Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, Money Movers, Welcome back to Money Moves, the daily podcast,
determined to give you the keys to the Kingdom of
financial stability, wealth and abundance. So let's go back to
actually founding this program. So now you've sort of found
(00:21):
this like secret sauce. You're like, there's money out here
for folks. How did you legitimize actually turning it into
a program and launching it so that you could scale
it and reach so many people. So that's like a
little bit of time. And I feel like entrepreneurs nowadays,
especially with social media, everything seems like an overnight success, like, Okay,
(00:42):
we created something, boom, it got over a hundred thousand
millions user followers and things of that nature. And that's
not how it was. We started with three girls um
in the Booklyn Public Library, training them, trying to tweak
it to figure out if it worked. Our first class
got eighty thousand dollars of the scholarships, so we knew
that the process worked. We were like, Okay, it works,
(01:04):
but like, how can we make it equitable? And some
of the things that you pointed to with the digital divide,
I would call it with students not having access to laptops,
they're not being WiFi service. But also this is an
an equity and education overall in the minority community. We
had to meet each girl where she was along in
her process. So of course when you're building a business
at first, you're going to lean on your peers. I
(01:26):
went to Babson is only a business school, so you
learn business for your whole undergraduate um four years, and
I just like tap friends. I was like, come on, guys,
I'm trying to other minority students on campus that I
knew were like excellent at what they did. Once we
started to grow and gain a reputation, we would select
fifteen to twenty girls each year to be a part
(01:48):
of this program. But by year three we started to
get a high flux of demand, so about two hundred
and fifty girls were starting to apply to our program. Fifteen. Yeah,
we were like so excited. We only have fifteen or
twenties spots for those young women. So we had to
kind of figure out, Okay, one, we're a nonprofit, right,
and somebody just said recently that means that doesn't mean
(02:09):
no profit. I love to talk about this, it's so true,
and nonprofit doesn't mean no profit. It does not mean
no profits. So I was trying to figure out you
definitely want to have donors and things of that nature
that believe in your cause. But I also believe in
earned revenue models UM for nonprofit organizations in particular because
(02:29):
as you can see, with something like the pandemic, things
con fluctuate people's incomes and things of that nature, and
you're not a lot of nonprofits didn't survive the pandemic
as well as well business this and particularly more vulnerably,
our minority founded UM nonprofit organizations. So our first influx
of funds came from sponsor the scholar, where we would
(02:50):
had young professional sponsored girls that were in similar career
fields as them. Once we kind of figured out our
secret sauce or per se, we were able to start
experimenting with digital tools to try to help more girls.
But similarly, as you mentioned, like it was back in
the day where it was only Google hangouts, so it
(03:11):
was only ten people on the line, the kids would
be like cutting in and now this is terrible, this
is not working. But by twenty nineteen, a lot of
digital community started to show up and pop up in
the for profit space. And I have a background and
entertainment and media and techno stas technology. So I saw
(03:33):
that the trends were heading towards teenagers finding more resources
online to help support them. But then also technology start
to catch up where you can build more sophisticated online communities.
So with that kind of similar to like the coaching
model that you see nowadays on UM, Instagram and like
UM these like people that kind of guide people through
(03:55):
their finances or whatever they're selling their coaching packages on,
we felt that we could do the same thing for
students of color navigating the college landscape. So we created
modules for our young women to be able to activate.
They were taught by other young women of color that
had successfully navigated college and the finances of college. And
(04:15):
then we would have these live group sessions that would
create community and network for a young women all across
the country, but really heavily um stwed in the Northeast,
in the Southeast, and from scalability that brings more sponsorship
dollars into our fold. So right now we have an
earned revenue model with colleges UM that are looking for
(04:36):
diverse talent because our students are talented and them integrating
into these college campuses are one allowing them to be
able to have access to the funds that you're talking
about at some of the state universities that have more
endowed funds, but then also allowing us to be able
to provide them preparatory services that will allow them to
(04:56):
be successful candidates across the board for hbc U S
and p w I S. Wow. Can you tell that
specifically about some of the poor programs that you offer
at Seeds of Fortune. It's moth certainly. So. We have
three programs that we offer at Seeds of Fortune. Our
first and original program is our Seats scholars Program, which
is a ten month incubator that allows for girls to
(05:19):
be able to learn about money management and the correlation
between the scholarship and college application process. This sense has
launched in partnership with Yale Women and Economics because during
the pandemic we saw, as you mentioned previously, households was
shutting down, parents were losing their jobs, students were cut
off from resources, and it all felt like it was
(05:40):
happening to them, but they didn't really understand the macro
um lens of why this was happening. And once one
thing shut down with a global health pandemic. This also
affects other fields and industries all the way down to
them having to go to school from home. So we
wanted to provide them a world class education by allowing
them to learn from Yale professors are foundational courts and economics,
(06:05):
and they are able to present, which they just did
a couple of weeks ago, a Capstone research project about
how economics is affecting their minority communities in particular. Our
second program is our Seed Online College Prep Network, and
that is the program that we recently launched our a
tech platform last year that allows for young women of
color all across the country to go through a six
(06:26):
week course that enables them to have information on navigating
the financial process through college, but then also coning in
on that financial decision making process when it comes to college.
