Episode 28 – Empowering the Hispanic Community

Lisa Graham (00:00):
Welcome back to the Change The Rules podcast, as always, I’m Lisa Graham. And with me, we have Dan Graham. Together, we founded Notley, an organization creating opportunity and community for other non-profit organizations. And this episode, we’re lucky enough to have Carla Piñeyro Sublett who manages the Hispanic Impact Fund at ACF and the studio to talk about how the fund is supporting the Hispanic community in Austin. Welcome, Carla, and we’re so happy that you’re here.
Lisa Graham (00:23):
So can you actually start out by telling us how you got involved with ACF and the founding of the Hispanic Fund?
Carla Piñeyro Sublett (00:28):
Sure. Well, I had the awesome opportunity to work with Mike Nellis, the CEO at ACF when I was chairing the board of Thinkery. And he and I worked together along with a slew of other people to help transition from Austin Children’s Museum to Thinkery in 2011. And that work really led him to recruit me to the ACF board a couple of years ago. And I really have to give Mike the credit because Mike is the sort of forward thinking, big thinking community leader in town that’s not afraid to take on the hard thing. And one of the things that he really wanted to wrap his arms around was the Hispanic community here in Austin. And hence was born the Hispanic Fund. He asked myself and Gerardo Interiano if we would be interested in co-chairing it, and the rest is history.
Lisa Graham (01:13):
How do you fund organizations? Where does the money come from? Are they grants? How is this money funneled into the non-profits?
Carla Piñeyro Sublett (01:23):
Sure. Well, first we have to raise the money to actually create the fund. And thanks to Gerardo and Google, they made a very sizable seed investment to the fund for $250,000. And then we were able to get other corporate donations like Rackspace to join in. And then the rest was really raised through the community. Once we raised about $750,000 over the course of about a year, we had enough critical mass to begin to distribute funds into the community. And last year we had our first event where we distributed about $180,000 to key members of the community that were addressing the issues that we felt were most important at this point in time.
Lisa Graham (02:00):
And talk to me about your process for deciding who gets funding. And I think that that would be interesting to hear, because I’m always interested how organizations select who to fund. But then also I think that kind of will steer us into what issues are facing the Hispanic community in Austin.
Dan Graham (02:17):
I think it’d be interesting too to just maybe even back up from there, like, what is the goal of the fund? What are you trying to accomplish?
Carla Piñeyro Sublett (02:22):
Yeah, so a couple of things. First, the community foundation recognized that the data around Hispanics in Austin is really pretty alarming. So, today, Hispanics make up 33% of Austin. Hispanic youth will be the majority by 2020. And by 2050, Hispanics will exceed 50% of Austinites. Now that doesn’t seem like a very big deal until you start to look under the covers of this demographic. And the reality is it’s pretty mortifying. So the average Hispanic makes $17,000 a year compared to the average white person that makes $40,000 a year. Over 28% of Hispanics are in poverty by definition. And less than a quarter, less than one out of four kids in the Hispanic population, is kindergarten ready. So there are some leading indicators around this particular population, of which I’m a part of, that are pretty alarming.
Carla Piñeyro Sublett (03:18):
So if you care about the future of Austin, then you have to care about the future of this demographic. And what ACF set out to do is really to create a report around these statistics. So part of why we know this data is because we researched the state of Hispanics and the socioeconomic divide in Austin. And these figures just bounced off the page. And once we identified this, we built a committee and that committee identified pillars that we would focus on, that we felt were important, like early childhood education and economic stability. And then we called for an RFP. So we actually reached out to non-profits throughout the city of Austin that are serving this community and said that we would want to distribute funds. And we gave them the opportunity to submit proposals with small videos. And we whittled it down to a top 10-12 and then to a top 6. And then we held an event where we actually showed the videos and let the members of the fund, so the donors of the fund, actually vote on who would receive the funds. And that’s how we distributed our first hundred $180,000 in the spring.
Dan Graham (04:23):
I’m curious. I know with sort of an ecosystem level investment like this and where you do research, you come up with what are the top 10 metrics we should be tracking as a city? And what do we want them to be versus where are they trending toward currently? And then identifying the community players that are already focused on these things. How do you get a specific set of organizations that exist in the community to buy into a broader city-wide picture? You know is that where the money comes in is you’re creating incentives for them to go tackle these metrics that you’re identifying?
