Category: Pioneers and players
The personal “re-birth” stories of many personal finance bloggers on the web looks very similar: a crisis triggered by unmanageable debt, the “come to Jesus” moment, and the redemption, usually through hard-won frugality, thrift and penny-by-penny savings. The virtues usually extolled are the need to get out of debt, the importance of understanding the math behind money, and of course, the magic of compound interest in investments.
When we think of doing better with managing our personal financial situation, the “better” part typically comes with the picture of more technology, more data or just more external “stuff”. Yet, there is plenty of evidence that hardwired cognitive and behavioral biases are one of the biggest barriers and challenges preventing us from managing money better.
Books on finance seem to be an evergreen source of advice and wisdom. About one in every five households reported relying on media including books for information to guide their financial actions and decisions. Yet, when one wades through the huge number of books on money whether they are targeted at women or not, it’s hard to find the few that stand out by taking a truly innovative and effective approach to an admittedly complex and intimidating topic.
Continue reading “Green Shoots of Hope: 5 Great Books for Women on Money”
When looking at the problem of how to cross the seeming chasm of getting women to enter the arena of investing, the first ideas that come to mind are those to do with making investing simpler, easier or less intimidating. Rarely is much thought given to what might appeal to already strong desires and drives that women have, and even less to existing products and ideas that might elegantly leverage this interest and energy to create better on-ramps for women to initiate investing activities.
There is one area of very low-hanging fruit that meets all these criteria – and puzzlingly remains highly under-utilized: the area of impact investing.
Continue reading “Getting Women to Invest : Low-hanging Fruit”
Nonprofits, or the so-called “third sector” have always been recognized a key contributing segment to the economy and society, and quite rightfully so. As I was trying to build a solid understanding of the nonprofit activity in the women and money space, I came across many laudable groups that were established for and are trying to do amazing things to help women bootstrap themselves to much better financial ground in their lives.
Continue reading “Vision + Chutzpah = a Different Kind of Nonprofit”