The 2012-2013 Fiscal Year (FY 2013) was a year of transition at HSF

A New Headquarters

In April 2012, HSF had a small handful of staff, including contingents in Denver, San Francisco, Georgia, and New York. As part of a larger initiative to update the organization’s goals and effectiveness, HSF’s Board of Directors made the decision to consolidate operations and move HSF’s headquarters from San Francisco to Toyota’s corporate offices in Southern California. Toyota offered HSF an opportunity to rent office space within its signature building, Toyota Plaza, located in Gardena, California. In May, HSF secured a three-year, $3 million grant from Wells Fargo, the largest corporate donation HSF had ever received, to date.

Fernando Almodovar, CFO

Chief Financial Officer Fernando Almodovar was hired in July, bringing a wealth of experience from the corporate and non-profit sectors to his new role, including having served one of the largest CPA firms in the U.S. and stints in consumer products that took him to markets in Mexico and throughout South America.

Fernando’s first major tasks were shutting down the operation in San Francisco and moving it to the Los Angeles area. This was the first of many additional transition-related responsibilities he assumed at the time. Another major step Fernando implemented was hiring a new finance and accounting team, a process he had completed by the end of the fiscal year.

Under Fernando’s leadership, preparations for the move to Southern California took place throughout the summer and fall of 2012.

In October, as transition activities continued, HSF began negotiations for a possible merger with the Hispanic College Fund (HCF), headquartered in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1993, HCF’s mission was to prepare the next generation of Hispanic professionals by awarding scholarships and working with high school and college students through various field programs.

The move to HSF’s new headquarters in Gardena, California took place in November 2012.

Fidel A. Vargas, President and CEO

On January 2 2013, Fidel A. Vargas began his tenure as HSF’s new President & Chief Executive Officer. Fidel came to HSF directly from a seat on our Board of Directors and from being a founder and managing partner of a private equity firm that managed over a billion dollars in assets.

As a six-time recipient of HSF scholarships that led to degrees from Harvard University and Harvard Business School, and a distinguished career in both the public and private sectors, Fidel brought HSF an unusually diverse range of skills. The Board viewed his love of numbers, experience in investing and managing capital, and his long history with, and allegiance to, the organization as being particularly relevant to leading the team through a magnitude of change HSF had not seen since its founding in 1975.

Marcela Bailey, CIO

In early February, Marcela Bailey joined the executive team as Chief Information and Marketing Officer, coming to HSF from a 22-year stint in the entertainment industry. Her first task was streamlining the organization’s processes and assessing the vendor landscape, in order to develop HSF’s technology and digital strategy, coined “HSF 2.0.”

HSF 2.0

HSF 2.0 began with the vision that we would develop the capacity and scalability within our office to utilize the best technology, process automation, and analytics to enable the organization to grow and advance. Technology would provide the means to achieve the most efficient operation possible, including streamlined fundraising, internally and from the donors’ perspectives, while increasing substantially the engagement of Latino families, HSF Scholars, Alumni, staff, and supporters, through socially networked communities and tightly coupled Social Media, Digital Marketing, and the full power of the latest and best Information Technology.

From that point, on, transparency and engagement became the guidelines for working with HSF’s existing vendors and new corporate partners, as well as internally. For example, the senior team initiated Open Communications and Best Practices programs for the staff.

The senior team developed and drafted a Restructuring Plan, which was approved by the Board of Directors in March.

Meeting with Innovators

That month, the Team also reached out to confer with a top innovator. They traveled to Chicago to observe and gain insight from President Obama’s Technical Advisory Team. We met with Rayid Ghani, Chief Data Scientist of the “Obama for America” campaign, as well as Dan Wagner, Chief Analytics officer, Dylan Richards, Director of Engineering, and team members Gabriel Burt, and Kit Rodolfa. We gleaned insights to President Obama’s strategies of using data and analytics to reach out to America during two successful elections, and how we might incorporate these, or similar strategies, into HSF’s overall roadmap. We closed our books for FY 2013, showing a distribution of $36.4 million in scholarships – the largest number of scholarship dollars awarded in one year, from the time of HSF’s inception.

By the end of 2012, we had also surpassed the $400 million mark in the number of scholarships awarded, since our founding. Our cost structure showed that HSF was spending 91 cents of every dollar donated, on scholarships and programs, with 83 percent of each dollar going directly to students in the form of scholarships. .

