S04 EP04: Breaking Intergenerational Wealth Cycles in the Classroom
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Chloe McKenzie is a wealth justice expert. She advocates for financial education in classrooms and runs a wealth justice organization that helps to empower women of color to build their wealth and break negative financial behaviors.
Chloe is also the CEO of BlackFem, Inc., a non-profit that focuses on improving wealth literacy for young girls and people of color. BlackFem, Inc. works in underserved school districts to help create engaging and holistic wealth literacy programs for students to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty.
Although Chloe is focused on wealth literacy in the classroom, she also firmly believes that the financial planning profession needs to adjust to support wealth literacy initiatives, as well.
The truth is that most women of color have a net worth of $5. Advisors aren’t always checking their own privilege, and are pricing themselves out of working with the communities and people who need them most.
This is true of all advisors - and is a profession-wide problem. Starting with the different exams advisors take to grow themselves and start their careers, they are trained to work with the wealthy. Unfortunately, while this training is valuable, they’re also pushing advisors away from helping communities of color break negative intergenerational wealth cycles.
In this episode, Chloe helps listeners understand what they can start doing to get involved in delivering financial advice to underserved communities. She explores how to focus on self-reflection to improve your services and make an impact.
What You’ll Learn:
What type of work Chloe and her team are doing in classrooms
How you can get involved in financial education and wealth literacy
What you need to know about the wealth gap
How you can start leveraging pro bono work to make an impact
Ways you can examine your privilege as an advisor to better serve clients and underserved communities
The definition of wealth justice - and why it’s important
How to focus on financial education in your work with clients and with employers
Why wealth literacy is a huge benefit for millennials
Show Notes:
Episode Transcript
Rianka: 00:00 Chloe. Oh, welcome to 2050 TrailBlazers.
Chloe: 00:03 Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.
Rianka: 00:06 Oh my gosh. I am so excited for you to be here as well. This is like a full circle moment for me. I was thinking back to when we first met and it feels like we've known each other for many, many years.
Chloe: 00:20 Yes.
Rianka: 00:22 With the just our, aligned efforts and, in what we're both doing. But, we first met, I think it was last year,
Chloe: 00:32 Two years ago
Rianka: 00:33 Two years ago. Oh my gosh. It's been two years. Okay. At investment news 40 under 40 alumni event. And so for those who do not know Investment News brings together their past 40, under 40 recipients as well as the new 40 under 40 recipients and we have like a think tank. And this particular year Chloe was the keynote of the think tank and literally just blew our minds away with what, with what she was doing, what she still is doing and what she has done since then.
Rianka: 01:13 And talking about full circle girlfriend this year, you were named an Investment News 40 under 40.
Chloe: 01:22 Yes, I was.
Rianka: 01:23 How cool is that?
Chloe: 01:25 It's awesome.
Rianka: 01:27 Oh my gosh. I'm just so proud of you with what you're doing, the efforts that, that you are just girl, you are doing it. Chloe: 01:36 Thank you.
Rianka: 01:37 And I'm just so excited to share with the listeners, what you're doing so we can figure out how we can continue to support you. And for those who do not know, Chloe, she's not a stranger to sharing best practices in the world of financial literacy or as she calls it wealth literacy and I'm pretty sure you'll tell us why. You know, you have made it your career mission to educate not only consumers and clients, but also those of us who are in the advisor space and, and teachers as well so that we can make sure that we're closing the racial wealth gap, and so forth.
Rianka: 02:24 So just want to say thank you for everything that you have done thus far.
Chloe: 02:28 Thank you.
