Grants Build Capacity, Leadership in Growing Latino Community

Foundation for Louisiana (then, the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation) was one of the first organizations to invest in Puentes New Orleans. Puentes was conceived as a Latino-run, Latino-serving community development organization in 2007 with a mission to address needs for civic engagement, coalition building and advocacy around social justice issues affecting Latinos in the New Orleans area.

Over the past five years, Puentes has grown from a startup nonprofit with a $50,000 budget and only 2 staff people, to a humming organization managing a $400,000 budget, 5 full-time employees, plus part-time and contracted personnel. Puentes now works in 5 fully developed program areas: civic engagement, criminal justice, housing, community organizing and advocacy; the program areas are united in their mission to connect Latinos with opportunities to become citizen leaders and build community assets. Founder and former Executive Director Lucas Diaz was recently appointed by New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu to lead the newly created Office of Neighborhoods.

Foundation for Louisiana is pleased to have recently provided another grant to support Puentes New Orleans' Economic Opportunity Strategy working to develop an asset building initiative targeting low-income Latinos. Through this grant, Foundation for Louisiana continues to invest in increased resiliency via economic opportunity for underserved communities.