“I grew up in a house full of joy and love, where a tortilla con sal y crema from my grandmother was a little bit of heaven.   My father and mother worked in the fields and so did all of us kids.  Hard work was expected, and when we weren’t working in the fields, we made and sold a variety of novelties like hair bows and piñatas.  Yet, there was still not enough money to pay for a safe and sanitary home, proper health care, clothes and other basic necessities.  So the struggle began to understand why and how to change the outcome.”

Francisca Gonzalez Baxa is Filipina and Mexican. She grew up in the Imperial Valley near the Mexican-American border. She is dedicated to creating opportunities though knowledge and access.

Throughout her 26 year career, she has worked with hundreds of nonprofits, assisting them with strategic planning, board development and governance, leadership development, fundraising, facilitation and mediation services, among other things.  She has over 14 years direct experience as a leader, manager, mentor and fund developer/grant writer at a nonprofit legal services organization.

She received a BA in political science from the University of Southern California in 1982 and obtained her law degree from the University of California at Davis in 1985.  She was the directing attorney of the Community Economic Development unit at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles until 2003 when she decided to start her own business.

She has published the following articles in the ClearingHouse Review: “How to Fund your Community Economic Development Work”, “Creating, Preserving and Improving Housing through Community Economic Development” and “Helping Low Income People Get Decent Jobs”.

Francisca lives in Yorba Linda, California and you can learn more by visiting http://www.baxalaw.com. Francisca is bilingual and bicultural in English and Spanish.