Rianka: 02:29 So you are the CEO of a company called Wealth Kick, where you advise institutions and Fortune 500 companies as well as the CEO of a nonprofit called BlackFem where you are on a mission to transform school-based learnings so that girls of color in underserved communities are empowered with skills, habits, and resources to build and sustain wealth. Season four is all about sharing best practices. And when I was thinking about, you know, the programs, you know, different organizations put on pro bono days and, financial literacy days. And while it's helpful to have these one off events, I thought it was important to bring you on specifically Chloe because you have a different mindset and thought of how we can build and sustain education, especially with the children, the next generation, but also sharing best practices on if you do want to create these programs, here are the things you should do. So where do you want to start today?
Chloe: 03:42 I mean we can start with what you just brought up, which, you know, firms who want to get involved and they see that there's a problem and you know, typically their go to solution would be to, Oh well let's just go into a school and host a workshop. And in the spirit of frankness and in the spirit of wanting to get it right, we have to discuss the fact that that's actually incredibly problematic.
Rianka: 04:08 And why is it problematic for these one day events?
Chloe: 04:11 Absolutely. So there's a number of, of different reasons. So, thinking about this from the low income perspective where there's already this wave of energy around feeling abandoned by the very community that I think is most equipped to helping them, coming in just once isn't actually going to maximize our impact. I think what we have to see here is that the wealth gap, particularly for women of color is widening to such a point that if we don't actually start taking more rigorous, solution making activities, then we will actually be get to an irreversible point. And so one off workshops, I think we all can agree is not going to fix something that is such a, that has such a severe, is in a such a severe status. Equally so from the abandonment perspective, it just doesn't work from the academic and intellectual perspective or programmatic perspective.
Chloe: 05:11 Students, even in high school, especially in high school actually, the average amount of time before a student will forget something 100% of the way is three days. So if you're coming in and you're doing a workshop, and I see a lot of people post on their social media, like, Oh my gosh, I went into this classroom and the kids were super engaged. Guess what? Even though they had that high engagement three days from now, they'll probably forget every single thing that they learned in that particular classroom. So when we talk about, you know, what we're actually doing to help the one off workshops, or even if you came in monthly, it's not actually, you know, creating the type of change that we want to see. And I think it's because we're afraid to actually talk about how not rigorous that activity actually is. So in the only, in my own work, we actually provide the education, that's why we call it transforming school based learning five days a week because we won't suffer from the same what's called learning loss that students face.
Chloe: 06:17 And by the way, after one day students forget about 60% of all that they learn, which is why it has to be repetitive and it has to become a core subject. Now learning loss starts to get better after a person has become an adult because we're just able to retain information a lot differently than K through 12 age students. So you know, that's another thing that I want us to think about that if you, if all you can is, I understand everybody has different capacity. If all you can do is once a month or one off workshops, then you need to be targeting the adults who actually build the enabling environments for the students that we're trying to help. Because the students themselves, you're running up against a particular phenomena that says that students are going to forget what you teach them and we have to start thinking about that more critically. gfv
Rianka: 07:10 And so with your organization, BlackFem. So this is the nonprofit that is doing the mission of, you know, the truss transformative school-based learning. And you particularly work with K through 12 students.
Chloe: 07:26 Yes.
Rianka: 07:27 And this is what you do with your company, BlackFem, the nonprofit, right? The a transformative school based learning and it's for K through 12 correct.
Chloe: 07:37 Pre K through 12th.
Rianka: 07:39 Pre K through 12. Okay. Yes. And I've also, so I've been following you since we've met a couple of years ago. You have also, been working with just the local legislators to make it mandatory to have, these wealth literacy courses in elementary school. So talk to us a little bit about that as well.
Chloe: 08:04 Yeah, absolutely. And again, falls in the same theme of rigor. You know, as advisors, we, especially our community should not be satisfied with policies that mandate financial literacy at the high school level. First of all, those policies that have been adopted that let's be real, our community has started to support, our saying that we just have to do one little lesson on financial literacy at the high school level once a year, which if you, you know, we just talked about learning loss that doesn't actually do anything. For me, early intervention and as we know this with any serious social problem, early intervention are going to be the most impactful solutions. A lot of what our community needs to understand is that we should not be supporting non rigorous solutions to the problem. To be very blunt about this, we can no longer support mandates of financial literacy at the high school level, particularly those that only mandate it, that it happens when we say that it must happen.
