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Hispanic Executive’s mission is to unite the leaders of the new majority by turning a spotlight on our community’s most influential Latinos. We tell stories about Latinos and for Latinos.
As part of our 2024 Leading Latinas, we invited two power players within the nonprofit sector to speak on key trends within the industry and the opportunities for Latinas in philanthropy and nonprofits.
Felida Villarreal is president and CEO of the Valley Initiative for Development and Advancement (VIDA). She spoke with us in fall 2023, along with VIDA’s chief program officer Irma Garcia, about the strides that the organization is making in the Rio Grande Valley near the US-Mexico border. VIDA provides education and training that helps residents secure high-skilled, high-wage jobs.
Ana Marie Argilagos is president and CEO of Hispanics in Philanthropy (HiP). Throughout her career, Argilagos has held leadership positions in the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and the Ford Foundation before stepping into the role of HiP’s CEO in 2018. She also serves on the boards of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, CANDID, the Chronicle of Philanthropy, PoderLatinx, and the Sante Fe Community Foundation.
Watch the Full Interview
Video Transcript
Felida Villarreal, VIDA
Welcome, Ana Marie. Thank you so much for taking the time to meet with us today and doing this interview.
I definitely feel that you are an incredible trailblazer for women in leadership, for the Latino community, and definitely a role model that I look up to very much. So I’m definitely excited for the conversation. And let’s go ahead and get started.
Ana Marie Argilagos, Hispanics in Philanthropy
Let’s do it. I’m so happy to be here. Thank you.
Villarreal
Definitely. So could you tell us a little bit about your journey within the nonprofit space and what drove you to lead large nonprofits such as the Ford Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation,
and now Hispanics in Philanthropy?
Argilagos
Well, there’s a caveat there. I didn’t lead those foundations, but I did have really interesting roles in those foundations. But my journey really started way back.
I was, I was born in Puerto Rico right there on the beach—well, not on the beach. But I grew up in Isla Verde, which is a beautiful beach if anybody hasn’t been there. I encourage you to go. It’s my little piece of paradise.
When I was about six or seven, my family moved to Miami. And so there I lived in a burbujita, which was Little Havana, which I’m sure many of you have gone. It’s a very iconic place,
especially in the seventies and eighties, when I was there, was very, very special time. We really clung to our fundamental values and we were a closely knit community since we really were refugees and migrants.
And, you know, each cycle, and I spent a lot of time really figuring out my identity. Was I Puertorriqueña or Cubana? Oftentimes people make you choose. And I always wanted to not choose. I really embraced both parts of my heritage.
But to go back to your question, at fifteen years old, I was working in a pharmacy in downtown Miami at the Omni. And that’s when everything burst from that burbujita, that little bubble
I told you earlier that I was living in, because 1980s Miami was at the center of the worst race riot that I mean, I had experienced to that date. And it was definitely the worst race riot to that time in that had happened in Miami. Those were the Liberty City riots.
This now happens, unfortunately, over and over. At that time, it was a first one for me and I was at the rooftop watching the city of Miami burning. Especially hard hit was Liberty City, which was the neighborhoods where our African-American brothers and sisters lived. And it was just devastating. And for me, that was a gut punch that there was fire all around me. But there was, that’s what put fire in my belly in terms of putting me on a path to social justice and to understand that we had to do better, and that I couldn’t have my hands crossed and just stay as a by—bystander and do nothing.
So that’s when everything changed for me. And I went to university and I always, like in Washington, DC, and I was working in Ayuda, which was a clinic working with immigrants
from all over the world actually. But then the war in El Salvador got very difficult, and we had an influx of El Salvadorians. And that’s when I became involved in, you know, issues around Central America and the Frontera and migration. And we worked on domestic violence.
So many things that put me on a path to where I am now, which has been really about being where you’re needed and making yourself useful.
So yes, I was at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, at the Ford Foundation developing new portfolios there, but I also was, you know, at Unidos US, and I was at the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and I did two stints in government with President Obama and President Clinton. So really looking at from what perspective and at what moment in time, you can be most helpful.
I’ve been at HIP now, I’m on my seventh year, and this has been truly transformational. My first year was really important because I felt that we couldn’t transform the organization without listening, and so lots of people do listening tours. I went to forty-five cities in less than six months. It was obviously before COVID, so you actually were doing it in person.
