Press Releases

Hispanic Federation has issued the following statement in response to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agency’s increased raids in Latino communities throughout the United States.
Read more...

Hispanic Federation has issued the following statement in response to the Obama Administration’s just released executive actions addressing gun violence in the United States.

“Today, President Obama announced a series of important measures to reduce the incidence of gun violence in our communities. Hispanic Federation is proud to support the President’s common sense reforms and congratulates him for taking the initiative on this important issue.
Read more...

Pathways to Academic Excellence is an early childhood education initiative focused on children under the age of 5 and designed to strengthen parent-child interaction, parenting strategies, and access to high-quality early childhood education. The program, which was first developed three years ago, encourages and empowers Latino parents, educators and Latino non-profits to intervene early in children’s lives, helping to support families in low-income communities.

Thanks to a generous grant from the Hearst Foundation, we will be able to expand Pathways to an additional 150 parents over the course of 2016. We will provide an early childhood education curriculum to low-income, Spanish-dominant and/or bilingual Latino parents. It is estimated that our work with 150 parents will reach 450 children. Through workshops and easy-to-use learning materials aimed to boost the skills of their children, we will ensure that their children are better prepared to succeed in school.
Read more...

December 16, 2015 (New York, NY) – Hispanic Federation has released the following statement in response to the exclusion of bankruptcy protections for Puerto Rico in Congress’ Omnibus Spending Bill.

“We join millions of Puerto Ricans on the island and throughout the Puerto Rican diaspora in expressing our disappointment and outrage that the U.S. Congress’ Omnibus Spending Bill failed to include bankruptcy protections and other measures to aid Puerto Rico during its economic crisis. Despite the clear, bleak reality facing the U.S. Commonwealth and the advocacy of thousands of Americans who have called on Washington to act, Congress has missed its best opportunity to assist Puerto Rico and has turned its back on 3.5 American citizens who call the island home. Sadly, Congressional Republicans systematically refused to accept their moral, fiscal and legal obligations to represent and fight for millions of American citizens in Puerto Rico who now face an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.

The House and Senate Republican leadership completely disregarded uniform calls – including by the U.S. Department of Treasury – to grant Puerto Rico bankruptcy and debt restructuring powers. They also failed to fairly and completely remedy the longstanding structural inequities that leave Puerto Rican health care underfunded, passing only minimal health care reforms that do not adequately address the looming health care funding shortfall that threatens to shut down a vital safety net and major economic engine for Puerto Ricans.

In the aftermath of this failure by Congress, Puerto Rico is left to fend for itself. With massive, looming debt payments due in the coming weeks, Congress has essentially forced Puerto Rico’s government to adopt even more austerity measures and shut down vital public services. The message from Congressional Republicans seems clear: Puerto Rico does not matter.
Read more...

Hundreds of Elected and Community Leaders Mobilize to Nation’s Capitol to Push Congress To Take Urgent Action On Puerto Rico

Historic Mobilization of Leaders from 10 States and the Commonwealth Gather for National Day of Action on Puerto Rico

(Washington, D.C.) December 2, 2015- In an historic mobilization to Washington, D.C., hundreds of Puerto Rican community, government, labor and faith leaders, and allies joined for a National Day of Action for Puerto Rico to urge Congress to pass legislation addressing the growing fiscal and humanitarian crisis on the island of Puerto Rico. Leaders from as far as Florida, Ohio, Massachusetts and Illinois met with dozens of Members of Congress today. The National Day of Action comes on the heels of yesterday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Puerto Rico’s fiscal crisis, as well as a congressional briefing.
Read more...

When Hispanic Federation was founded, our purpose was clear: support Latino-led community-based organizations in New York City. In the quarter century since, we have expanded not only our scope of work, but our reach. In 2006, we launched a satellite office in Washington D.C. In 2012, we did the same in Connecticut. This June, we opted for a warmer and much-needed home in Florida.
Read more...

Earlier this month we awarded more than $350,000 in capacity-building grants to 20 Latino community-based organizations. Capacity-building support for Latino grassroots service providers and advocates? Well, YES, that's what we do! Click here to find out more about these twenty amazing organizations and the funding we're grateful to provide them.

Here are all 2015 CORE awardees. Please join us in celebrating them!
Read more...

Earlier this month we awarded more than $350,000 in capacity-building grants to 20 Latino community-based organizations. Capacity-building support for Latino grassroots service providers and advocates? Well, YES, that's what we do! Click here to find out more about these twenty amazing organizations and the funding we're grateful to provide them.

Here are all 2015 CORE awardees. Please join us in celebrating them!
Read more...

October 22, 2015 (New York, NY) – Hispanic Federation has issued the following statement in response to the Obama Administration’s just released Roadmap for Congressional Action on Puerto Rico. Today, Antonio Weiss, Counselor to the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, will testify before the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on the Administration’s plan for action.
Read more...

