The Background

Latinas Represent is a national, nonpartisan organization working to increase the number and diversity of Latinas in public service. Latinas Represent was incubated by the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda as an initiative based on the recognition that while Latinas are serving in record numbers across all levels of elective office, they are still vastly underrepresented when compared to their numbers in the population.

Our Approach

With support from the Ascend Fund, Afton Bloom partnered with Latinas Represent in 2021 to create and implement a strategy that would help the organization grow and expand its reach to all Latinas nationally. We worked with Executive Director Stephanie Gabriela Lopez to refine the organization's mission, vision, values, and programming to support and represent the needs of all Latinas – across race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status and more. Stephanie's vision was to have a multi-pronged approach that included supporting Latinas entering the public service pipeline, serving as a national connector across organizations supporting women in public service, filling research gaps, and pushing for asset-based narrative shifts – all centering the diverse and unique experiences of Latinas.

The Result

Latinas Represent has since spun out as its own entity, fiscally sponsored by Moore Philanthropy. Stephanie has led the team to produce a seminal report on Latinas in U.S. Politics (2022) in partnership with Center for American Women and Politics at the Eagleton Institute of Politics (Rutgers University). Under her leadership, Latinas Represent also piloted a Master Class training program in 2022 that gave Latinas of all political affiliations the tools they needed to understand the political process, develop their own political capacity, and launch a well-run, issue-based campaign. The strategy also positioned Latinas Represent to receive funding from a broader set of donors that shared the organization's vision and values.