The Latino Community Foundation - A Guardian Angel

The Latino Community Foundation was established in 1989. At the very beginning, it was an affinity group of the nonprofit United Way of the Bay Area to boost workplace donations to Latino charity organizations. It was not until 2016 that LCF became an independent California-wide foundation. Masha Chernyak is the Senior Vice President of Programs and Brand Strategy at LCF. She gives a brief introduction regarding its mission. "We really do three things at the foundation. We inspire philanthropy buying for the Latino community. We take those dollars, and we invest them in Latino-based organizations that are the trusted anchors in our communities, and then we unite leaders and advocate for change."

One of LCF’s key missions is to support Latino-led nonprofit organizations to advance education, health and safety, civic engagement, and youth leadership in Latino communities across California. The Latino Nonprofit Accelerator is a project launched to support small entities with big dreams to better social welfare. LCF also offers funds to established Latino-led non-governmental organizations to carry out its objectives. As part of its Rapid Response Initiative, LCF created the NorCal Wildfire Relief Fund in 2017 due to wildfires in California’s Napa and Sonoma counties.

Another philanthropic program established by the foundation is the Latino Giving Circle Network (LGCN), which invites a group of intergenerational individuals to invest in Latino-led entities to promote the welfare of Latinos in California. To date, LGCN is the largest Latino philanthropic giving circle in the US, with more than 500 civically engaged leaders. It has invested around US$1.7 million in more than 100 Latino-based organizations in California.

LCF established a dedicated program, the “Love not Fear Fund,” to bring relief to Latinos affected by the pandemic. In addition, LCF also launched campaigns to increase vaccination rates in Latino farmworker communities across California.