^$1,000,000+ Donors

• Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
• Anonymous

^$500,000-^$999,999

• Wells Fargo & Company
• Georgia Opportunities
• Marathon Oil Corporation
• The Procter & Gamble Company
• Lowe's Companies, Inc.
• Walmart Foundation

^$200,000-^$499,999

• McNamara Family Foundation
• Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. and Distributors
• The Kresge Foundation
• Toyota Motor Sales USA
• Target Corporation
• College Futures Foundation
• Univision Television Group Inc
• Peierls Foundation
• The Gilbert & Jacki Cisneros Foundation
• Time Warner Inc.
• USA Funds
• Bank of America Corporation
• Exxon Mobil Foundation

^$100,000-^$199,999

• FedEx Corporation
• Darden Restaurants
• The UPS Foundation
• GE Foundation
• AT&T Foundation
• The Coca-Cola Company - Global HQ
• Altria Group, Inc.
• Monsanto Fund
• Nissan North America Inc
• Freddie Mac Foundation
• Walton Family Foundation, Inc.
• ALPFA
• HSBC - North America
• McDonald's Corporation
• Royal Prestige
• The Chrysler Foundation

^$50,000-^$99,999

• American Honda Motor Company
• Yum Yum Donuts
• The Clorox Company
• Morgan Stanley Foundation
• The Coca-Cola Foundation
• The Goldman Sachs Foundation
• The California Wellness Foundation
• Erie Insurance Group
• MasterCard International Inc
• Hewlett-Packard Company
• Goya Foods Inc
• Macys Corporate Services Inc
• Verizon Foundation
• Staples Foundation for Learning Inc
• BB&T Charitable Foundation
• Marsh & McLennan Companies
• Nielsen
• GE Hispanic Forum-Summit
• Colgate-Palmolive Company
• Discover Financial Services
• Entergy Corporation
• General Mills Foundation
• General Motors Company
• Google Inc.
• NBC Universal
• Shell Oil Company Foundation
• Southwest Airlines Co.
• The New Mexico Alliance for Hispanic Education
• Travelers Foundation
• UnitedHealth Group Incorporated

^$25,000-^$49,999

• CVS Caremark Corporation
• Chavez Supermarket
• H.J. Heinz Company Foundation
• Carrera-Joffe Foundation
• Mazda Foundation USA Inc.
• Payless ShoeSource
• Lumina Foundation
• MetLife Foundation
• Ernst & Young Foundation
• Regions Bank - Birmingham
• Delta Air Lines Foundation
• AXA Foundation
• GE Aviation
• The PIMCO Foundation

^$10,000-^$24,999

• Sandisk Corporation
• Teach For America
• IDT Corporation
• LAUSD Combined Charitable Campaign
• BMW Manufacturing Corporation LLC
• McKesson Corporation
• National Basketball Association
• The TJX Companies, Inc.
• Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company Foundation
• HISPA - Teradata
• Telemundo Dallas
• AGL Resources
• American Express Foundation
• Corinthian Capital
• Dean & Margaret Lesher Foundation
• Estée Lauder Companies
• Fox Deportes
• Northrop Grumman Corporation
• PennantPark
• Sara Lee Foundation
• Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc.
• The Medtronic Foundation
• Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America, Inc
• S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation
• Hilton Worldwide
• Robert Half International Inc.
• Principal Financial Group, Inc.
• Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund
• Galan Entertainment Inc
• Georgia Power Company
• Meta Lilienthal Scholarship Fund
• Sony Pictures Entertainment
• Southern California Edison
• The Bank of New York Mellon
• The Daniel Foundation of Alabama
• The Richard Eaton Foundation, Inc.
• The Xerox Foundation
• Union Bank N.A.

^$5,000-^$9,999

• Cox Enterprises Inc
• The Kroger Co.
• Automatic Data Processing, Inc.
• Brinker International
• L'OREAL USA Inc
• Time Warner Cable - West
• Chubb Group of Insurance Companies
• The Siragusa Foundation
• Raytheon Company
• Bank of the West
• Cardenas Markets Inc.
• Cincinnati Bengals
• Cintas Corporation Contributions Program
• Golden Eagle
• HBO
• Honda of Alabama
• Penn State
• Univision Arizona 33

^$1,000-^$4,999

• Armstrong Atlantic State University
• The NEA Foundation
• Choice Hotels International
• Pantelion Films
• United Way of New York City
• Charleston County School District
• Hospital Corporation of America
• The Imlay Foundation Inc.
• Univision of Atlanta WUVG TV
• A-Mi Hacienda
• Edwin Gould Foundation
• Hispanics Avanzando Hispanics
• Verizon Communications Inc.
• Paradigm
• Apollo Management, LP
• Cincinnati State Technical and Community College
• Diaz Foods Inc.
• Fred R. Fernandez & Irma R. Rodriguez Foundation, Inc.
• Legg Mason Charitable Foundation Inc
• Sidley Austin LLP