And from there it’s where I really got an understanding of how we can build more than a membership organization. But what I feel is a movimiento, something that’s living and breathing, and we call it the Collective Córazon.
Sounds maybe corny, but to me it’s really real, because it is really breathing and living,
and it is about a movement and about how do we get from here to there? How do we respond and refine? And how do we make sure that it’s collective and that it’s about love?
Because philanthropy is about love of humanity.
Villarreal
No, absolutely. I think working in the nonprofit, it gives you that opportunity, right, to find a cause
that you’re very passionate about and to be able to move that cause forward.
So you briefly touched about your work in government. I know you were at the US Department
of Housing and Urban Development for five years. What are some of the things you learned
during your time there that continues to inform or impact your work today?
Argilagos
I did two stints. My first stint, I was working in the policy shop and I learned—I mean, the Department of Housing and Urban Development—I learned how communities, what communities are successful, are able to get ahead and thrive, and at what moments in time communities are left behind and the reasons why.
And so that was really important because it set into motion an understanding that no one sector
can do it alone, that we do need philanthropy, government, the nonprofit sector, and business altogether. It’s one of the reasons, like, for example, at HiP, we have something called Inicio Ventures. And when we first started Inicio Ventures, people were like, “Huh? Aren’t you about funding? And, you know, and supporting the nonprofit community?”
Well, this was during the beginning of COVID, and I was like, “No, if we don’t have strong businesses, we don’t have Latino entrepreneurs, we’re not building our wealth, we don’t have Latino philanthropists. Ultimately, we’re always going to be with a tin cup asking others to support us. We need to make sure, especially during COVID, that all of our mom and pops, all the taquerias, the beauty parlors, the bakeries and notario, that they all stayed in business.”
So during the beginning of COVID, we started giving grants, $5,000 grants, to businesses in Los Angeles, in El Paso, and Miami to make sure that they stayed in business. So why? That’s why I went to government understanding that we needed to understand how all these sectors came together. And I started the Office (which still exists today, so it was really exciting) of International
and Philanthropic Innovation, understanding that sectors need to learn from each other. What can we borrow? What can we get inspired from? Not only like one sector from the other, but also in the US, which we’re not extraordinarily big, but how do we—what do we learn from what’s happening in Brazil, in Mexico, in Colombia, in Indonesia or China, whatever place it is? But pay attention, paying attention and adapting. I once went to work for a guy that said, “I want you to make mistakes.” And I looked at him and I was like, “What? You want me to make mistakes?” He said, “Yes, You’re not making mistakes, you’re not innovating. And if you’re not innovating, what? What’s the use? You need to be making mistakes, but you need to go with. Don’t make mistakes twice, [laughs] make mistakes once.”
And so that was part of the culture, and that’s what I try and bring to HIP as well.
Villarreal
I love that, yeah, that a lot of times we get so focused on, you know, not making a mistake or being scared of mistakes, but I think, you know, that they’re incredible learning opportunities. And, you know, we can’t grow without learning from our failures and our mistakes.
Having covered a little bit about your work in the nonprofit well as in government, is there a particular initiative or project that stands out to you that you could say was a very proud moment for you to have supported or have led?
Argilagos
I love all of our babies. So it’s really hard to say one particular moment. But I can I talked about Inicio, which I’m really proud of. I’m really proud of our work around what I call “PB and J,” not peanut butter and jelly, but power building and justice.
Now more than ever, important, more than ever. Because we have to build our civic, build civic engagement, build voice, build trust. Since I’ve just come back from Mexico City, I arrived late last night. I was there last week for International Women’s Day. I mean, I was so proud to see, you know, a million women on the streets of Mexico City, exercising their right to march and to express themselves. And that was just extraordinary.
I also had the opportunity to go to my first in-person giving circle in Mexico City, and that was exciting as well.
Villarreal
Oh wow!
Argilagos
Yeah! You know, they, it was the first time all of these folks are doing pop-ups. They’re doing giving circles. You can do them, like, all the time, but you can also just go to pop-up giving circles on a Tuesday night, you know, and there’s, you know, antojitos, and little things like that. And we had three fabulous, since it’s Women’s History Month, we had three fabulous organizations representing women’s organizations.
