-: I'm Cory Paris.
I'm the Director of Development
for the Hispanic Health Council.
So the organization is a nonprofit organization
which was founded by a few mothers
who were activists at the time.
They were mothers who were immigrants to the area
during the height of the Puerto Rican Labor Movement
in the 70s.
One mother had actually taken her child to the hospital,
and they could not understand,
the doctors could not understand her language of Spanish,
so they did not give the mother necessarily
the best care for her daughter.
Daughter got back in the car, they were going home,
her daughter was an infant, died.
So this started a whole movement to find
health equity opportunities and solutions
for underprivileged and low-income families
and families of color all across Connecticut
and has really expanded into a network
that focuses on cultural competency,
social justice, and also health equity
on many different fronts.
So as Director of Development for the organization
I forecast and strategize
on the organization's ability to raise money.
Whether it be putting together
a capital campaign for the organization,
bringing in new donors, individual donors,
or corporate and foundational donors,
and trying to be able to really merge
and bring together new relationships for the organization
and the communities surrounding the organization.
So in my role, what I'm really focused on
is bringing those individual dollars
and really changing and bringing forth
a new narrative for the organization so that we're able
to expand our cause and our services
to people all over the state.
As we face these issues we need to have
a ground swell of support from those in the community
who have either always benefited
from a lot of these services
or know people who benefit from these services
or just in support of these services.
We actually see that the most giving folks
to any organization happen to be those of color,
people of color, so usually women,
African Americans, Latino Americans, and Asian Americans
give more than their European American counterparts,
but it's where they're giving their money to.
While white Americans usually probably
give a lot of their money to institutions
and they give at larger levels,
you have more marginalized communities
giving at lower levels but more often.
So they give to their churches,
health community centers, to local nonprofits,
where they see that money really going to good use.
And so for us to build that narrative
of trying to get them to support our cause
is what's most important because those are the folks
that are really going to be able to be loyal,
continuous donors throughout the next couple of years.