119. The Urgent Case for Latinx Philanthropy + Unlocking the Power of Unrestricted Giving - Ana Marie Argilagos

Diversity and InclusionMajor GiftsPhilanthropy

May 19

Written By Julie Confer

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Overview

Meet Ana Marie. The CEO of Hispanics in Philanthropy is mobilizing her community to combat that 1% of U.S. philanthropic dollars currently go to Latinx organizations, a margin so far from the need reflected in our communities. She's also talking through the moment she learned of their organization's selection as a beneficiary of MacKenzie Scott's donation and how the unrestricted gift was groundbreaking to organizational growth.

Today’s Guest

Ana Marie Argilagos, President and CEO of Hispanics in Philanthropy

“We need to make our foundations look more like the people that they’re serving. And this is not just a nice thing to do. Foundations, if you are going to achieve your mission, you need to look like the people that they’re serving. It’s not because certain people are smarter or less smart. It’s lived experience.”

— Ana Marie Argilagos, President and CEO of Hispanics in Philanthropy

Episode Transcript

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Episode Highlights

Ana’s Story - 3:08
Mission and Impact of Hispanics and Philanthropy - 8:11
Investment in Community - 12:47
Racial Equity Work - 15:36
MacKenzie Scott’s $15M donation - 22:36
Ana’s One Philanthropic Moment - 28:49
Ana’s One Good Thing - 30:11
Growing from 1% to 5% - 31:50

Powerful quotes

“I like to say that fire that I saw out on the horizon that came into me and I'm kind of fiery around social justice issues and it has been very urgent. Unfortunately, all of my life, hopefully for my daughter's life, will be easier and we will get there. But for now, it's been an urgent persistent struggle to get us to where we need to be.” - Ana Marie

“Harvard was a great experience, but they didn't teach us much in terms of community organizing, we were teaching them. But, they taught us words of how to call what we were doing in a very sophisticated way on the ground, and be able to bridge and understanding that bridging and language and make some really important difference in terms of when you want to bring people together to work together on an agenda.” - Ana Marie

“It’s not only connecting, convening, educating but how do we also power up philanthropy with the power of people?” - Ana Marie

“Whether you're giving $10,000 $15 million, like Mackenzie Scott, or $10, we're all philanthropists.” - Ana Marie

“I'm hoping that at some point, we can start taking people back because there's no report, no Facebook feed, no Twitter feed that could really bring alive and explain what is happening.” - Ana Marie

“I think one of our superpowers is that we're nimble, we're flexible. We're problem solvers. We try not to stay with a problem, but like, okay, incrementally how can we assist and help. And that's what we've been doing, really leveraging the power of foundation dollars, and more and more individuals that are giving big and small ways.” - Ana Marie

“We ran across an article on your website that stated that only 1% of philanthropic dollars in the US currently go to Latinx organizations. And so when you compare that to the size of the communities that you're serving, I mean, scrappy with the philanthropy can't even begin to scratch the surface of that.” - Jon

“I think all of philanthropy for all BIPOC is less than 7%. It's a very, it's an astounding number. So what we're seeing in philanthropy, what we're seeing in the business community, then we've also been seeing it in the federal government, right, the disinvestment, so that's why people are unhappy. That's why you see protests because it's compounded that disinvestment, and that's over, you know, centuries, decades.” - Ana Marie

“Your (other) instinct is to go into mama bear, and just sort of, like, take care of your family and those around you. The overriding instinct was okay, we got to do something. And all of our stuff was united, and we got to do something, and how can we work together?” - Ana Marie

“We're going to invest in good ideas that great people are leading at wonderful institutions. You know, I have the three I’s: ideas, institutions and individuals, I'm going to trust them, because it allows you to be nimble.” - Ana Marie

“My message here to you is if you have the if you love your nonprofit, if you have complete trust in their ability, try to take those restrictions away as well as you can because it allows them to run at these problems. We need risk capital, to be able to scale to be able to try things that have never been done before.” - Becky

“I mean, there's more philanthropy now than there was five years ago, there's a lot more money, people are being more and more generous. That's the kind of philanthropy that moves me.” - Ana Marie’s One Philanthropic Moment

“it's important that and all of us that have worked in professional philanthropy, we're doing it because of, you know, our heart and our spirit. But that day-to-day Philanthropy, In the end, that's, that's very moving.” - Ana Marie

“If there's one good thing, I think we all have to practice, self-care.” - Ana Marie’s One Good Thing

“We're starting from the premise that we're here to leave the world a little bit better than when you found it. But you can't do that unless you're practicing self-care.” - Ana Marie

“We need to make our foundations look more like the people that they're serving. And this is not just a nice thing to do. foundations, if you are going to achieve mission need to look like the people that they're serving. It's not because certain people are smarter or less smart. It's lived experience.” - Ana Marie

“I'm here for those organizations are going to be the ones left behind because corporations know that they're their product, their service, their people are best served when everyone has a seat at the table.” - Becky

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