Director charts rebound for Roxbury-based Latino agency

Yawu Miller

In the four years since William Rodriguez took the helm at La Alianza Hispana, the Roxbury-based social service agency has been through some of its most trying times, struggling to make payroll as state funding and funds from foundations dried up in the post September 11 economy.

In the hardship, Rodriguez saw opportunity, steering the struggling nonprofit through a much-needed re-organization.

“In the old days, we were all about quantity,” he said. “We looked at all the community’s needs and tried to meet them. What we didn’t do is look at what we do well.”

Founded in 1970 when there were no major organizations serving the needs of the city’s Latino population, La Alianza had by the 1990s grown into a major entity with seven departments and 22 service areas housed in two buildings at the corner of Dudley St. and Blue Hill Ave.

But as the state cut funding for human services and foundations began cutting grants, La Alianza began to flounder. Rodriguez said the organization was overdue for an overhaul.

“We’ve always had a high-end reputation, but we’ve always had a low-end operating structure,” he said.

The agency’s downward slide began with the departure in 2001 of former director Carlos Martinez. La Alianza went one year without a director before Rodriguez took the helm.

“We were in a lull and we had no leadership,” Rodriguez says of the period. “Our infrastructure was poor and our systems were outdated. Our employee base was large, but our funding was going the other way.”

At the same time, the state began streamlining its guidelines for funding social service programs, spurning smaller service providers in favor of larger organizations. La Alianza began losing contracts.

After hard times hit, Rodriguez began re-organizing. The agency consolidated its seven departments into three divisions: work and learning, administrative services, and health and human development.

Rather than trying to craft programs to meet their clients’ every need, the agency now helps refer Latino clients to appropriate agencies in the area.

“It’s a different mindset for our agency,” Rodriguez said of the new emphasis on referral. “But we don’t want to get into the trap where we do everything but don’t do it well.”

The Health and Human Services Division is now running under an integrated case management model, Rodriguez says, where service providers work as a team to provide clients with a continuum of services.

There has been no reduction in the volume of services provided, however. La Alianza’s English-as-a-second-language programs remain among the city’s most popular with a waiting list of more than 500 people at any given time.

But in addition to simple language instruction, the organization offers vocational ESL programs linked to careers including automotive repair in collaboration with the Urban League and the Asian American Civic Association.

“It’s shown that three different organizations from different backgrounds can work together in a constructive way,” Rodriguez said. “It’s about working in partnership.”

La Alianza has also taken a collaborative approach to its after school programming, partnering with individual schools for its Groupo Latino program.

The group’s Health and Human Services Division is working with Tufts University’s Epidemiology Department on a study of the health of Puerto Ricans, looking at factors such as stress and diet.

By taking more collaborative and innovative approaches, La Alianza has been able to regain the trust of major funders, including the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and Reebok. Rodriguez said the Boston Foundation, the United Way and the Hyams Foundation continued to fund La Alianza through its most challenging times.

Rodriguez says the support of the foundations helped keep La Alianza afloat during its reorganization. As a result, the agency is now on stronger footing and is ready to thrive, he said.

“We’re re-positioning ourselves to be a voice in the Latino community,” he said.