One was called Comando Colibrí, which was young women that are learning all about martial art as an effort to protect themselves and self-confidence. Right?
There was another one with Emprendedoras. You know, young entrepreneurs that are learning to be self-sufficient, heads of family, and, you know, how can they be self-sufficient for their families?
The last one was women in Juarez who work in maquilas, that unfortunately, labor
circumstances are really difficult. And so you have to choose. Well, you’re supposed to choose one of them. We ended up choosing two of them and doubling the pool of dollars and being able to give, give it to them.
But things like that, every time you see it, it’s like we are changing the world grain of sand
by grain of sand. And it was just wonderful.
So HIPGive is a platform that we created—free, bilingual—which allows all of these nonprofits
to develop campaigns so that even if they don’t have fancy resource development jobs, they can have the autonomy, and the . . . to be able to put up these campaigns so that we can learn about them and so that we can have these pop-ups.
We also have digital giving circles; I’m part of those. And we have the different campaigns. Right now we have #GOMujeres. And I’d love for folks to get on #GOMujeres and check it out. It’s just really inspiring to see what organizations are doing.
Villarreal
That’s incredible.
Argilagos
Yeah, especially for the smaller and medium-size nonprofits who don’t have a lot of opportunities to get that exposure or to even be an affiliate of a bigger entity because, of course, there’s budget
limitations and budget constraints.
Villarreal
But that’s incredible that you all are expanding those opportunities to them.
Argilagos
Absolutely.
Last week we also had—and I wasn’t able to go to that— but South by Southwest. You’re in Texas, I don’t know if you had a chance to go, but we had our first ever La Casa, La Startup Casa. It’s about that, you know, we were talking about it earlier.
La Startup Casa is a place for us to celebrate this Latino startup ecosystem, really looking at how as Latinos, we’re underinvested, right? I don’t know if you know these numbers. I mean, I’ll just go into numbers for a second. But 1 percent of philanthropy goes to the Latino nonprofits.
That’s terrible. Just 1 percent, after all these years that we’re 20 percent of the population. But what’s on the other side? Only 1 percent of venture dollars go to Latino businesses, to our brilliant young people that have great ideas. So, I mean, these are both mirroring each other. That’s why we have Inicio Ventures.
And I’m so excited about La Casa that we had last ni—last week, because it, like, brought all of the industry leaders and entrepreneurs, investors, all really showcasing our startups,
our achievements, how innovative our people are. Hopefully some of them will get invested in, and we’re really proud of this new Casa that we have, and I’m excited to see, like, what happened there.
Villarreal
I’m sure wonderful magic. Yeah, for sure. Was that in Austin?
Argilagos
Yeah, that was South by Southwest last week.
Villarreal
Ohhh, OK. I haven’t had the opportunity to join, but yes, I saw some of the posts on social media
and it looked absolutely incredible. So I look forward to hopefully joining in the future.
Going off on a different path now. You’ve been at the forefront of Latino philanthropy and in the nonprofit space, and I definitely feel that there’s been so many new trends out there
emerging for us. Having the opportunity to also lead a nonprofit and an organization in South Texas
called VIDA. I’ve seen firsthand a significant push toward cross-sector collaboration, which you’ve touched on.
And I can say that whether a nonprofit’s focus is education, housing, or food insecurity, I definitely feel that there’s a growing desire and a growing need to build these partnerships with industry, with employers, with institutions of higher education, with community-based organizations, and
of course, government.
In your opinion, what are some key trends that you see impacting the nonprofit sector, especially for organizations being led by Latinas or Latinos?
Argilagos
There’s a lot of answers to that question. It feels like our community is in constant recovery, right? We went through 2008 and 2009 through that Great Recession. It took us ten, eleven, twelve years to recuperate all of the wealth that we lost in 2008 and 2009. And then came 2020, 2021, and we were disproportionately impacted by the recession, right? And so we’re back to where we started from.
