RDF Celebrates Hispanic Heritage

Rachel Jimenez
September 30, 2021
Blog, Moving
61 likes
RDF Celebrates Hispanic Heritage

At the Raza Development Fund, our Familia is thrilled to celebrate Hispanic Heritage month. Just as we are passionate about serving our Latino community, we enjoy spotlighting our heritage and culture.  

The Latino culture is rich and vibrant – our language, food, art and music – brings beauty to our families, to our communities and to the country as a whole. In our Latino community, we stick together and help each other out. We carry this into our work every day at RDF as we strive to provide capital, capacity and cariño into our community while having pride in our roots.  

This is the energy we’ll carry into our new building.  

As a national nonprofit, RDF’s mission is to responsibly invest capital into the community and we recognize that in order to do that, we must be where the community needs its capital. For us, South Phoenix more than made sense. It brought us back to our roots, where the inspiration for a Hope Fund, now RDF, was given life.  

In 2020, we moved from our previous corporate headquarters in downtown Phoenix and returned to the heart of South Phoenix. We’re excited to welcome the community to our new building this fall located at 410 E. Southern Ave. Phoenix, AZ, 85040.  

In true RDF style, our building will showcase our cultural heritage.  

This sketch provided by Martin Moreno is subject to change.

Award-winning muralist Martin Moreno, in partnership with The Sagrado, South Phoenix’s first nonprofit art gallery, will paint new life into the west side of the building with a beautiful artistic creation. The community will be able to enjoy the vibrant colors of the “mestizo” mural that will celebrate human dignity in diversity, heritage and tradition to reflect the origins of the mixed populations in South Phoenix through religious festivities, arts and communal rituals. The mural will feature one of RDF’s pillars: La Virgen de Guadalupe – the Empress of the Americas capturing its Mestizo heritage. With it, we embrace the essence of our community and honor its past, present, and future.  

After admiring the mural in full detail, visitors will head to our front gates and immediately notice their uniqueness. Metal art, designed by Sam Gomez, owner of The Sagrado, will capture the Latino culture through a floral concept. We are proud to work with Moreno Welding, a local South Phoenix business for over 40 years, to fabricate, install and bring the design to life. It’s all about securing property through beautification.  

The beautiful touch of Latino culture on its exterior will match the interior design.  

Renderings provided by Gould Evans, a Phoenix-based design studio

We collaborated with Phoenix-based studio Gould Evans to create a design concept for the inside of our new headquarters that captures the history and feel of the RDF brand and the history of our logo.  

The RDF logo includes the imagery of a bird, specifically an Aztec “Cuauhtli” (eagle). This element celebrates our heritage – ethnicity, roots, family, culture and traditions. It reflects the fusion of various races and offers inclusion and hope.    

Our Familia looks forward to celebrating all of these heritage touches with our community. The new space will be more than simply a corporate office. It will be a new home for community organizations, like Promise Arizona, with open working areas. RDF also plans to offer technical assistance workshops for local business owners – our South Phoenix neighbors.  

In the meantime, if you live in Phoenix, drive over to 7th Street and Southern Avenue to see local artists at work enhancing our new home with rich Latino culture.  

Stay connected on our website and social media: Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn for updates on the building and an upcoming community grand opening event.  

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Rachel Jimenez
Rachel Jimenez serves as Raza Development Fund's Communications Department Manager. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communications at Arizona State University. Rachel has extensive experience supporting content marketing efforts for national and state non-profits, as well as small businesses.
Phone 602-417-1400
Raza Development Fund (RDF) is the largest national, Latino-focused nonprofit Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI). Driven by a mission to close wealth and opportunity gaps in Latino and other under-resourced communities across the United States, RDF provides responsible and attainable financial solutions to community-based organizations focused on health, education, affordable housing, climate resilience, homeownership, and entrepreneurship. RDF was founded in 1999 as a support organization to UnidosUS, the nation’s largest Hispanic civil rights and advocacy nonprofit, formerly known as the National Council of La Raza. As a testament to its exceptional financial strength and impact, RDF stands out as one of the few CDFIs with a prestigious AA- S&P rating. Since its inception, RDF has invested more than $1.3 billion across 38 states, leveraging over $6 billion in additional capital.
In accordance with federal law and U.S. Department of the Treasury policy, this institution is prohibited from discriminating based on race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability. Submit a complaint of discrimination, by mail to U.S. Department of the Treasury, Office of Civil Rights and Equal Employment Opportunity , 1500 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20220, (202) 622-1160 (phone), (202) 622-0367 (fax), or email crcomplaints@treasury.gov (email).

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