Speaking Up & Out – Sandy Vargas’ Legacy of Change

By Ann Harrington

Sandy Vargas never expected to be able to leave a financial legacy. She grew up in modest circumstances, with Mexican-born grandparents who came to Minnesota in the 1920s as part of the migrant stream. “My grandparents were janitors and maids,’” she said. Yet her grandmother “spoke out no matter what,” she recalls, and told her, “Don’t ever let anybody treat you like a second-class citizen.”

Sandy took that advice to heart and has been speaking up and speaking out for women and for her community for decades. Over a long career in public service, including stints as Hennepin County Administrator and president and CEO of The Minneapolis Foundation, she helped open doors for women and people of color and strived to improve the delivery of government services and better the lives of all Minnesotans. She has brought her voice and energetic leadership to an array of nonprofit groups, but she is especially proud to have helped shape the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota (WFM) from its early beginnings.

To Achieve, Lead, & Care for Community

That’s why Sandy has chosen to make a planned gift to WFM from her estate. Of all the organizations she’s been involved with, “this one manifests, I think, both the imagination and the aspiration for women to achieve, to lead, to care for community in a way that most others don’t.”

Sandy first became involved with WFM in the 1980s, before it existed as an independent foundation, in its infancy as a dedicated Women’s Fund within The Minneapolis Foundation. As a trustee of the Women’s Fund, she helped chart the direction for what would become the first women’s foundation in the country. “We were pioneering this whole idea of women taking the lead, especially in philanthropy,” she said.

From the beginning, she said, that initial group of women was focused on solutions that would go deep and solve real problems. Sometimes that meant taking risks on funding women’s organizations without a proven track record. And that approach brought pushback from the old guard, she remembers. Sandy was one of the few people of color in those discussions, a government employee who at the time didn’t even have a college degree. And yet, she remembers, “I was one of the only voices that would speak up and speak out.”

Leading from a Young Age

She credits her confidence, in part, to her parents making education a priority. They didn’t have much money—her mom was a health aide who later became an LPN; her dad was a sheet-metal worker who had been wounded in World War II—but they scraped together the money to send her to an all-girls Catholic high school, St. Margaret’s Academy (now Benilde-St. Margaret’s). A good student, Sandy thrived at St. Margaret’s. “Being with women just allowed our voices to be loud and strong,” she said. “I got used to being able to participate at that level,” which later gave her the wherewithal to stand toe-to-toe with men in settings where there were few, if any, other women.

As the oldest of eight kids, five of whom were significantly younger, Sandy often found herself in the role of a kind of “second mother” to her siblings, even holding down the fort when her parents went on vacation. “I have to say that I think I’ve always been in charge,” she said.

A Career of Service

Sandy’s leadership skills got her noticed early. “People would tap me for things,” she recalled. While working in government, she co-founded the Hispanic Women’s Development Corporation and the Minnesota Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and chaired the Minority Issues Advisory Committee at the Met Council.

She didn’t get her college degree until her mid-40s, attending what is now St. Catherine University on weekends. Soon after, she won a Bush Fellowship to earn her master’s degree at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, which set her up for her most prominent jobs, managing a $2 billion budget as Hennepin County Administrator and then, at The Minneapolis Foundation, overseeing the management of $700 million in assets and the distribution of more than $45 million in grants each year. She retired from The Minneapolis Foundation in 2016 but continues to be active as a leadership coach and member of several nonprofit boards.

Giving to Make a Difference

Sandy has been a steady financial contributor to WFM over the years but reengaged recently under Gloria Perez’s leadership, serving as a trustee and on the steering committee for the comprehensive funding campaign. “I’m so proud of where the Women’s Foundation finds itself right now,” she said. For one thing, she said, the organization is much more diverse than it was 30 years ago. But also, “They’re tackling deep, deep intractable problems,” she said. “The fact that they became an anti-racist organization and really took that on, with all the bumps and lumps that come with that, is really a very proud moment.”

Divorced, with no kids, but devoted to her seven siblings and many nieces and nephews, Sandy was surprised to realize she had the means to look after her family and leave a significant legacy to WFM.

Her gift is a vote of confidence in the foundation’s mission, and a vision for the future in which girls and women can live without barriers and speak out boldly on the issues that matter.
She also hopes her gift will inspire others: “I want to be that person that says, ‘Hey, if I can do it, you can do it too.’”

Get Involved

To learn more about making planned gift and how you can leave a legacy for women and girls in Minnesota, contact Chris Jenkyns, Senior Manager, Donor Engagement & Stewardship, at 612-236-1820 or chris@wfmn.org.