That’s, that’s DIFFICULT. That’s difficult. And we saw blips in giving that was inspiring and encouraging at the very beginning. But all of the increase in donations that we saw, especially after George Floyd was murdered, all of that is starting to either go down or never actually did materialize. There was a lot of commitments that were made that never got followed up on,
or the dollars that—those dollars that were committed by philanthropies and corporate philanthropy as well actually went into internal—were invested into internal, like, DEI type initiatives and didn’t ever make it to the community.
Sooo, that’s really difficult to watch. But on the other side, we’ve witnessed a lot of inspiring work that the nonprofits are doing that they, there’s so much around mutual aid. I was talking about giving circles earlier. Those have really strengthened and grown. And so though, you know,
all of this is, is coming in to us as we’re watching AI, like, unfold in literally minutes and watching,
how is that going to affect us?
Supreme Court decisions like the affirmative action decision that happened last summer,
which ostensibly is just around education—we’re watching it very closely. How is it going to impact foundations, philanthropy, and all other things? Because in essence, it’s a, it affects contracts and grants. And so that could really change the face of what we’ve been looking at.
So digital transformation is really key, in that we need to watch the future of, you know, DEI. What’s that going to look like because of the Supreme Court decision? And we need to really watch it. So we’re working on all of these issues.
Digital philanthropy is very important to us. We have an all-femme team, which is really cool, all woman-led. So we’re really building lots of stuff there on narrative change, digital products and tools. All of this with an effort, an eye, towards democratizing philanthropy, not just in the US,
but really all across the Americas and Puerto Rico, the Caribbean. So we’re doing that around DEI. We’re paying attention to the affirmative action, and we’re looking at how we strengthen narratives around Latinos, Latines, so that we are seen as givers.
I was just with Ana Valdez from the Latino Donor Collaborative. I’ll put a plug there. She’s receiving an award from us this summer at our conference in Chicago. The work that she does around putting out information that demystifies who we are. And we were, if we were a country, Latines living here in the US alone, not even all of the Americas, just in the US, we would be the fifth largest economy in the world.
Villarreal
Wow.
Argilagos
That’s spectacular, right? People don’t know that. So all of this shift about like, what is understanding and what is the reality where, that’s about us. That’s, that’s what we’re doing. Really shifting that because we have to look at, you know, narrative change. We have to look at economy and, you know, economic transformation. We need to look at political and social.
All it’s, I mean, this tool has several legs.
Villarreal
Yeah, that’s incredible.
And going off a little bit about that reality that you’re mentioning. So we know like, like you said, the Latinx population makes up about 20 percent of the US population, yet Latinx accounts for only 10 percent of nonprofit executive directors and less than 3 percent of foundations, CEOs, or presidents. And of course we face other challenges as well.
But if in your opinion, what opportunities do you see Latinas, Latinos having that are leading nonprofit organizations despite these barriers that we strive to overcome?
Argilagos
Yeah, I think it all starts at the top. What we’ve, yeah, I learned a little sentence that I love: “Demographics is not destiny.” What does that mean? Even if you’re in places, I’m calling you from New Mexico right now, but you go to Texas, you go to California, other places where, you know, there’s lots of Latinos, you would think we would have a lot more power. But we don’t necessarily have a lot of power.
And so, yes, we have managed to build a pipeline. So I’m encouraged because we have lots of folks that are emerging leaders.
You said about CEOs. So that’s great; the pipeline is strong. We don’t have enough. But there is a pipeline. What we don’t have is trustees, right? Folks at the board of directors. And in the end, you can have fabulous staff, a fabulous CEO. But if your trustee is saying, “no, no, no,” your trustees are not there with you, then you get stuck.
So I have my eye on: how do we change the face of trustees? Trustees in philanthropy,
trustees in corporate America, trustees all across. That’s really, really key. So, but while we’re doing that, we don’t keep our, you know, we keep our eyes on, you know, all of those folks
that are in the pipeline. We have an amazing fellowship that is called Líderes. And Líderes is for folks that are midcareer, folks like you. I hope you apply, Felida! That are either in the nonprofit or the foundation space, that are interested in expanding their network, are expanded in working in a place that is, you know, from a space of healing, healing justice, that you have the tools so that you—when things get difficult—you have a place to get oxygen, you have a network
that’s going to support you.
