HACER’s mission is to work with Midwest Latino communities to access and generate credible, relevant research in order to affect institutional decisions and public policy. We do so through collaborative research efforts that are timely, methodologically sound, and culturally appropriate. HACER is a nonprofit, community-based research organization that originated in 1988 as a collaborative effort between Ramsey County Human Services, Comunidades Latinas Unidas En Servicio (CLUES), and Metropolitan State University to address the lack of information about Latinos and Latino issues in Minnesota’s public discourse. We are the only advocacy-driven, Latino-specific research organization in the Upper Midwest. As a result, a number of grassroots organizations, service providers, and policymakers have come to rely on HACER to inform their work around institutional and policy issues that impact Latinos throughout Minnesota.