Carla Piñeyro Sublett (04:59):
Absolutely. As a matter of fact, that’s actually where I think the Austin Community Foundation comes into play. Because they’re not just convening the nonprofits around these particular metrics or issues, but they’re also convening donors around them and they’re bringing the two together. So, for example, we set out to address early childhood education because of some of the statistics around high school graduation for Hispanics and recognizing that early childhood education is a big part of that. And as a result, then certain non-profits actually catered their programs that they were getting funding for around those particular outcomes.
Carla Piñeyro Sublett (05:34):
Now, in terms of the outcomes specifically, Dan, they vary. And we’ll have to iterate on them over time. So initially for us, it was really about reach, are they reaching the right groups? Are they reaching the right subject matters? And then over time, as we begin to collect data and we start to see how this money’s performing, then we’ll be able to iterate on those metrics.
Lisa Graham (05:54):
And so I guess the follow-up to that in a way too, is what does success look like for the fund? What are your goals? Is it funding a certain number of organizations? Is it returns on that investment? What does that look like?
Carla Piñeyro Sublett (06:07):
Yeah, it’s a little bit of everything. For me, one of the most important things is actually shining a light on this community in Austin and bringing awareness to the issues that are impacting this community and the statistics that we just discussed. Secondarily it’s taking some of them on. So success looks like actually being able to move the needle on economic stability for Hispanics. On being able to reduce the amount of Hispanics that are in poverty. Being able to improve the amount of kids that are kindergarten ready going into pre-K and kindergarten. So I think, Lisa, it’s really aspirational. But at the end of the day, it’s really just about awareness and where we’re focusing dollars.
Lisa Graham (06:46):
Are some of the issues that you guys have looked into and have funded, are they unique to Austin? Or are these statistics that we’re seeing across the country?
Carla Piñeyro Sublett (06:55):
Yeah, so we actually looked at reports from other cities and, surprisingly, they’re not unique to Austin. So these are issues impacting this demographic group and other minority groups around the country. But I think what was surprising is that in a city like Austin, who’s thriving economically, and if you look around us, it looks like everything is rosy. It was kind of shocking that this was happening in our very own backyard.
Lisa Graham (07:18):
You mentioned too, some issues that have come up with other funding in the city. You know, we hear a lot about early childhood education and kindergarten readiness affects a lot of different populations. Do you guys do partnerships with other funding groups? Or do you guys focus on what you all are doing with the Hispanic Fund? Or is that something that you look at when you’re funding organizations?
Carla Piñeyro Sublett (07:40):
So I think one of the beauties of ACF is that they’re a convener, like I mentioned earlier, and it’s not just about us as a Hispanic Fund doing partnerships. It’s also about bringing together non-profits to partner to tackle the same issue. Because oftentimes we see that non-profits are trying to solve for the same thing. So rather than have them compete for dollars, they can actually work together and achieve a lot more. And that’s what this process has enabled in a lot of ways.
Lisa Graham (08:05):
Right. And one of the things too that I’ve noticed, for example, ACF also has a fund that focuses on women specifically, and in looking at the organizations that they fund, a lot of them were similar to the ones that you just were discussing. And so I feel like there’s this really great way, like you were saying, ACF does a great job of convening people to look at these issues to really better the entire community.
Carla Piñeyro Sublett (08:29):
And to that end, Lisa, I actually sat on the women’s fund for quite some time while we were simultaneously standing up the Hispanic Fund, because what we wanted to make sure is that we weren’t creating silos at the community foundation. And we wanted to make sure that we were aligning and amplifying our work. So while obviously the women’s fund is focused on a distinct set of issues, some of them do correlate to what we’re working on in the Hispanic Fund and overlap as well.
Lisa Graham (08:54):
And you’d mentioned as well, when you guys first started, you raised, it sounds like about $750,000, and gave away $180,000. So is there a goal to how much you all would like to raise and how much you’re going to give away? Is this creating an endowment that then you can invest with the fund? Or what is the goal for creating a successful fund?