Chloe: 09:11 That means it usually happens once a year and that's it. Or it's just an elective course, which means only less than 20% of the student population is going to get it. So what I do, before we even start thinking about implementing curriculum into the classroom and training teachers to deploy the curriculum, the very first part of Black Fem's intervention design is to go through the necessary legislative powers. Whether that's the city council, whether that's the school board superintendents, mayors or a combination in a conglomerate of, of as such is to actually mandate a policy where wealth literacy will be implemented five days a week as the core subject of the school day beginning in elementary school and preschool. Then as the intervention grows and we more fully saturate the districts where we are, we obviously then build a pipeline from elementary to middle to high school.
Rianka: 10:10 That sounds logical to me. And again, I do believe that earlier we teach children, just the value of a dollar and understanding, you know, just how money works, you know, when, when they get older. Is, is really important because that's something, you know, just the clients I work with today, I specifically, you know, start at my firm so that I can work with millennials. And you know, though they have MBAs, PhDs, they have no clue when it comes to money. And I mean, that's not a world that we need to, to continue to live in and we don't have to for the next generation.
Chloe: 10:56 Absolutely. And I mean, even beyond that, thinking about, you know, the mechanical side of managing money is important, but there's something much deeper, particularly for the communities that I work with, which have also been either priced out of our community or were just overlooked. As a, as a community. And one of the questions we have to ask ourselves as advisors is what narratives are available to certain marginalized groups that actually structure our relationship with money and wealth? And if we don't provide this on a consistent basis to students who are growing up in dis-privileged environments that don't actually have enabling environments to support their efforts to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty, then we are perpetuating the problem. So it's not just about being able to manage your money, but it's also to provide new narratives to then structure a healthier relationship with money and wealth.
Chloe: 12:01 Because otherwise we're going to continue to let our industry dictate narratives that say straight white men are the ones with wealth. And everybody else just kind of falls below that. And so as advisors, what I try to say is not only are we the most equipped to tackle this issue because of the expertise we have around managing money and wealth, but we also I think have the strongest power to dictate narratives and we can provide greater narratives that have greater availability and visibility to communities that typically are overlooked and have often had the most struggle when it comes to their relationship with money and wealth.
Rianka: 12:44 Agreed. And again, because I follow you on social media, I saw a recent tweet that you, that you mentioned, because this may be in the back of listeners minds, right? Especially with the communities that you are specifically targeting, which is the underserved communities and underserved communities typically have, you know, you can't use the same material, with as we do with, and I don't want to call out another type of nonprofit that goes into classes and help the youth, but you can't use that, that same type of material in underserved or underrepresented communities because the money is different. And it was, you know, you recently recently tweeted out, responding to someone who mentioned, you know, quote is very difficult if they don't have money, meaning this person was talking about, you know, teaching people financial literacy is very difficult if they don't have money.
Rianka: 13:44 And you of course clap back then was like, it doesn't stop me though. Like it is difficult but it doesn't stop you. And, and that's why you're just reiterating. That's why five days a week in the classroom during the day, not after school hours. Is, is really important. So for those who are listening and want to either support what you're doing, again, because not all of us have time to go into a classroom and, and spend, you know, five days a week there, but if they want to support you where, what are some of the ways that they can support Black Fem, which is a nonprofit. And also, instead of recreating the wheel, which most of us try to do when it comes to these wealth literacy programs, is there a way where your material can be shared, white labeled or something so that your efforts can be duplicated?
