Conexion Americas provides financial, entrepreneurial and small business education and assistance to the Hispanic community in Nashville, TN. One of the founders of this non-profit entrepreneurial venture is Jose Gonzalez, a graduate of Belmont University’s Massey School MBA program. The specific services they provide to the Nashville Hispanic community include:
– Financial literacy education
– A homeownership program
– Taxpayer education and assistance
– Small business education, networking opportunities and peer interaction
Jose worked on the planning for Conexion Americas while in his MBA program. The idea evolved over time and he says that the final outcome looks nothing like the original idea, he credits being part of the MBA program as being a major catalyst in getting Conexion Americas started.
“Part of the reason why I decided to go to business school was so that I could reevaluate my career path. When I was going through my MBA program at the Massey School, I determined that I wanted to find something where I had a distinct competitive advantage but that I also felt passionate about. After many months of conversations and evaluation of various ideas, I was lucky enough to find two partners that shared vision, values and had tremendous energy. We pent a couple of months putting together a business plan and decided to launch the organization.”
Conexion Americas builds upon the experience and history of the Hispanic Family Resource Center (HFRC), a nonprofit organization founded in 1995 to provide information and referral services in Spanish and help Hispanic families and individuals connect with needed resources.
In 2002, the HFRC Board of Directors faced the challenge to respond in a comprehensive way to the needs of the growing Hispanic immigrant population of Middle Tennessee. They wanted to broaden the scope of the organization and have greater impact in the community. However, the organization had limited capacity to respond to this challenge.
Simultaneously, Jose and his partners were developing a business plan for a new Latino organization that would work to assist the Hispanic communities of Middle Tennessee to improve their living conditions. After learning about the HFRC Board’s desire, Jose and his partners approached the existing organization and proposed to combine efforts: The HFRC would provide the infrastructure and seven-year history; the new group would provide a new vision, new leadership and capacity for implementation.
In April of 2002 the HFRC Board embraced this opportunity and a renewed organization was born: Conexion Americas. Since then, the original information and referral service of the HFRC has evolved into the Spanish Help Line for Middle Tennessee in collaboration with the Crisis Intervention Center. New programs in the areas of social, economic and civic integration have been developed and launched.
Funding for the venture came from various sources. The ‘seed’ money was primarily provided by some of the larger local foundations in Middle Tennessee.
“In that sense, raising money for the venture was not much different from a for profit venture where ‘angel money’ would provide the basis for growth. We prepared a business plan, went around the city, pitched the plan, and the ‘investors’ looked at the market opportunity, the management team and the implementation plan and they believed and provided initial support.”
The biggest challenges have been the continued search for financial support to sustain the programs they have launched. One of the biggest surprises is the support and overall positive attitude and image that main stream Tennessee has of the immigrant community.
“This community is recognized as hard working, family oriented and making strong contributions to the society and economy of Tennessee. Unfortunately however, there is an anti-immigrant ‘vocal minority.’ We spend more time than we would like, educating, responding and working against the anti-immigrant movement than we would like or anticipated.”
Jose sees a bright future for the social entrepreneurial venture he helped to found.
“We’re still a young organization. We’re consolidating many of the programs we’ve launched over the last three years. I’d like to see Conexion evolve in its resources, both human and financial, to be able to get to a point where I feel comfortable saying that this organization is here to stay and will be here 20 years from now.”
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