Scholarship Fund for Latinos Makes a Bold Advance

After dishing out scholarships this spring, Sara Martinez Tucker found the cupboard was bare. Like it was last year. And the year before that.

So she and her associates set off on their annual scramble for donations to help poor Latino students pay for college.

It’s always seemed a struggle at the Hispanic Scholarship Fund in San Francisco, said Martinez Tucker, the fund’s president.

Until she got the telephone call.

A donor, she was told, was interested in the scholarship fund. Could she send some information?

So she sent a packet explaining how the fund, despite its modest funding, has bold aspirations: To double the percentage of the nation’s Latinos who graduate from college.

The donor wanted to know more.

Soon Martinez Tucker was jetting off to Indianapolis to meet the leaders of the Lilly Endowment, a nonprofit foundation set up by the family of the Eli Lilly pharmaceutical company.

She spent an hour and a half on her feet explaining the need: Only 9% of Latinos (compared to 24% of whites and 14% of blacks) in the United States earn college degrees. And she outlined what kind of programs would have the greatest impact.

“They said, ‘We like your ideas. But what will it cost?’ ”

“My hands were shaking,” she said. “But I said to myself, ‘If this has gone on this long, why not ask for it all?’ ”

So she reached deep into her briefcase and pulled out a proposal to help close the education gap. The bottom line: $50 million.

“I waited for people to blanch,” Martinez Tucker said. “No one did. Then I spent 2 1/2 hours defending the $50-million budget.”

After the meeting, she began to question her own boldness. “Here I am from an organization that gives out $3 1/2 million in scholarships and I’m asking for $50 million.”

Any self-doubts were shattered by another phone call.

“Can I put you on speaker?” asked the voice. The Lilly Endowment directors then delivered the news: Yes, they would pay for it. All of it.

“You cannot prepare for that kind of call,” Martinez Tucker said. “At first I couldn’t speak. And when I finally could talk, I was sobbing.”

The $50-million pledge announced last week, the largest gift ever to promote college education for Latino students, propels the Hispanic Scholarship Fund into the ranks of the nation’s largest college charitable organizations.

The Lilly Endowment, said its president, N. Clay Robbins, “was impressed by research showing that low educational attainment is a key barrier to the prosperity of Hispanic Americans, the nation’s fastest-growing population.”

Martinez Tucker hopes Lilly’s donation will do for the Hispanic Scholarship fund what philanthropist Walter H. Annenberg’s $50-million gift in 1990 did for the United Negro College Fund: Secure a permanent place in the major leagues.

The United Negro College Fund, known by its motto “A mind is a terrible thing to waste,” raised $139 million this year for African American college students.

The Hispanic Scholarship Fund plans to spend nearly $45 million out of the $50 million on scholarships and other programs over the next five years.

That translates to about 6,000 academic scholarships every year, with grants of $2,500 to be given most frequently. Besides traditional college students, the grants will be given to community college students, encouraging them to continue their studies at four-year institutions, and to graduating high school seniors, as an enticement to go to college.

The application deadline has already passed for fall scholarships, but the fund--(877) HSF-INFO or 473-4636, https://www.hsf.net--will accept applications in August for grants to be distributed next spring. Applicants are judged on academics, community service, financial need and two dozen other criteria.

About a third of the nation’s Latinos live in California. Yet only 17% of the national fund’s scholarships go to students in the state because Martinez Tucker said the fund has not had great success fund-raising in California.

The final $5 million from Lilly will be held back as a challenge grant, to raise matching funds and establish a $10-million endowment.

That way, the Hispanic Scholarship Fund can count on an annual income from the endowment’s earnings. And its cupboard, after dishing out the year’s scholarships, will no longer be bare.