All of these things are really important. In addition to being extremely talented and creative, you do, we all need these places where we get oxygen, where we have a network, where people are there to support us. And so I’m really excited about our Líderes program because it does bring together midcareers, in both philanthropy and the nonprofit space, and the magic that they create when they’re together. It’s great.
Also, oftentimes, when that happened to me when we were talking about my trajectory, I mean, I was always a nonprofit person. The last thing I expected was to get pulled from a nonprofit space and to be thrown into philanthropy. But that happens more and more. In old times, the previous generation, philanthropy was usually stacked with academic people, people that were picked from universities. And that was not a good model because those folks didn’t have lived experience.
That is a really good shift that has happened in philanthropy now, whereas more and more of the folks that are chosen to be program officers, directors, are coming from the nonprofit space, from grassroots, from community; they do have that lived experience. But that’s also terrifying because
if you’ve never worked in philanthropy and you’re dropped into philanthropy, you’re like, “What do I do here?”
And so we want folks to have a built-in network so that it’s not scary so that they can, like, have a head—like, running start, and, like, be effective from day one.
Villarreal
Yeah, I like, from a nonprofit perspective, I had definitely seen that shift. I can say personally now
in a lot of grant applications, it’ll have a specific question geared toward board development and board engagement and asking specifically, OK, what percentage of your board members can relate to the population that you’re serving?
Argilagos
Mhmmm.
Villarreal
If you’re serving Latinos, how much of your board is comprised of Latino leadership? So I think that’s definitely a positive trend that we’re seeing.
Argilagos
Yep, yep. The limited funding, you know, since we’re at the beck and call of the stock market, you know that means that we don’t have consistent, long-term, fully flexible, you know, dollars.
That’s something that I hope, you know, I’ve seen that go in a little circle. Some foundations, like, immediately went there after COVID and have stayed there. Others are retrenching. So we have to keep our eyes on that as well. Flexible dollars, gen-ops dollars, because in the end, those are the dollars that allow us as nonprofits to be nimble and to be able to respond to the needs in our communities. So I would, I would lift that up as well.
Villarreal
Absolutely.
And that’s a very real and ongoing challenge that nonprofits face, right? Limited resources and high levels of comp—competition. But at the same time, I think that brings us to another point, which is the importance of, you know, storytelling and how do you build a brand for yourself? How do you market yourself not only among your community, among your region, but even beyond that
on a state or national level? So in your opinion, what are ways that nonprofits could possibly leverage data and storytelling to showcase their impact, especially when attracting a new funding opportunity?
Argilagos
Hmm. That’s a really good question, because they need to see not just, like, the superficial stuff, but, like, also the dots behind the work, the why and the who. And it’s so easy to oversimplify,
especially when you’re talking to media. They catch the, the high-level taglines and don’t necessarily go underneath. So your question is a good one, and I’m not sure I have a great answer, but I feel… [sighs] I figure, everything is boiled down to social media and what you’re putting on your Instagram or on your, you know, your—these pages.
I feel like, for example, we like to do study trips and learning tours and we do a couple every year. We bring people to where things are happening. And that’s important because when you’re able to see and hear and talk to folks—I did that last week in Mexico and it was just, it just shifts your, the narrative that we make up in our heads. And you can look at it with… your heart comes in. Everything is both your head, the numbers—which we always provide—but you have to get people to pay attention in a different way with the heart. And so that’s important.
Our study trips are important, but also, I guess our HIP Conference, which I mentioned earlier, is a really great place. If you don’t have time for a weeklong study trip to go to a two-day conference, because that’s where we bring, like, innovators and cutting-edge folks who are doing the work
and we’re able to showcase it. I really do think that in addition to reading reports and reading, you know, numbers, for—to have that real narrative change I guess is where I’m going with all of
this—is you also need your heart, something in your spirit.
And so if you have the opportunity, and that’s what we try and do, of really connecting the dots so that folks can understand the numbers, but also understand and meet the real people that are doing the work and impacted, that’s where magic is. We do lots of campaigns where we’re, you know, showing rather than telling funders what our communities need. Different campaigns.