Chloe: 14:44 The first way you can support is to financially support. Let's just be real about it. We have to, we're working with school districts that are running million dollar deficits and they're still contributing close or up to 25% of the costs of the programming. So if that's something that, it doesn't matter what you can contribute, but you're working in a community where we're literally managing money, this should be something that we want to invest in. And if we, again, if we are truly saying that we're supportive of efforts of increasing the financial literacy, I call it wealth literacy, of, of all of our communities, then we should be willing to put our money where our mouth is because there are poor school districts who are doing the same already. Outside of that, you know, one of the big things that you have to ask yourself is again about your capacity.
Chloe: 15:35 If you are truly, you know, impassioned to, to sit down and do workshops with students, then I'll be honest with you, you're going to have to dedicate at least 15 hours per month per grade. And if you don't have that time, then you are not maximizing your impact with those students. And that 15 hours is the bare minimum and something you would have to do with high school students for example. Because again, they've, they've built enough of their own kind of cognitive abilities to be able to kind of take less, in a lectured based environment. But I would argue, depending on the type of socio, socioeconomic demographic you're going into, that number is going to increase and the younger you get, that number is going to increase. So one of the things that I would often say is when we radically support our teachers.
Chloe: 16:31 So this is another part of what's called the wealth rise model, which is what BlackFem’s model is. And according to the Brookings Institute is actually the most radical and most impactful in the country. But we actually trained teachers to become better wealth educators and we pay the teachers to do it, which is the most radical piece. So I would advocate for that. And for, you know, you call me biased, but that's actually what we should be doing. We shouldn't force teachers to sit down and be trained on something and not compensate them adequately for doing so. But if you are thinking about, you know, actually going in as a best practice to participate and helping enable an environment for students to begin building wealth, you should look at parents and teachers first or even school administrators because their own lack of knowledge around wealth building is pretty severe.
Chloe: 17:23 And as they get more comfortable with the subject matter, they'll be more inventive and collaborative as a community to then go in and figure out how can they create a better enabling environment for their students and children. So there could be a somewhat more of an algorithmic effect that you could create to maximize your impact if you only have, you know, a smaller amount of capacity. And this is something that we tend to overlook because let's just be honest here, you know, we like the PR of us being in a classroom and having kids smiling at us, but that's, that's ultimately not going to serve us in the long run. And it certainly doesn't serve them. So why not look at the adults that we could help further capacitate because it doesn't require as much capacity.
Rianka: 18:07 And so that's for teachers, right? And so you're going in teaching the teachers because you don't necessarily have 15 hours a week every week to go into all these classrooms, right? Cause you're just one person. So what I'm hearing you say is you're going in and educating the teachers, empowering them, because let's be real. Even adults are, you know, their shame around money. And so how can they even feel confident to teach children around money? I think it can start with adults, in a manner that will have a ripple effect to the students, which is awesome. Absolutely. And for those who do have time, maybe not as much time as you mentioned to go to this students, is there a curriculum that you have where they can take and go in and teach teachers?
Chloe: 19:00 The next kind of radical piece about our model is actually all of our curriculum is customized. So what we do is a good example this summer, so we spend much more than 15 hours a week per grade. We actually synthesize all of the existing curriculum of an, an entire district. And we put the, what I'll call the Instagram filter of wealth literacy on top of it. So for second and third grade in East Orange, New Jersey, this, this summer, my team and I sent the size over 2,700 pages of second and third grade curriculum and develop lesson plans associated with that. So we actually write the curriculum, train the teachers on the curriculum and the teachers actually deliver it. So what I always say is, you know, I usually host webinars, or calls with a group of whether it's, you know, IARs or RIAs, all of those different kinds of groups who have said, you know, we are interested, is there a training that we can go through Chloe to, to kind of help us be more effective in the communities where we are?
Chloe: 20:02 And so that's as simple as just kind of reaching out to me, and, and getting something set up. So we don't have a hard and fast curriculum, namely because in the, in the same vein of our industry that we need to customize our financial plans for our clients. We need to bring that same principle and into the education space. And equally, I, as you saw, I tweeted about this yesterday as well, is that there needs to be some level of expertise around education if we are going to be teaching kids as well, which is why teachers are absolutely critical to this. And so part of that training is getting advisors to understand what is the actual education expertise that you're missing in order to be more effective when working with teachers. Working with students with disabilities, et cetera. And so those are trainings that I host for our community, who are interested in and being more impactful in their work.