Carla Piñeyro Sublett (09:15):
I’m smiling right now because every time we would come up with a fundraising goal, I would double it. So, you know, if it were up to me, we’d be raising $25 million for the Hispanic Fund. So the goal is to blow the doors off a million dollars, which I think we can definitely see line of sight to that. One of the things that we’ve been talking about as of late is increasing our endowed funds for that very reason, Lisa. Because I want to make sure that what we stand up with the Hispanic Fund (and Gerardo and Mike feel the same way, as does the committee), we want to all make sure that this money is going to exist in perpetuity. That this isn’t just a flash in the pan, and that we can continue to build on the programs that we’re funding today, and that we’re not putting pressure on future committees and future non-profits to continue to have to raise these funds. We want them to be available consistently year after year.
Dan Graham (10:06):
And just to kind of go back to the ecosystem question one more time. One of the challenges is who’s accountable. And so, you know, if these horrible metrics where we are now within the Hispanic community and all these areas we need to be improving, who kind of owns the success or failure of that? You know, how do we really hold ourselves accountable for the donor dollars that we’re raising? And how do we distribute that accountability in a real, tangible way throughout the ecosystem into the various organizations?
Carla Piñeyro Sublett (10:42):
Yeah, gosh. I mean, I think that is absolutely the right question, Dan. In my mind, I want to say the Hispanic Fund and Austin Community Foundation are really putting themselves out there, because we’re issuing a report on a regular cadencewhich will show how these metrics are performing in the city of Austin. Now at the same time, I also want to be very clear in that these are the sort of numbers that don’t change overnight. It could take decades to actually move the needle on some of these numbers. So really having the right people in the room that have both a short-term and a long-term point of view in terms of how to impact these metrics in the city of Austin is going to be important. I actually think changing something like this is going to be a 10 to 50 year plan. It’s multi-generational. But to your question around accountability, I’d love to say that we are taking a first step at that. And it’s a fair question, but I don’t know that I necessarily have all the answers on that. And you could say our city should be holding itself accountable. You could say the people of Austin should be holding themselves accountable, but it’s a really hard question.
Dan Graham (11:43):
I mean the more people that share accountability, really, that’s sort of another way of saying no one’s accountable. You know, because everyone will always be able to point a finger at someone else and say, “Well, you know, there’s a lot of factors, and lots of organizations. And the reason we didn’t succeed is really due to these other people’s results.”
Carla Piñeyro Sublett (12:02):
As business leaders, we’ve learned if you put a number on one person and they’re going to deliver it. You know, if you put it on a whole organization, good luck.
Dan Graham (12:09):
And maybe that’s Mike, right? Like maybe Mike’s like, yeah, if we don’t hit this percent, then I haven’t done my job.
Carla Piñeyro Sublett (12:13):
Yeah. I don’t know that we’ve gotten that far with it yet. I think it’s a really valid and important question, but it also means that we need to have people in it that are in it for the long haul.
Lisa Graham (12:26):
I think that’s one of those really valuable things that just people in the non-profit community and in government as well need to be thinking about. I think a lot of these really tough issues aren’t tackled because people want to fund something that they can see results within six months to a year or five years. With something like early childhood education, you will not see the returns on that for 15 or 16 years, just for a specific class of students.
Carla Piñeyro Sublett (12:47):
Yeah. I recently went to Bhutan with my family and I was blown away by the way their government is set up. And one of the things that I was really impressed by, and just to give you some perspective, Bhutan has a similar population to Austin. But they have a a hundred year plan as a country. And they have pillars by which they have a lens by which they make decisions. And that just really blew me away that they’re really thinking about the long-term and that they’re going to shape the future of that country based on that plan.
Lisa Graham (13:17):
Can you brag a bit on some of the organizations you guys have funded? I’d love to hear what they’re doing in the community. Because we love sharing ideas and hearing what folks are doing here that we can then share with other communities.
Dan Graham (13:29):
Yeah, who’s doing it right?
Carla Piñeyro Sublett (13:31):
Two of my favorites that we (I shouldn’t say favorites), but two of my favorites from from our last round were AVANCE and Todos Juntos. And what I thought was really interesting about what they’re doing is they’re doing parent and child education and community building. So for me, in particular, being a Hispanic woman and knowing the importance of family and how critical that is to our culture, but also how critical it is to this multi-generational success. The fact that they are investing in parenting skills, building community amongst families within communities. For me, that was just a really key cornerstone to the success of Hispanics. So I really liked the work that they’re doing. Those are two organizations that we actually supported in this last round.
