, no longer selling the olives as raw materials but rather pressing them to make oil. This shift will increase their income level drastically, thereby helping them improve their social and economic status.
Asociacion de Agricultores de los Dajaos, ASADA ˜ Dominican Republic	6/1/2008	12/30/2010	$50,784	Raising the incomes of producers, through fixing the existent infrastructure of the laboratory and greenhouse intended for the production of plants in vitro, to respond and take advantage of existing potential and current demand for high-yielding plants. Also to increase production and sales of seedlings that contributes to the financial autonomy of ASADA.
Cooperativa de la Federacion de Productores y Campesinos Azuanos, Inc. (COOPFEPROCA) ˜ Dominican Republic	5/1/2008	12/30/2010	$194,714	The initiative led by COOPFEPROCA, is part of an effort to revitalize the economy in the Azua valley. New crops and growing techniques have been introduced in addition to change in the ownership and management of the land from large agro-industrial enterprises to micro-enterprises. Through this project, 80 producers will receive training and access to the new production facilities. The project not only seeks to increase the production and sales levels for organic bananas, but also to help restore the environmental sustainability of the productive system in the Azua valley.
Instituto para el Desarrollo de la Produccion Organizada, Inc. (INDEPRO) ˜ Dominican Republic	5/1/2008	3/30/2011	$109,125	The project’s main objective is to increase the production of the family enterprises and standardize the quality of their casabe for sale nationally and in nostalgia markets outside of the Dominican Republic. INDEPRO will help the producers with a marketing strategy that will include the creation of a community brand, promotion of a quality standard and the launch of a website. The project will increase the incomes of more than 400 producers and raise the standard of living for more than 2000 members of the producers’ families.
Appleseed ˜ Mexico	6/1/2010	12/30/2011	$25,000	Mexico Appleseed is currently undergoing a study of the system of detention and repatriation of unaccompanied migrant minors from the United States to Mexico. Appleseed is working with partners in the United States to amend the detention and repatriation process and ensure that protocols are enforced in the United States under the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008. The goal is to ensure that minors repatriated to Mexico from the United States are respected, treated fairly, and receive appropriate care through the detention and repatriation process.
Centro Humanitario para las Obras y el Intercambio Cultural y Educativo ˜ Mexico	11/27/2007	12/30/2011	$206,129	Through this initiative, CHOICE will encourage goat farming as a basis for economic development in two communities affected by high levels of migration in the state of Guanajuato.
Crece Guanajuato, AC ˜ Mexico	10/30/2008	12/30/2011	$104,458	CRECE Guanajuato, A.C. will help a cohort of goat farmers known as Grupo OVICORO will open three barbecue sales outlets and increase the production of fine meat cuts for regional resale.
Fundacion Comunitaria del Bajio ˜ Mexico	6/1/2008	12/30/2008	$10,000	Capacity building for Fundacion Comunitaria del Bajio, focused on board development and fundraising.
Fundacion Produce Puebla, AC ˜ Mexico	7/31/2008	12/30/2011	$123,305	The project focuses on the promotion of cooperatives that improve corn production, certification and processing of pinole (a corn product) for sale in the national market and in migrant communities in the U.S. and conservation of endangered native blue corn stock. The corn is intended for consumption, sale and production of organic pinole. Distribution will take place through networks of migrants in the United States (Group Ozolco) and stores specializing in organic and fair-trade products.
La Esperanza del Mañana, AC ˜ Mexico	5/30/2008	12/30/2011	$101,280	The aim of the project was to consolidate the production of organic vegetables grown in private, small-scale greenhouses or orchards as a means to generate additional income and improve the diet of participating families; through theoretical-practical training to young people, community groups and schools interested in agricultural ecology including the integration of a “Network of Vegetable Producers”.
Tonanantlali, AC ˜ Mexico	5/15/2008	12/30/2011	$146,446	Tonanantlali, AC seeks to improve the production capacity of 323 organic coffee growers. This project aims to enhance the quality of their coffee beans and increase the yield of their coffee fields and organic certification. The goal is to help more producers sell their coffee as organic grade, which has a higher sales price, in order to increase their incomes. The producers will become part of the network, Red de Productores Indígenas Ecológicos de la Sierra Negra, which will facilitate coffee sales in the Europe and the U.S., thereby allowing the producers to tap into the demand for fair-trade and organic products in these markets. T
Juntos Philadelphia ˜ United States	9/1/2008	10/30/2011	$97,160	The overarching goal of JUNTOS’s grant is to ensure that current and future transnational projects are sustainable. The grant will support a capacity building venture and a productive project. The capacity building portion will focus on increasing JUNTOS’s and the diaspora communities’ capacity to support and sustain transnational development, increasing philanthropic investment and capacity of the diaspora community to support projects in their hometowns, and developing a project evaluation system. The productive project is an economic development opportunity that will increase the price small farmers receive for their corn and will also create jobs in both Philadelphia and Mexico processing and selling that corn.

Program Evaluation

HIP’s Transnational Programs have not only provided a remarkable opportunity to encourage the creation of transnational productive initiatives, but also to assess strategies, promising practices, and barriers involved in this work. While economic development in rural areas is particularly complex, HIP has found promoting cooperative models to be effective in rural environments in several Latin American countries. Another piece of the puzzle is the complexity of hometown associations (HTAs) and other diaspora organizations in the U.S., which have varying levels of capacity for channeling support to productive initiatives in their affiliated communities in Latin America.

In order to maintain an appropriate monitoring and evaluation system, and to effectively “learn while doing,” HIP employed several methods:

An online monitoring tool was designed to increase the efficiency and accountability of the funded projects. Through this tool, funders were informed of the main activities completed as well as their results, with the purpose of determining whether projects reached established goals and objectives.
Experienced independent consultants conducted external evaluations of all funded projects.
As part of good practices shared in Latin America, external financial audits were done.

All these allow us to present other alternatives to redress HIP work in Latin America. We need to take a leading role in building traditions of philanthropic investing to complement the longstanding leadership in fostering philanthropic giving for and from Latino communities – not only in the US, but also transnationally. The idea arises from the lack of adequate and effective mechanisms to link philanthropic money from the Latino community in the United States to organizations, projects or causes that promote development in Latin America.

More about the assessment of our transnational work may be found in the "Develop Your World: Case Studies" report,

Develop Your World: Case Studies (Date: June 2011, Size: 1.5 MB, Pages: 58)

which captures both the outcomes of our investments and the lessons learned from these projects. HIP’s hope is that these learnings will now become the fertile ground for the next harvest, for HIP’s next decade of transnational investment.

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