Dave Dardis

Los Gatos, CA

I embarked on my third career when I joined the Hispanic Foundation of Silicon Valley (HFSV) team more than five years ago.

After completing a wonderful 39-year career at IBM, I pursued a “retired” career doing a variety of volunteer activities.  Through the Encore Fellowships program offered by Encore.org, I was brought to the HFSV. Building on my sales and marketing corporate experience, I now focus on fundraising activities there. I enjoy bringing funding to the organization to support our growing portfolio of education programs.

I easily connected with the HFSV, an education-focused organization, as my wife is a teacher and both of my parents were teachers. The HFSV’s goal is to eliminate the substantial education achievement gap for Latino students and the resultant employment gap of Latino adults. I want to help create more education programs that make a difference in the Hispanic community we serve.

The HFSV has a history of success with a strong Board and CEO and a growing portfolio of education programs. The HFSV’s business strategy is to determine specific community needs, formulate solutions, create partnerships with subject matter expert organizations and community leaders, and deliver effective programs to help improve the quality of life for Silicon Valley Latinos and the region as a whole. The HFSV helped deliver educational programs that have benefited more than 3,000 students in grades K-12, college students, parents, and Latino professionals this past year. Fundamentally, the HFSV is an education focused nonprofit organization.

I focus on obtaining grants from corporations and foundations to help deliver these programs. In my five years at the HFSV, I have obtained more than $2 million dollars of grant funding directed to our education program.

The HFSV is a successful and growing nonprofit organization, with a 170% budget growth over the last five years. The HFSV does all of this with a small staff of 4.5 full-time. A recent funder of the HFSV’s largest grant stated, “We cannot believe how much you get done with such a small staff.”

In my encore, I have a “feel good” job. I do my fundraising work on a part-time basis, usually working only 20 hours per week, and regularly have four-day weekends with lots of family time. I have leveraged my long corporate career in sales and marketing by switching to fundraising, not a significant shift. What a job!!!