Rianka: 20:52 Ladies and gentlemen, this is why she was the one of the 40 on the 40 for Investment News. Oh my goodness. This takes a lot of work.
Chloe: 21:04 It does, it does. It is 24-7. And it's funny because you know, this is when I started it, I thought it was going to be a hobby. I went full time after three months because I really see that there are so many, I mean let's be real educated. The public education system in low income school districts in America is just rife with problems. But on top of this we have a layer of, of individuals who are well meaning who are trying to fix it, but they're actually perpetuating the problem, in ways that I don't think anybody is intending. And we just have to be really real about it. And so what I mean when I say be rigorous is not to point a finger and say, you know, what you're doing is wrong. But we have absolutely got to be raised the level of rigor from an academic and a programmatic perspective.
Chloe: 21:55 If we are truly going to maximize impact and it requires a significant amount of time and we just have to be real about that. And once we accept that, then we can find, you know, what are the ways that I can be involved in the capacity that I can bring to the table? And that's fine. But at a base level, our industry needs to have a reckoning with itself and say, we don't have enough time to do this, but this is actually the way that we can maximize impact. And those could be at odds with each other. But now that I accept and embrace that as a fact because it is now, let me figure out what is the best way I can contribute to further maximize impact. That's the way we need to think about it.
Rianka: 22:40 Yes. Two snaps. And so something that I, I heard you say, which, is, is something that I am doing in my work outside of advising clients. But this is something that I've learned as well. I am very fortunate to work with clients that come from various backgrounds, various cultures, some who are first generation immigrants, first generation wealth builders who are typically first generation college graduates and how I approach them and helping them unmask, I would say, when it, when, when it's around money and, and the shame of, of survivor's remorse, you know, for making it out of the community, there's like a, a cultural sensitivity that we have to approach, with clients. And so I'm doing some, some speaking around that now specifically to advisors so that they can better serve clients that come from various different cultures and backgrounds. And it, something that I recall us about offline was creating culturally responsive curriculum. And that's basically what I heard you just say around, you know, just given the example of each East Orange County, in Jersey and making sure that the curriculum is representative of the students it represents.
Chloe: 24:09 Yes, exactly. And I would say that's honestly one of our pieces of bread and butter or value proposition, whatever you want to call it, is in a, in the business community standardization is, you know, the key to scale, right? It's the key to grow. That's actually what cripples the financial literacy space is when you standardize things, you are completely shutting out what, what I just said earlier. Right. Which is about the narratives that are available to us that structure our relationship with money and wealth. When we standardize and say, Hey kids, I'm going to teach you how to manage your money through your allowance and the vast majority of your students live in public housing. Look at the narrative that you've just made available to them. When we're structuring curriculum that says, you know, Oh, well you could go ask your neighbor if you could mow their lawn and you live in public housing, or you're homeless, even because there's a significant population of students in public schools that are homeless.
Chloe: 25:11 Look at the narrative that you've made available to them that's going to further structure their relationship with money and wealth. So there is a way that as advisors, we're not trained to figure out how to check our privilege. I mean, sometimes like I, because I'm a weirdo, I'll like think back to taking the CFP exam and some of the, case studies that we had to answer. It's just we're just meant to work with wealthy people. And so we have to grapple with our own complicity in this. And we can do better because all we have to do is a lot of the times we think about, well, I know what's best for them rather than turning inwards and figuring out how is my practice a perpetuation of privilege. And in some ways, you know, what we have to do to be culturally responsive is provide an empowering environment for students by potentially creating what's called artificial privilege. We can, we create narratives for our students in classrooms that are imaginative and fun that make them feel as though, you know, what does it feel like to have this type of privilege or power, but also ensure from a social emotional perspective, we're in making sure that students don't think that their self-worth equals their net worth because that's not the case. And unfortunately that's something that I think our industry sometimes goes back and forth on prescribing and we have to be careful of that as well.