Lisa Graham (13:39):
So when you guys look to fund an organization, are there metrics that you all look at? Or is it scalability? Is it historical data? What do you guys look at and what is appealing to you all as an organization when you’re funding?
Carla Piñeyro Sublett (14:32):
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we look at everything from reach, to cost per head of a program, to the sustainability of that program. If the program is not new and has been in existence, any sort of historical trends in terms of outcomes of the program. There’s this whole series of due diligence that happens before they even make it the voting table, so to speak, that’s done in coordination with the grants committee and with ACF staff members. And it varies from organization to organization, because as we talked about before, this isn’t really a metrics driven culture. The non-profit world is not really a metrics driven culture. So, to a few organizations, this is something that’s relatively new. They don’t have the data readily accessible. To others, they’re really starting to evolve and recognize the importance of it. And they have it more at the ready,
Dan Graham (15:22):
Is it the job of ACF to say, okay, we’ve identified a metric, maybe it’s around kindergarten readiness. And we see where that’s headed over the next 20 years. And we know how many kids that’s going to be that are going to create this opportunity for us to go fix this challenge. And if we look at the organizations that are out there and we total up their resources, then we know they can impact, in that particular metric, this many children a year. And so there’s a gap. Or we don’t have enough kids that are being served. Or we don’t have enough organizations that are focused on the right set of things to resolve this metric in the way that we want, so we’re going to help stand up new organizations or we’re going to specifically dictate to the existing organizations here’s how you have to pivot in order to get funds from us. Or what role do you see ACF playing in that sort of overall metric calculation with the existing organizations that are out there?
Carla Piñeyro Sublett (16:19):
Yeah. I’d love to say that’s our job and, you know, Dan it’d be great if you were on the board. Oh wait, you are. And we’re in the process of building our strategic plan now. So this is our opportunity to actually influence that. I think ACF is definitely moving in that direction to answer your question. It’s a very data-driven organization, especially now that Mike is at the helm. With the series of reports that we’ve been producing around the community, it’s enabling that. I don’t know that we’ve gotten to the point exactly as you’ve described where we’re actually pointing the gap, and quantifying it, and then stating over what time we’re going to close that gap and how. But we are definitely moving in that direction.
Lisa Graham (17:02):
And I know there’s no silver bullet to solve any community issues, but from the research that you all have done and the organizations that you all have looked at, what would you say are some of the top issues that need to be addressed in the Austin community to start moving in the right direction?
Lisa Graham (17:16):
Yeah. So for me, it’s inequality. There’s a huge socioeconomic divide in our city. And then everything that trickles down from that. So the lack of kindergarten readiness amongst our children, and it’s not just in minorities, it’s across the board. Just the state of education in our city. But I really think it all stems from socioeconomic inequality as probably the biggest issue that we’re facing.
Lisa Graham (17:44):
And is that more of an issue to be addressed through workforce development? Is that the whole spectrum of education?
Carla Piñeyro Sublett (17:52):
Yeah. I do think it’s the whole spectrum of education. I think there’s opportunities in all aspects of education. And it’s not just childhood education, it’s adult education as well. And it’s developing the next generation of workers as the workforce evolves in our city, based on the needs of our city. So yeah, I think there’s lots of opportunity. To be more optimistic, the thing that I think is really great is all of it actually represents an opportunity for us as a city. It’s all upside. So if our city is this great to live in right now, based on these economic indicators, and we are so ripe with opportunity, then what’s the possibility if we actually start to think in a more cohesive way as a city and start thinking about how we bring along every socioeconomic background. How we raise all boats. Then I think that that’s going to make a huge impact on the city in which we live. And that has huge economic benefits to everyone who lives here. So, I think it actually represents upside.
Lisa Graham (18:54):
So it’s more kind of looking at our community as a whole, what do we need to take advantage of? Because we do live in a place that you were saying, you know, a lot of economic development. People are constantly voting it a great place to live, but there is a lot going on here that we need to fix. And so how do we take advantage of those opportunities that are presented to us?