We talked about some of the women’s campaigns, some of the work that we’re doing around
migrants and refugees right now. I was at a, you know, I was in Mexico City. A lot of what we’re seeing in our cities here, like in Denver and Chicago, New York, DC, with buses of migrants, Mexico City is experiencing that as well. I went to, to, I was going to visit a grantee, but outside of the grantee’s offices, there was tens and tens—There was 1,200 people in a park. They’re just dealing with all of this. And I knew that because I had read about it. But actually seeing 1,200 people in a pop-up camp that the city is trying to figure out how to deal with, just gave me a different understanding.
Villarreal
Yeah, that’s a really good point because I think location is, and even perception, it’s, it’s relative to a lot of things. So, you know, what is our reality?
And so South Texas may be completely different to someone in New York or Chicago or LA. We had a visit actually a few weeks ago from someone up north who is leading a national organization related to medical equipment technology, and he came and, you know, did a tour of our installation and some visits with partners. And these people left incredibly, not only impressed, but I would say inspired because they were completely honest and transparent and, and, told us, you know, when we hear about, you know, South Texas, like precisely the Rio Grande Valley, which is four hours south of San Antonio, you don’t expect much. You expect, you know, we are a border region. There is high poverty rates, low levels of, you know, educational attainment. So the standard is very low.
But like you mentioned, being able to take that visit and see with your own eyes through the people’s lens of the reality and the potential that the community has through collaboration
is, is truly inspiring and impactful.
Argilagos
I’m so glad you’re doing that. Yeah. My first visit to the Frontera is . . . I will never forget. It just changes you in so many ways.
Villarreal
Absolutely. Now, before we close, as we are getting to the end of our time, for anyone wanting to support local nonprofits, do you have recommendations on how to choose a particular nonprofit
to support, a focus area? What would be your advice?
Argilagos
Well, our HIPGive platform, which is—you can find it by going to hipfunds.org,—has fully vetted organizations that we have overone thousand grantees in our database. So whether you’re interested in an organization working on Venezuelan migrants or you’re interested in working on gender equity or education or climate change, we do a lot around climate change, or the intersection of climate and migration. Whatever you want to fund or donate to, you can do that
through the HIPGive platform.
And as I said earlier, it’s completely free. It lives off of what we call HIP Tip. So if you want to leave a tip for HIP to continue providing this service.
But the fabulous thing about HIPGive is that you can provide donations to organizations here in the US and you get your tax deduction. Or if you want to donate to an organization that’s doing great work in Mexico or Puerto Rico, or in Colombia, you can do that as well. So that’s one easy way.
If you want to ratchet it up, you can join one of our giving circles, which I mentioned. You know, those are either digital or we’re starting to do them in, you know, pop-up and eh, pop-up and in person.
You can apply for the HIP Fellowship, which I’d love to have you on, Felida. And that’s a really diverse group of midcareers that are working in philanthropy and nonprofit. We only have one cohort a year, but it’s thirty folks get to participate each year. We already have three hundred in alumni network that’s really strong and does things.
You can come to our conference, which will be taking place June 20th and 21st in Chicago this year, or the following year, it will be in Albuquerque. The conference rotates so that at one
point in time it’ll be close to you and you can come and join, but you don’t have to be a member of HIP to be, to come to the conference. Everyone is invited.
Mmm, that takes me to the last, I guess, opportunity is anybody can be a member of HIP. We have opportunities for folks that are just emerging professionals. Well, shall we say, that are starting their career. And so it can be as cheap as $150 or you can be a full member for $250 or you can be an organizational member, but you can be a member of HIP enjoying what I called our Collective Corazón, be part of our movement.
Or you can follow us on social media. We put a lot of attention into social media because we know that people get their information that way. So we’re always pumping out information
through social media. So following us on social media is—it would be wonderful as well, because that’s how we communicate and we share what’s important and what’s happening. And you all in the community share back to us.
Comó corazón, like the heart, right? It’s a loop and it’s important for us all to be in communication.
Villarreal
That’s awesome. Well, thank you, Ana Marie, so much for your time today. And thank you for all the wonderful work that you’re doing at Hispanics in Philanthropy. It was a wonderful opportunity
to get to know you and learn about your career track over the years, and I definitely look forward
to staying in touch. And thank you again for everything.
Argilagos
Likewise, Felida, it’s such a pleasure to meet you and I look forward to seeing you again.