Rianka: 26:38 Yes, yes, yes and yes. Yes. Wow. So also in the same vein of, you know, being culturally responsive or you know, creating the culturally responsive curriculum. I recall you mentioning there's like six pillars of how this was created or, share with the listeners what those pillars are.
Chloe: 27:05 The Brookings Institute created a, a report that identified what are the six pillars to maximize impact for financial literacy programming specifically for the youth. So this is one of the things that I mentioned, BlackFem, because of a report that Oliver Wyman, a consulting company did identified that Black Fem's actually the only organization in the country that checks all six pillars. So the first thing that Brookings, the Brookings Institute noted is that you want to have a focus on early intervention. I've already talked about that. But what that does is it helps reinforce the skills, but in an age appropriate fashion, for curriculum that's specifically designed for young students. So again, you know, our fixation on high school ultimately tells us that we're starting too late and we need to kind of adjust that. Now that is not to say we should not be working with those students.
Chloe: 28:06 Absolutely, we should. However, you know, one of the ways to again, maximize impact is that there's early financial education. Then there's the pillar of participatory learning, which means that students should be participating going through some type of exploratory or inquiry based, lesson scheme. And so this is again where you know, we think about, Oh we can just go into a classroom and start teaching kids, but if you don't actually understand what inquiry based learning is, which is really a, a prescribed term in the education field, then unfortunately we're not going to be maximizing impact and inquiry-based investigations. They really require students to be active participants in their own learning process. So again, it's not just something I'm going to prepare the night before and go in and talk to some third graders. You actually have to end up creating an inquiry based session where students are going to be a part of the exploratory process of learning a particular concept.
Chloe: 29:03 Parent involvement is the third pillar. I think that's pretty self explanatory. Teacher training is the fourth and then the two I think most important, which brings in the cultural responsiveness is the curriculum or the programming or workshop itself has to address according to the Brookings Institute, which is I think a pretty big deal that they're bringing this up in the first place. But it has to bring up race and socioeconomic status and it has to bring up gender gaps. And to me the, I can, you know those are two different pillars, but I combine them as saying it needs to have an intersectional approach to way we think about, again, the narratives that are available to the students that you're speaking to. And even if you are speaking to a predominantly affluent group of students that may be a part of a homogenous culture, you still must address race and socioeconomic status and gender gaps in order to meet those six pillars.
Chloe: 30:02 So to kind of run through them quickly, early financial education, participatory learning, parent involvement, teacher training, racial socioeconomic status, and gender gaps. And to your point from earlier, that requires a lot of time. It requires a lot of expertise. And outside of that it requires a lot of self reflection, self, meaning the individual who's going to deliver the particular topics but also self with the capital S meaning the institution that it's coming from has to do some self examination to figure out, well, is this something that I've even explored? Because again, to be able to go into these different rooms and uncover the fact that there is a system and an inequality that is perpetuating and widening the wealth gap, then we also have to be aware of this and we have to address it in an age appropriate way for all of the students that were going to come in contact with or we have to address it in a culturally appropriate way if we're working with the adults in the room to make sure that we can have very productive conversations around this.
Rianka: 31:08 Thank you for sharing those pillars. Chloe, and yes, we will listen. This is a lot of information. So if you don't know, make sure you go to 2050trailblazers.com and click on this particular episode for show notes. So we're going to make sure we, you know, write this all out so that if you want to learn more, if you want to get more information about the six pillars and then what, you know, Chloe is doing with BlackFem, make sure you go to 2050 trailblazers.com. Check out the show notes. You're doing some amazing work and you know, for the advisers out there, the financial planners who maybe do not have the time from a best practice perspective. And you know, Chloe, she's an expert in this. She might not want to call herself an expert. I know we try not to put titles on ourselves, but you know, you're the one who is doing it right.