Carla Piñeyro Sublett (19:15):
In such a way that it lifts everyone up.
Dan Graham (19:17):
So Carla, shifting gears a little bit, I understand that there’s a pretty interesting project that you and Kathy Terry are working on.
Carla Piñeyro Sublett (19:26):
So it’s actually Kathy Terry’s baby that I’ve agreed to co-parent with her. But yes.
Dan Graham (19:35):
It’s nice when you get to see the baby first and then decide if you want to be a parent.
Carla Piñeyro Sublett (19:47):
But, so really, Kathy created this beautiful product which enables social giving via your mobile phone. And, you know, the two of us are taking on cultural change. It’s called inLieu. And it’s in the App Store. The idea was born out of the fact that Kathy was racing to a friend’s house and realized she didn’t have a host gift. And we’ve all been in that situation where we didn’t have a bottle of wine or a candle and we show up empty handed and feel awkward. And then she thought to herself, you know, really does she need another bottle of wine? And I’d much rather give a donation to her favorite charity in her name and do something nice for her. And, you know, I have to give it up to her that she actually created it. And it’s a great interface. It’s a great product. And really what it does is it enables you to say thank you. To let someone know that you’re thinking about them. To proactively donate on someone’s behalf in a social interface. And it’s a game changer. I think it has a real opportunity to change the way we think about gift giving. And it’s all about less stuff and more kindness. And from my perspective as well, it’s also an opportunity to activate people in the community to do good. So, we launched in March, we’ve already distributed more than $60,000 into the community, and we’ve only just begun. So I can’t imagine with the potential of this really is, and that’s just in Austin alone.
Dan Graham (21:34):
Well, so you’re getting, I’m getting very excited about this. So, I’m curious, in addition to donating on someone’s behalf, can I just donate directly from my own account?
Carla Piñeyro Sublett (21:47):
Thanks for the plug, Dan. Not only can you donate directly, you can also do a campaign, so you can actually fundraise from the tool as well.
Dan Graham (21:57):
And connect my credit card.
Carla Piñeyro Sublett (21:59):
Yep. It’s super easy. Just a couple of steps.
Lisa Graham (22:04):
I love too how you were saying, because I think so much of what we’re doing these days is dictated by our phones and what we can do that’s easy. And I think that this is a great way to really just change someone’s behavior, almost on a permanent basis, because once you get in the habit of using something like that, it’s just going to be the immediate thing that they think of.
Carla Piñeyro Sublett (22:22):
Well, yeah. And selfishly, on a personal front, I am terrible about writing thank you notes. Actually no, I take that back. I’m terrible about sending thank you notes. I will write them. I will address them. And I will never mail them, which is so embarrassing. And so this for me was an awesome solution, because I’m always wanting to send a little something to thank somebody and just run out of time or don’t get it out the door. And like you said, this is on your phone. It’s super easy. It’s a minimum donation of $10. The recipient never knows actually how much you’re donating. They just know you did something nice on their behalf. And it’s a great gesture.
Lisa Graham (22:59):
I also love the idea of, well, this is my personal thing, this is not endorsed by inLieu. But, in a way, kind of imposing some of our family values on other people. So I always forget to get kid’s birthday presents. Not my kids, but other people’s kids. So you’re going to the birthday party and most people just these days say no gifts anyway, but what a great way to then just kind of like, “Hey, here’s 15 bucks. We know so-and-so really likes to dance or whatever it is, let’s find a nonprofit.” So how do you find the nonprofits though? So like I’m coming to your house. I know some stuff about you. How do I figure out where I’m going to donate it?
Carla Piñeyro Sublett (23:51):
Well, there’s a couple of different ways you can do it. First of all, I should mention the back end links into GuideStar. And for folks that don’t know what GuideStar is, it’s basically a database of all the nonprofits in United States. So you can look up any nonprofit and link to it to make a donation. Secondarily, if you go in and set up your profile, you can actually pick your nonprofits. So I, for example, have a profile in there that lists Thinkery, lists Austin Community Foundation, lists Texas Conference for Women, and so on. So if somebody wants to do something for me, all they have to do is click on my name and they’ll see that. Otherwise, you can always just ask somebody what their favorite nonprofit is if it’s the first time that they’re getting an inLieu and do it from there.
