Are Hispanics Important To You?

August 27, 2008      Admin

For most US nonprofit fundraisers, Hispanics are probably just appearing on the edge of their radar as an audience to target. Indeed, fundraisers prepared to retire within, say, the next ten years can probably do so before they need to show hard results from this population.

But for the rest of you, this is an audience you must learn to address. It’s big. It’s disposable income is increasing. It shares the cares and concerns of most other Americans … but views them through a different lens.

From the recent New York Nonprofit Conference, here are some mistakes and attitudes to avoid, courtesy of Michael Saray of the Hispanic marketing agency bearing his name:

“Just translate the stuff we have.”
“Those people don’t have enough money.”
“Make the tests as cheap as possible.”
“If the test doesn’t work, that’s it.”
“We don’t have a budget for this.”
“We’ll use Maria Gonzales from accounting to translate.”
“We can’t afford to adapt back-end infrastructure right now.”
“We tried that before … ”

He also offers some good advice … take a look at this summary of his remarks.

Tom