Rianka: 32:03 And have had, you know, a trail of, of success with these students. So from a best practice perspective is not a one day event, a one day, one day a month, even one day a year event when it comes to students. So if you don't have the time to dedicate, as Chloe mentioned, give financially, that also helps as well. And so we'll make sure we'll put the information in the show notes as well on how listeners can, you know, give to Black Fem because this is a very, very important nonprofit.
Chloe: 32:45 I appreciate that. And just to add another one, your advocacy, if it entails all of the things that we've discussed, that's a critical way that I think everybody can be a part of that. We need to start unifying our voice in our industry to say the solutions that exist right now are not enough. They're not maximizing impact. And therefore the problem continues to happen. We get to the next generation and we've all been talking about financial literacy for decades, yet it doesn't seem to be getting better. And perhaps what we need to do is we need to again check ourselves and say, well, what is it that we're ultimately saying in the narratives that we're putting forth? And right now I still think that we all have a lot of energy around addressing the issue, but we have, we don't have the same energy and making sure that we're doing it right. And so the ad, you know, you may not have a lot of time or capacity to do the things that we mentioned, but what you could do is ensure that we're advocating for what is maximizing impact and what is the most rigorous solution to being able to fix the problem.
Rianka: 33:53 And speaking of practice, what you preach, I just saw, that you have a new partnership going on with, with another organization. Tell us more about that.
Chloe: 34:05 Yes, I'm very excited. So, outside of the BlackFem world going into the, on the Wealth Kick world, where I do my consulting with financial institutions and just other institutions who want to figure out what's their role in closing the wealth gap. I actually today have announced my, my partnership with Share our Strength and No Kid Hungry, which are some of the largest food insecurity organizations in the United States. Because their diversity and inclusion directors came to me and said, they heard me speak at a conference and said, you know, we're a food insecurity organization, but our employees, we're having a hard time retaining though our employees are recruiting employees, who may come from different backgrounds. And being that they're nonprofits, they're kind of like, we want to be able to create a more supportive environment for our employees to also begin their own wealth journeys, but they may not have the salary that they need in order to access our community.
Chloe: 35:06 So, you know, I, I don't hold myself out as being one of the leaders in diversity and inclusion and equity. I, to a Rianka point, I hold myself out as the expert in wealth literacy and wealth justice. But if we're not considering our diversity, equity inclusion efforts and including the intersection of wealth, justice and wealth literacy there, then I also think we're not being as rigorous as we can be. So what's amazing about this organization is No Kid Hungry and Share Our Strength. They've kind of merged or programmatically, they have brought me in as a wealth education resident, to actually provide wealth education to every single one of their employees. And so I will be doing the same type of work outside of, you know, the education space with BlackFem, but here is an opportunity where an organization is leveraging the work that I'm doing to support their employees more radically.
Chloe: 36:04 And then on top of that, showing that this also could be a recruitment and retention tool for, you know, different groups because the fact that, I mean, Hey, I mean even coming out of college and going to Wall Street to to say like, wow, I actually have access to a wealth educator through, you know, my benefits that, that's pretty awesome. And so I, I do think it's actually a very radical thing but also a very beautiful thing. And something that, as another best practices, how is it that we're taking care of our employees? Could be a question that we ask ourselves, but through the context of, of wealth literacy and wealth justice.
Rianka: 36:43 Yes. And I only know a handful of employers that offers this sort of financial education. And I only know of a handful because very similar to you, they, they have me come in and speak with their employees and I think it's an awesome benefit. And if, if there's any employers listening, I think this is definitely not only a recruitment tool but also a retention, right? Because again, our hope is that we don't stay in the same income tax bracket throughout our entire life. The hope is that we continue to grow and thrive, but we're making very intentional decisions when it comes to our finances so that we can have generational wealth and create a legacy.
