UnidosUS Announces $50 Million Affiliate Legacy Fund to Strengthen Community Organizations Serving Latino Families
AUSTIN, Texas — Today, UnidosUS, the nation’s largest Latino civil rights and advocacy organization, announced the launch of its $50 million Affiliate Legacy Fund: a quasi-endowment designed to provide flexible resources to UnidosUS Affiliates — Latino community-based organizations serving children, families and workers across the country — to help them respond to the challenging climate for the Hispanic community in recent months.
“The Latino community is facing a convergence of assaults on our well-being unlike anything we’ve seen in recent memory,” said UnidosUS President and CEO Janet Murguía. “Compounding the emergency is the challenge that organizations — who are often turned to for everything from food assistance to legal support — are themselves pushed toward the breaking point, facing budget shortfalls and threats to their ability to operate at the very moment that demand for their services is surging. The UnidosUS Board of Directors approved this bold approach — an Affiliate Legacy Fund answers the call we have heard from our Affiliate Network, responding to immediate needs while also building the infrastructure for further philanthropic investment and lasting impact.”
The announcement follows a period in which Hispanics face overlapping threats: Mass deportation enforcement has placed the community, nearly 80% of whom are U.S. citizens, at risk of arrest, detention and death; the number of Latino families that lack health insurance, already the highest of all groups, is expected to skyrocket once Medicaid cuts and other measures in the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” take effect; food insecurity, especially among Latino children, is projected to increase; and students, still struggling to recover from learning gaps associated with the pandemic, face more academic setbacks as the government intends to abolish the U.S. Department of Education.
Less than 2% of philanthropic giving in the United States is invested in organizations that serve Hispanic communities, who comprise roughly 20% of the nation’s total population. That chronic underinvestment is difficult in any period, but Murguía said it has become particularly dangerous in this one, as the real risks community members face are not the product of a downturn or a natural disaster but of deliberate federal policy.
The Affiliate Legacy Fund will enable UnidosUS to invest in its Affiliate Network, which includes approximately 300 community-based organizations nationwide, allowing them to make strategic choices about where resources are most needed in their communities. The endowment will provide flexible and unrestricted resources to strengthen their work in key areas — for access to health, housing, education and workforce skills; to promote innovation; to enable rapid responses to crises happening right now; and to build power. The first tranche, $5 million invested in more than 120 communities, is already out the door and supporting emergency assistance, legal support to mitigate the impacts of mass deportations and practices that help organizations build resiliency.
“UnidosUS exists to expand opportunity, with our eye fixed on the kind of lasting progress that grows wealth, fosters health and builds power,” Murguía said. “Our hope is that we can leverage this endowment fund with additional philanthropy at all levels to generate investments that lead to measurable change for children, families and workers — and build stronger communities.”
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