HIP’s member, the Kresge Foundation has jumped right in and is already participating in HIP’s network.. One of its trustees, Maria Otero, will keynote the 2016 HIPGivers Gala on March 10 in Sonoma, California; Kresge has joined HIP as an institutional member, and its grantmaking work aligns with many of the resource needs of the HIP network.
Before being named a Kresge trustee, the Bolivian-born Otero served as Under Secretary for Democracy and Global Affairs and was the first Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy and Human Rights, both during President Barack Obama’s first administration. Otero was also the President’s Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues.
She is a former Economist for Latin America for the USAID Women in Development office and was a microfinance pioneer. She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Otero will speak at the March 10 HIP Gala honoring Latino philanthropy. It will be held at the Sonoma Mission Inn and Spa, following a Leadership Convening.
“We’re very excited about joining HIP,” said Chris M. Kabel, Kresge’s deputy director of the Health Program, “and there are a couple of newer staff members at Kresge who would like to be more involved with HIP.”
“Kresge does not have a specific focus on one particular racial or ethnic group,” he said. “But we have a commitment to leveling the playing fields and expanding opportunities for people of color that historically have been shut out of those playing fields.”
Kresge, which the Foundation Center lists among the nation’s top-20 foundations by asset size with $3.5-billion in assets, provides grants, investments and other activities in six program areas: Arts and Culture; Education; Environment; Health; Human Services, and Community Development in Detroit. The latter program in the Motor City is the Kresge Foundation’s largest.
Kabel said that the Kresge Foundation recognizes that people who are in leadership positions in both the nonprofit and philanthropic sector do not properly represent the diversity of people who are served and in need.
“So we need to fund leadership development for people in the nonprofit sector, particularly Latinos,” he said. “We know we will be a nation of color perhaps by 2045, and we want to make sure our resources go there.”
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