Carla Piñeyro Sublett (24:30):
And then the last way to do it is you can actually tag onto someone else’s gift, which is a neat way to do it. So, for example, somebody was celebrating their birthday the other day. And I saw an inLieu that several folks were actually giving inLieu’s in lieu of a birthday gift to this person. And I was able to just tack on to one of them and double the donation, because I didn’t know what their favorite nonprofit was, but I realized that they were coming through my thread. So I was able to jump in.
Lisa Graham (24:57):
And then you just introduced them to the idea of a matching fund/donation. So, you mentioned the Texas Conference for Women, how did you get involved with them?
Carla Piñeyro Sublett (25:06):
So, when I was working at Dell, actually Karen Quintos, our Chief Marketing Officer at Dell at the time, was sitting on the board. And as she was rolling off, she teed me up as her backfill. And I’m super grateful to her because it was an awesome opportunity. And that was about six years ago now. So I’ve been sitting on the board for six years, actually, currently Chair the board. And it is been an honor to be part of this organization. And it’s actually part of a national series that a lot of people don’t know that, but it’s not just the Texas Conference for Women. So there are conferences around the United States, in the Valley, and also in Boston, and Philadelphia. So it’s just a great organization to be a part of.
Dan Graham (25:47):
There’s maybe a little bit of modesty, but I think since you got involved, the Texas Conference for Women has taken off. Like it has become something that is so different from where it started. Who were some of the speakers that have come to town over the last year or so? Can you describe it just a little bit?
Carla Piñeyro Sublett (26:04):
Yeah. So the credit really goes to Laurie Dalton-White, who is the founder of the conference, and had the vision for building this amazing conference. But we’ve had some just amazing speakers over the last several years. I mean, one of my personal favorites before I even joined the board was Maya Angelou. But we’ve also had Amal Clooney who spoke a couple of years ago. Viola Davis last year was amazing. Diana Nyad. We’ve also had Sheryl Sandberg. This year, Reese Witherspoon is coming. So, diverse group of speakers on a diverse set of topics, all of which have been hugely inspiring. And I think, from my perspective, the coolest part of the conference is when you walk the halls. There’s 7,500 women from completely different backgrounds at all different levels. So, you’ve got women that are just entering the workforce, with women that own their own companies, and are in the C-suite. And everybody is getting something out of it, which from my perspective is super powerful.
Lisa Graham (27:02):
Well, it’s one of those events that I feel like, as soon as it opens up, people are waiting by their computers to buy their tickets. And it sells out in hours. And what is the overall mission?
Carla Piñeyro Sublett (27:19):
The overall mission is really to inspire and empower women. And you know, speaking of data, there’s been some interesting statistics that the conference has tracked over the last several years, and it’s really amazing that there’s actual material numbers around women that either get a better job or promotion coming out on the heels of the conference. So, I think it really provides a day of just true inspiration that kind of rattles women’s cages a little bit and shakes their cobwebs off and makes them really go for it in their personal lives and their professional lives.
Lisa Graham (27:54):
Providing legitimate tools for them to go back and really use and take advantage of. That’s great.
Carla Piñeyro Sublett (28:00):
And one of the things we’re also working on with the conference is touch points throughout the year. So, we want to make sure that this isn’t just one moment in time where folks get inspired and they have to wait another 364 days to get inspired again. So, the conference organizers have done a phenomenal job of creating events throughout the year where folks can continue education, continue to learn about different topics, can get connected to each other, which has been awesome.
Lisa Graham (28:24):
That’s great. Well, thank you so much for being here today. We always love hanging out with you and for all the information on the ACF and the Hispanic Impact Fund. And you can visit www.austincf.org and find the Hispanic Impact Fund under the What We Do tab. The Change The Rules podcast is sponsored by Chez Boom Audio. Chez Boom Audio is the leading audio post-production company for TV, film, advertising, audio books, and podcasts in Austin, Texas. And we’re so honored to work in their studio with the wonderful Shayna Brown. You can find her studio at https://chezboomaudio.com/. And if you want to hear more, please subscribe to Change The Rules on iTunes. Thank you.