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‘I decided I’m going to make something … culturally relevant,’ said Armando Zumaya (third from left in front row), who in 2018 founded the professional development organization Somos El Poder to address the disparities he saw within the fundraising community.
“As a Latino, it’s hard not to notice what a rarity I am at these events, and even more important, how few representatives from Latinx-focused nonprofits are in attendance,” Armando Zumaya wrote about his experiences attending conferences for fundraising professionals in “Expensive Fundraising Conferences Perpetuate Inequity. It’s Time for a New Approach,” an op-ed published last year in The Chronicle of Philanthropy. It’s a big loss for that community, since these conferences are key to providing professional development opportunities as well as sharing innovative approaches to fundraising, noted Zumaya, whose fundraising career spans nearly four decades, the majority of which has been spent as a major gift, leadership gifts, and annual fund officer on two $1-billion-plus campaigns at Cornell University and the University of California, Berkeley.
“The organizations learning about improving their fundraising are wealthy,” Zumaya told Convene. “One, because they have a positive culture where the organization invests in fundraising,” he said. “Two, because the events are phenomenally expensive” to attend. This creates a massive inequity in the nonprofit space, Zumaya said, where 95 percent of nonprofits have operating budgets under $5 million. According to the National Council of Nonprofits, 92 percent of nonprofits operate with less than $1 million per year, and 88 percent work with less than $500,000.
According to Zumaya, travel, accommodations, and registration fees for fundraising conferences can add up to as much as $3,000 per attendee — an expense that is out of reach for many nonprofits, particularly smaller, diverse nonprofits, that are stretched thin just carrying out their everyday community work. These cost barriers, Zumaya said, enable the already successful nonprofits to learn the latest industry trends, while organizations “led by and for people of color get by on a few grants, some government money, and maybe a fundraising mailing once a year.”
‘We Are the Power’
In response to the disparities he saw within the fundraising community, in 2018 Zumaya founded professional development organization Somos El Poder — translated to “We Are the Power” — which now has 180-plus member organizations. In addition to “Juntos,” its online community for questions and conversations, Somos El Poder offers members several educational programs to help boost their organization’s revenues, including one-on-one consultations with Zumaya, who serves as executive director, or with board members, all of whom are diverse industry veterans; free online courses; and The La Vanguardia Academy, a program designed for Latinx college students and early/mid-career professionals who want to transition into a fundraising career.
“When I first opened Somos El Poder, I made the membership intentionally inexpensive,” Zumaya said. Annual fees range from $100–$900 per year, depending on the organization’s budget, “for tens of thousands of dollars of services you could potentially use,” he said. “When I first started to talk to people about this, they were like, ‘Oh yeah, [organizations] won’t do it. They’ll tell you it’s too expensive. They don’t have time.’ Just a wave of negativity. I decided I’m going to make something so inexpensive, so accessible, so easy, and so culturally relevant, that excuses fizz away.”
The Fundraising Con Ganas Conference requires two people from each nonprofit — including one board member — attend.
Board-certified
Last year, Somos El Poder expanded its learning opportunities by launching Fundraising Con Ganas — “Fundraising With Gusto” — a two-day conference at The Langham Huntington in Pasadena, California, that costs only $550 for two people to attend. Zumaya keeps the registration fee — which includes two hotel rooms, meals, and parking — low by having the conference underwritten. “People have to put some money in” to attend, he said, “but a fraction of what they normally would” to participate in other fundraising conferences.
Zumaya designed Fundraising Con Ganas to not only be financially accessible but to align with attendees’ cultural expectations. Participation requires only a one-night stay, “because our [fundraising] leaders are about 89 percent Latinas,” Zumaya said, “and the vast majority of them have families, so the idea of saying, ‘Come to Philadelphia for four nights’ — it’s not going to happen.”
Also a top priority: That the organization-focused event remained capped at 35–40 nonprofits, with two attendees representing each organization. His secret sauce for the conference having a meaningful impact on participating organizations? The requirement that one of those two attendees must be a board member at that organization.
“For years, I’d go to conferences, hear a pivotal idea that we needed to implement, and come back to a board that was like, ‘No, we’re not doing that.’ It’s beyond common — it’s the exception to have support,” Zumaya said. “When you have a board member go learn about fundraising and come back, they infect the rest of the board” and ultimately build a strong relationship with the organization’s development officer. “People have told me, ‘We learned a lot at the conference, but the best thing is, now I have a better board. Thank you.’”
The conference model is “a buffet introduction to fundraising,” during which nine different types of fundraising are discussed throughout the program in conversations led by Latinx leaders in fundraising. The bootcamp-style curriculum includes topics like designing development plans and cold-calling potential donors. In 2024, the event has grown in more ways than one. Geographically, Fundraising Con Ganas has spread across the country, first hosted at the Chicago Langham Hotel in winter 2024 before another stop in Pasadena last May. In October, a more extensive program will debut at the conference, held at The St. Anthony, a Luxury Collection Hotel, in San Antonio, Texas. There will be an advanced workshop track for returning attendees, Zumaya said, with a focus on peer-to-peer collaboration on industry challenges. “We pack in a lot. We’ve got them for two days — we’re going to give them the whole cake.”
‘Beautiful experiences … should be for people who are doing remarkable things.’ — Armando Zumaya
A Rewarding Experience
When Somos El Poder founder Armando Zumaya decided to launch the Fundraising Con Ganas conference, he wanted to create a “beautiful” and “elegant” experience for Latinx fundraising leader attendees, he said, who are frequently underpaid and underappreciated. “If they go to a training, they pay for a crappy sandwich,” he said. “People who go to my conferences say, ‘I’ve never been treated like this in my entire life.’”
Zumaya tells the host hotels he works with that his conferences require “top-notch” experiences, “because you’re literally hosting heroes,” he said, “and beautiful experiences like this shouldn’t just be for — excuse my language — people getting filthy rich. They should be for people who are doing remarkable things for this country.”
Casey Gale is managing editor of Convene.
On the Web
Learn more about Somos El Poder at somoselpoder.org.