Puerto Rico and its more than 3.5 million residents are in crisis. As economic and financial conditions have worsened in recent months, we have partnered with community, government, philanthropic, labor and academic leaders and institutions from across the United States and the island to form a national effort to support Puerto Rico. Our message is clear: Millions of American citizens in Puerto Rico are in danger of losing much of what they have unless our federal government acts with bold purpose to stabilize and grow the island’s economy. The time for action is now.
Read more...

Within the first decade, the Hispanic Federation’s CORE (Community Organization Resource Expansion) Initiative was established to help support Latino nonprofits with grants for core operating expenses. Whether it was underwriting the costs of a financial audit or supporting a construction project to make an agency’s building accessible and efficient, the CORE Initiative provided grants that private philanthropy and government funders typically eschewed. “The CORE Initiative was designed to provide our agencies with the financial support for projects they needed but would have difficulty funding from traditional sources,” said Hispanic Federation President José Calderón. “Some of these projects weren’t attention-getting but they were critical to the success of our agencies.” HF’s signature grant-making program is central to the Federation’s mission of fortifying Hispanic nonprofits.

This year, the Hispanic Federation has awarded $368,000 to 20 member agencies to support their core operations. Among this year’s grant recipients are local and national agencies from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

Here are all 2015 CORE awardees. Please join us in celebrating them!
Read more...

Entre Familia is a series of workshops providing member agency staff with capacity-building trainings and professional development opportunities. The trainings are offered to ensure that our members and grantees are receiving the latest information about the nonprofit industry’s best practices. Expert facilitators, including HF senior staff members, engage participants with information vital to the growth and sustainability of our nonprofit community. Workshops cover topics such as event planning, fundraising, financial management, communications, information management, board development and more.
Read more...

There are few issues as important and as complex in the Latino community as college readiness, retention and graduation. Latino young people face persistent systemic barriers that prevent them from attaining a college degree, resulting in the lowest educational attainment level of any group in the U.S. Only 14.5 percent of Latinos aged 25 and older had earned a B.A. degree and only four percent have completed graduate or professional degree programs. On average Latino students arrive on campus with less academic preparation, less social and monetary capital, and more fiscal challenges. As a result, they are also more likely to take a longer (and less certain) route to a college degree, often attending community college before moving to a four-year institution. These challenges are also more likely to make Latinos dropout along the way, behavior that is strikingly similar to non-Latinos from low socio-economic backgrounds, who are also less likely to persist to a B.A. degree.
Read more...

On September 3rd, Hispanic Federation and a group of more than 30 Latino community-based organizations from throughout New York City met with Mayor Bill de Blasio to talk discuss some of the key challenges facing our communities.
Read more...

Asthma is at crisis levels in Latino communities. Latinos have disproportionately high rates of emergency room visits, hospital admissions and deaths caused by the disease. In New York City, asthma causes havoc in Latino communities from the Bronx to Newark, New Jersey. This month, Hispanic Federation is fighting back against asthma. In partnership with AstraZeneca, through its media networks and family of community-based organizations, HF aims to implement a community education and advocacy campaign, Hispanic Lung Health Education Campaign. The campaign kicks off on September 17, 2015 with a week-long Hispanic Asthma Call to Action when HF will activate 12 member agency sites across New York City and North New Jersey (Essex and Hudson counties), as designated asthma resource centers for Hispanics.
Read more...

HF was founded in 1990 after a study highlighted inequities facing both low-income Latinos and the nonprofits which serve them. And while Latinos have scored notable demographic, economic and social advances since then, 2015 finds Hispanics, especially low-income, low-skill Latinos still facing many serious challenges. Latinas, for instance, continue to experience disproportionate reproductive health disparities as compared to the general population of women in the United States, yet are not fully engaged in fighting for their reproductive and health access rights. And Latino and immigrant low-income, low-skilled workers in New York City face significant institutional and human barriers to finding employment.

Back in 1990, the Ford Foundation was one of our most important partners. That partnership began a new chapter this past June, when the foundation made a historic, two-year investment of $500,000 in the HF’s general operations.
Read more...

Whether it’s the local bodega or barbershop, runaway energy costs can eat into profits for small businesses. That means less money to grow businesses and hire more workers. From 2014 through the beginning of 2015, Hispanic Federation partnered with Con Edison, the Office of NYS Senator Adriano Espaillat, and the NYC Economic Development Corporation (EDC) to help small businesses throughout Washington Heights and Inwood lower their energy costs. Local businesses received free consultations on controlling energy costs through Con Edisons’s energy-saving experts and direct financial assistance for the installation of energy-efficient equipment.
Read more...