Latino Community Foundation - The Isabela Project

The Isabela Project

Hispanic/Latino entrepreneurs traditionally have been under served by financial markets and corporate contracts. For this reason, the Isabela Projects was formed in 2004 by the Latino Community Foundation and the San Francisco Hispanic Chamber of Commerce to promote investment and increase viability of Hispanic/Latino small business. The initiative is to help close the Hispanic/Latino capital parity and procurement gap in the Bay Area raising $75 million to $100 million for an investment pool and significantly bolstering the corporate procurement opportunities available to Hispanic/Latino suppliers.

This effort was an attempt at building, growing and, most importantly, sustaining Hispanic/Latino businesses, as it is one of the main struggles the Hispanic/Latino community faces today. It helps to promote the liberation of Hispanic/Latino businesses and overcome the language barriers that manipulate inter-cultural business deals and relationships. Entrenched market players use their political or financial (and at times, linguistic) muscle to undermine or eliminate emerging markets because they fear the competition created by open access to capital. The program fights a huge problem with capitalism: too often, the capitalists don't share it.