Chloe: 37:31 And to your point, Rianka, especially with the clients that you work with, millennials, I mean to have as a recruitment tool to say, you know, people who are just graduating college or grad school, my firm has a wealth education program that can kind of help you navigate adulting. I mean, that's a huge tool that you can use to recruit different talent that a lot of people aren't leveraging. So I would say take that as an opportunity to say, not only am I being different and I'm a part of this greater effort around, you know, making a more wealth equalized world. But you're also really saying something about the culture that you have at your firm, the fact of how you want to radically take care of your employees
Rianka: 38:19 and something that is a word that you mentioned. And here on 2050 TrailBlazers, I believe in defining terms because if we don't define them, people make assumptions of what we mean. So you've mentioned a couple of times the word wealth justice and what does that word mean to you.
Chloe: 38:37 Yes. I'm glad you brought that up. James Baldwin, the amazing James Baldwin, talked about racism as being a vast and hostile incomprehension of what it's like to be a person of color in the country. And so what I've done to kind of understand what wealth justice really means is that we are taking the vast in-hostile incomprehension of what it means to live in a world where wealth and equality is the norm. And we're saying no to it. That most of the social problems that we see, particularly for women of color are rooted in a history of, or historical trauma that has dictated the relationship we have with wealth and power and wealth justice is to say, I'm going to take this kind of incomprehension that has created this hostility around or that's perpetuated the wealth gap for women of color and say, I'm going to do something about it. It's really as simple as saying that there's an issue about wealth and equality that ultimately hurts women of color the most. But that doesn't mean they're the only group that's hurt by it. And I'm going to do something about it. It's kind of those three simple steps. It's recognizing that there is a serious problem and then feeling empowered enough to say that even if it's small, I have something that I can do about it and I have a role in making it better.
Rianka: 40:11 Wow. Chloe, I mean, you've shared so much with us today. And, again, I just thank you for your time. Before I let you go, is there anything else that you want to share with us as it relates to best practices with the lens of diversity, equity and inclusion?
Chloe: 40:29 Yes. The last thing, and I think this transcends most demographics as an industry because of our expertise. The best practice I can say from a of wealth literacy or financial literacy perspective is we have got to get the rich versus wealth distinction correct. Unfortunately, again, thinking about the narratives that are available to marginalized groups that structures their relationship with money and wealth. When we confuse the two terms, whereas, you know, rich is really just a relative term about how much money's coming in relative to somebody else. And then wealth is, as we all know, is rooted in our net worth. So it's actually related to our balance sheet. When we continue to conflate those words and use them interchangeably, we are actually providing a narrative to young people that we'd rather go after riches, which, you know, leads into certain careers or things like that where it then becomes feeds into, kind of unhealthy behavior around. Again, it just continues to reinforce an unhealthy dynamic of the way we create a relationship with money and wealth. And I think that as the biggest, best practice out there is that we have to get it right. It's unfortunate, but I mean there are publications that get it wrong and so we need to make sure that those two words because they are actually different. And even if it's subtle, we get them right and we teach that no matter who we're talking to.
Rianka: 41:55 Wow. Thank you so much, Chloe for joining us on 2050 TrailBlazers. I've learned a lot. Every time that we chat I'm always, taking notes and, and have takeaways and figuring out how can I not only better myself but better, myself in, in how I give to our community. So I just want to say thank you for everything that you're doing. A lot of what we do when it comes to this type of effort, a lot of it is behind the scenes and it goes unnoticed. But I just want to say, I see you and I see you doing the work and I'm here to support you in any way I can.
Chloe: 42:33 I really appreciate that. And to provide this platform to me is more meaningful than I think, you know, and, it's, it's just great to kind of have a, a mentor in this space. And, I'm just really excited to have the opportunity.
