Forget retirement, says outgoing CPLC CEO Pete Garcia

Pete Garcia leans back in a deep leather chair in his office on west Buckeye Road, shoes untied for comfort, dressed casually in a polo shirt, talking about his upcoming retirement, succession and how he hopes his new organization — among the country’s first Hispanic-run foundations — will change the way Latinos give to charitable causes.

Garcia – nicknamed “Big Dog” by his buddies for his stocky chassis and reputation for doggedly getting things done – isn’t exactly the stereotypic CEO wearing a $1,200 designer suit and a big smile on a business magazine cover.

Yet Garcia, born in a central Phoenix Latino barrio, is one of the country’s high profile CEOs. He earns an annual salary in the $250,000 range and heads the nation’s second-largest nonprofit, with an annual operating budget of $69 million and 900 employees statewide.

When he became head of Chicanos Por La Causa, Inc. in 1984, the small social service agency had an annual budget of $900,000.

Today CPLC operates offices in 14 of the 15 Arizona counties. “The organization has grown because there is such a need for the services that CPLC provides,” Garcia says.

Chicanos Por La Causa is ranked No. 2 in the nation in Hispanic Business magazine’s annual listing of the top 25 Hispanic non-profits. CPLC was the only organization in Arizona that qualified for a top 25 ranking.

CPLC was founded in 1969 by a group of Latino student activists that included Ronnie Lopez, Tommy Espinoza and others. The goal was to directly address racial discrimination against state Hispanics in education, housing, and jobs.

The agency provides a wide range of services, including social programs such as mental health care and domestic violence prevention. It offers charter schools, scholarships and other education programs in Arizona’s school districts. It is involved in real estate and housing, building affordable housing for seniors and families.

CPLC also focuses on economic development, including small business loans, a credit union, commercial development and work force training for adults and youth.

Garcia is so enmeshed in the growth and culture of CPLC that many ask, “What will CPLC look like without Pete?”

THE VICTORIA FOUNDATION

After 23 years, Garcia will step down from leading the agency in mid September.

The announcement was made last April at an annual CPLC dinner at Wild Horse Pass. It is expected that next month chief financial officer Edmundo Hidalgo will replace him as CEO.

At the dinner Garcia will unveil the Victoria Foundation, a new Phoenix-based, philanthropic nonprofit that he will lead. He says the funds raised by the dinner will go to sweeten the initial year’s pot by about $300,000.

“It’s not that I’m retiring, it’s more like I’m ‘re-wiring’,” he says. “Our community still has a lot of needs to be met.”

Pete named the Victoria Foundation after his late mother, Victoria.

“I wanted to honor my mother for the perseverance she went though to keep us out of jail,” he says.

The foundation will open offices at a building near 12^th Street and Buckeye Road in January, 2008. The organization will begin giving out grants of $3,000 to $10,000 in fall of next year. In addition, Garcia plans to offer low-lease, incubation space in the building for Latino nonprofits.

The areas on which his foundation hopes to have an impact are economic development, affordable housing, arts and culture, and education.

And the way he is modeling his foundation’s cash in-flow is creative and unique in the Latino community. In addition to corporate and foundation money, Garcia says he has commitments from 10 different Latino families to give annual contributions of $10,000 to $25,000. Grants given out will carry the names of these families.

In this way, he hopes to build a tradition of family giving in the Latino community modeled (on a small scale) on philanthropic families like the Rockefellers.

“The Latino community needs to participate in donating money in a donor-advised manner,” Garcia says.

In addition, Chicanos Por La Causa, Inc. will contribute hundreds of thousands of dollars to incubate the foundation for the first three years, under an agreement with the CPLC board of directors. CPLC will also pay Garcia’s salary, comparable to his current CEO salary.

“My job will be to grow the foundation,” Garcia says.

Although early grants will be distributed within Arizona, he wants the foundation’s outreach to eventually extend from Calexico, Calif. to Corpus Christi, Texas to New Mexico.

Garcia points out that although the foundation gave out hundreds of millions in grants last year, Latino organizations received less than 1 percent of that.

“If we don’t get it together within our own community, we are not going to be getting it from other places,” he says. “We’ve got to get to a point where we are not just asking for money from the White man.”

The Victoria Foundation can help the state’s struggling Latino nonprofits – some without offices – so they build their capacity to address the Latino community’s needs on their own, he says.

Garcia says anyone who expects he’ll be fishing in retirement will be disappointed.

“I hate fishing,” he says.