Latinx is a gender-neutral alternative to Latino/a. The term is also used to include people who are trans, queer, agender, non-binary, gender non-conforming, or gender fluid. Its use here is meant to be inclusive of the multiple identities of people who fall into or self-identify as being of Latin American, post-colonial descent.

In order to better serve the Latinx community, funders and nonprofits need to understand both the data and lived experience of the Latinx populations across the US and its territories. The goal of pulling together information about how funding has been directed towards Latinx communities for this five year period is to help funders and grantseekers understand how philanthropic resources are being awarded for Latinx communities now, and what gaps map exist that can inform evolving strategies. According to most recent data, 1.3% of all philanthropic dollars granted between 1999 and 2009 in the U.S. were awarded to Latinx communities, while those same communities now represent 18% of the U.S. population. By building a tool to help the field report on funding strategies with Latinx communities, the sector can more accurately target resources and support both long and short term strategies to build prosperity for all Latinx.

Data in Latinxfunders.org comes from Candid, which collects charitable transaction data from the awarding institutions. These transactions are sourced from IRS information returns (like IRS Form-990 and Form 990-PF), information reported directly to Candid through their Electronic Reporting Program, and other resources like annual reports or grantmaker websites where charitable transactions are available in itemized lists.

Latinxfunders.org includes transaction data identified as relevant to Latinx populations as coded by Candid. Candid assigns Philanthropy Classification System (PCS) codes to both transactions and organizations to describe the specific and general charitable actions, respectively. For this dashboard, Candid has included any individual charitable transaction which has been indexed with a Population code for “People of Latin American Descent” or any transaction awarded to an organization which Candid has identified with a mission or programmatic activities related to Latinx populations, and therefore have been indexed with the PCS population code for “People of Latin American Descent” at the organizational level. Sometimes the population-served data comes from grantmakers via grant descriptions, but for many transactions Candid relies on what it knows about the recipient organizations as they’re indexed in Candid’s database. These grants are disaggregated in the dashboard by grantmaker and by other taxonomic facets (like subject and other populations), but all grants have been determined by Candid’s indexing systems to be awarded to or for Latinx populations.

This dashboard contains only grants awarded by organizations; no contributions from individuals are included. However, the transactions Candid supplies are of various types, including grants to individuals. Please note that while Candid does include them, grants to individuals are much less common in their database than institutional grants awarded to charitable organizations. For a full list of the various types of charitable transactions Candid collects and indexes, see the Philanthropy Classification System’s Transaction Type explanation.

The geographic regions used in this dashboard reflect the grouping of states (plus the District of Columbia) used by the Census Bureau for the presentation of census data. The current nine regions are subdivisions of the four Census geographic regions.

Here are the definitions of each region:

• East North Central: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin
• East South Central: Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee
• Middle Atlantic: New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania
• Mountain: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming
• New England: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont
• Pacific: Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington
• South Atlantic: Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia
• U.S. Territories: Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, and Northern Mariana Islands.
• West North Central: Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota
• West South Central: Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas

Strategy designations are either pulled from Candid based on the grant description, or from direct reporting by the funder. Some grants may fall into multiple strategies.

Hispanics in Philanthropy is on a mission to increase Latino leadership, influence, and equity. Our vision is for Latinos to achieve power, social justice and shared prosperity across the Americas. Over the past 35+ years, highlights include:

• Raising over $55 million to support over 600 innovative Latino nonprofits working on education, health, workforce development and more.  
• Launching HIPGive.org, the first crowdfunding platform geared toward Latino and Latin American nonprofit projects. Since its 2014 launch HIP, has channeled over $2 million USD to more than 500 organizations for local community projects, across the Americas.
• Mobilizing support for the most critical issues facing Latino families, including raising over $1.5 million to support families affected by the current migration crisis, and over $600,000 to support Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.

We invite you to learn more about our programs and strategies for mobilizing resources with and for Latinx communities.

Want to get involved in targeting funding for Latinx communities? Please contact info@hiponline.org.  To have your data included in this map, please contact Candid at egrants@foundationcenter.org.