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Organizational Development

Over two decades ago, the Hispanic Federation was founded by its peers with a clear purpose of growing and investing in a strong network of New York City Latino nonprofits. While HF's scope of work has grown in breadth, depth, and geographic reach, nonprofit capacity building still remains at the epicenter of the Federation's mission. Each year, HF looks for new ways to deepen connections to its network of 100 Latino nonprofits through workshops, events, and grant opportunities. The Federation will always be committed to reinforcing the ties between Latino nonprofits, ensuring they remain a vibrant and influential sector.

Hispanic Federation focuses on capacity building through the following initiatives:

Institution Building

Community organizations are one of the Latino community’s greatest resources.  They have long been incubators of new Latino leaders, engines of civic participation, and trusted providers of critical health and human services.  For over 25 years, the Hispanic Federation has been exceptionally focused on strengthening Latino nonprofits. By investing in these institutions, the Hispanic Federation addresses today’s needs and builds hope for tomorrow.  These investments take many forms, including grants, advocacy, new Latino donors, and organizational development assistance. The most important dividends are healthier and more economically vibrant communities.

Latino CORE Initiative

Since 1993, the Latino CORE Initiative has been Hispanic Federation’s main grant-making program. CORE was established as a response to the lack of resources or support for the core administrative and infrastructure needs of Latino non-profits.

The focus of our grant-making has always been on supporting crucial capacity-building projects that might otherwise go unfunded. Supported by proceeds of HF’s Annual Gala, CORE has awarded well over 1,000 grants and combined with other grant-making initiatives has gifted more than $40 million dollars to HF member agencies.

CORE is also part of a national consortium of Latino grant-makers, the National Latino Funds Alliance which promotes Latino philanthropy supporting the Latino nonprofit network.

CORE grants, awarded on a rolling basis and capped at $35,000 per organization per year, support infrastructural, capacity-building needs, including:

  • Board Development
  • Capital Projects
  • Fund Development
  • Financial Management
  • Program Evaluation
  • Special Events Planning
  • Staff and Professional Development
  • Strategic Planning
  • Technological Upgrades

Entre Familia Nonprofit Learning Series

Our member agencies are an invaluable resource to their communities and that’s because their employees are social service experts. But as the nonprofit sector becomes more complex, agency staff need training in new technologies and management best practices. Established in 2015, the Entre Familia series has provided more than 100 member agency staff with capacity-building trainings and professional development opportunities. Expert facilitators, including HF senior staff members, cover topics such as event planning, fundraising, financial management, communications, information management, board development and more.

Hispanic Leadership Institute (HLI)

Committed and visionary leadership is the cornerstone of effective non-profit organizations. Sound management is also a must. The Hispanic Leadership Institute, a partnership with the School of Public Affairs (SPA) at Baruch College/CUNY and the University of Connecticut, teaches Latino leaders the nuts and bolts of fund-raising, financial management, working with volunteers, program planning, and other key management skills. To date, 250 senior level managers have taken part in this one-of-a-kind management training program for Latino nonprofit leaders.

Latina Leadership Circle

In Fall 2016, Hispanic Federation launched the Latina Leadership Circle (LLC) – a new nonprofit executive coaching initiative crafted to provide high-level advisory support to Latina HF member agency nonprofit executives, with the goal of strengthening their leadership capacities. LLC provides rising Latina nonprofit executives an opportunity to engage with seasoned female leaders from the nonprofit, government and corporate arenas.

Communities of Color Nonprofit Stabilization Fund

In the late 1980s, a review of government and private philanthropic allocations to nonprofits revealed that Latino community-based organizations, many of which were on the frontlines of the battle against New York’s most pressing social problems, did not receive their fair share of resources from government or private funders. Hispanic Federation was created in response to this lack of funding equity. Throughout its history, HF has continually advocated for funding parity for Latino nonprofits.

In 2014, the New York City Council joined us in our fight for fair funding by supporting the Communities of Color Nonprofit Stabilization Fund, a new program that allows HF and its partners - Coalition for Asian American Children and Families, New York Urban League, Asian American Federation and Black Agency Executives — to re-grant funds to nonprofits in communities of color who are traditionally excluded from private and public grant-making. In its inaugural year, the Fund supported eighty community-based organizations that offer services including arts, educational, health, youth, LGBTQ, worker rights, small business, and organizing. In addition to funding, the program provided capacity building support to nearly one hundred emerging and seasoned social services organizations, offering 24 training sessions, and provided technical support to build the administrative, fundraising and outreach capacity of nonprofit organizations in communities of color. We are proud to state that this grant fund continues to grow each year throughout New York City.

In 2021, with the success of our NYC CCNSF, the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving supported us in launching our first Connecticut CCNSF (CT CCNSF), to assist with capacity building for Nonprofits throughout the Greater Hartford region.

For all information pertaining to NYC CCNSF view the website here: https://www.ccnsfund.org

For all information pertaining to CT CCNSF view the website here: https://www.ctccnsf.org

For more information about these grants, contact Fernando Aguilar, Director for Contracts and Grants.