Frank Sanchez

Frank Ismael Sanchez built a career as one of New Mexico's most active grassroots community organizers through his work with a wide range of local, regional, and national organizations. These experiences influenced his goals to work against the various racist and discriminatory practices affecting Mexican-Americans in this region. He obtained a bachelor's degree from the Colegio Tlatelolco in Colorado where he majored in Political Science and Education. He also attended Eastern New Mexico University (ENMU) in Portales.

As co-founder of Southern New Mexico Legal Services in 1976, he was the only non-lawyer board chairperson of a legal services organization in the country during this period. He began to work against the state's system of gerrymandering, bringing suit against the state of New Mexico (1982) challenging the legislative redistricting law in coalition with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project (SVREP). Sanchez went on to spearhead a series of voting rights lawsuits throughout the 1980s and 1990s which successfully challenged legislative, school board, city council, county commission, judicial, and other voting districts in New Mexico.

Sanchez' work for the Youth Project (founded by the Center for Community Change and later known as Partnership for Democracy during the 1990s) coomenced his ten year tenure with this foundation, covering the six states of the southwest providing grants and technical assistance to a wide range of community organizations. Later on, Frank Sanchez became the Field Representative for the Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project (SVREP), followed by a position as the Program Director of The Rural Initiative for the New Mexico Community Foundation, 1995-1997. In 1997 he began his current position as the Roswell based Program Officer for the Needmor Fund, a family foundation based in Boulder, Colorado.