And we believe that if they're able to strategically think
about college and in the financial aspects of it, they'll
be able to make other wiser financial decisions for their
(06:49):
future selves in their lives. And unless that certainly not
least is our university program. Because the journey just sys
doesn't stop when you're in high school, right, it has
to be called debated and grooms. We have four classes
that have graduated successfully out of our program over the
last couple of years. They've gone on to their going
on to medical school, their engineers, their businesswomen, they bought
(07:13):
their first properties already. So we're ready starting to see
the effects of the generational shifts UM just in the
small time that we've been in existence as an organization.
This is incredible. I love this. So you've had so
much experience and you've seen, you know, some of the
biggest mistakes people have made and some of the biggest successes.
Can you talk about some of the biggest pitfalls that
(07:35):
high schoolers make as they think about UM, you know,
approaching getting scholarships, grants, and making the transition to university. Yes, definitely,
so seen a lot of them. I hate there UM
four store. I feel like high school students need to
be very open about their choices and seeing college is
(07:56):
definitely an educational social experience. Seems like summer campboy with
school kind of feel, But there really is a lot
of financial implications to not picking the right schools for
yourself and kind of thinking for your future self. And
it really comes down to what we do on our
courses is on the second class. We show them on
(08:17):
the website that the school has a consumer report, so
that they're starting to shift their mindsets that this is
not K through twelve right free education. This you are
a consumer. You are shopping and you're trying to find
the best fit for your career for your family. Especially
with the way loans are package now, there's something called
(08:38):
the parent plus loan um, So any debt that the
student cannot take on, which typically is to maximized that
five thousand, five hundred or maximum ten thousand, they will
put it on the parents to actually take out that loan.
And in the black community, for so many years we
have seen education as an upward tool to class mobility.
(08:58):
That parents are taking on these debts and getting unable
to retire, getting into high loads of debt, and it's
really up to the student and the parent together, and
a lot of high stoo students are kind of missing
that this is a family, a generational decision that is
being made. Which college costs going from twenty to eighty
thousand depending on which institution that you are uplying year,
(09:20):
So you're saying it's the average price of college right
now is twenty thousand to eighty thousand a year for sure.
Does that include room, board, books or is that just
the tuition fees? Usually tuition fees at some of the
more would called prestigious that's and that's on the scale
of what you would consider prestigian or historical historical UM
(09:42):
institutions can go up to sixty tho dollars in tuition
alone and then about twenty thousand six k for for
room and board for sure. Wow, I'm also old, so
that makes me feel old. Inflation is crazy. UM, that's yeah, Wow,
that's a lot. You know, it's funny because before UM
(10:05):
we really tuned into the segment, we were talking about
how this has now become a barrier for actually, you know,
once you leave college, you're saddled with hundreds, you know,
perhaps a hundreds, hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt,
and it prohibits you from truly, you know, achieving middle
class status because you're constantly trying to pay this down
for decades and decades to come. For sure, and we've
(10:28):
seen this historically. One of my students, UM I was
having a conversation with them and they were just a
lot of students kind of and this is also kind
of fair lying back to your pitfall question where they
start to get discouraged in the in the college process,
like why am I even going to college in the
first place? Like why why am I do that? And
there are alternatives to college. We believe in post secondary
(10:49):
education success. A lot of the tech companies are opening
up where you don't need a college degree to get there,
but if you decide that you do want to do
college as an option for yourself to have that mobile city.
One of my students who were talking about how their
mom went to college and not a first generation student,
but they still ended up in housing authority anyway because
the school that they went to was so expensive, and
(11:11):
in the career field that they pick, there's a cap
almost with the income that you can make in that
career field. So you're seeing this like middle class upward
bound over the last couple of decades, and then kind
of a desurgence of that happening with the student loan
income debt. Also, some people are using them as their
little friends that stay with them for a lifetime, so
(11:32):
they're going to be paying off this debt and not
enabling them to be having the flexibility to be able
to start businesses or be able to kind of have
the flexibility to purchase their first homes. Millennials and gen
z is coming up are some of the most delayed
and home purchasing, starting families and things that nature. It's
(11:53):
a nationwide crisis. But you know, anytime something happens to
the nation for black communities, it happens to too. N's
a tenfolds um for us. I know over the past
couple of years, there's been a lot of talk about
the Dreamers, so the young generation of children to first
generation immigrants who may or may not have papers and
the question of whether or not they have access to
(12:13):
loans in this country. Have you been able to sort
of navigate that arena and help others get loans so
that they can go to school, the Dreamers in particular,
So we do not we believe that you shouldn't be
taken on loans for college, and we're trying to take
on the Leasa monitay as possible. But because of the
cities that we operate in, New York City is one
(12:34):
of our most highest concentrated cities of students, we are
an asylum um city and we have recently, I believe,
Last Fault put in mechanisms for students that are DOCCA
and dreamers to be able to gain access to state
funds for college education. We also have a list of
colleges across the nation that consider doctor students international, but
(12:55):
they are considered for aid and scholarship just like any
other student in the United Estates. So when we're helping
our doctor students navigate the pathways to affording college, we're
able to give them the list of colleges that are
able to really pay their full rides to school if
they are admitted to those institutions, So kind of finding
a way around kind of this Hayward system, because we've
(13:18):
had students that literally their whole family was um born,
Like all their siblings were born in the US. They
were the last sibling to be born in another country,
So they literally grew up in the U S from
like one years old up, and some of them didn't
even know they were undocumented students until it came time
for the collegiate process ambassa to be filled out. So
(13:40):
there's alternatives that we try to walk our students through
to be able to afford UM an affordable college education. Wow,
you are doing some incredible, incredible work. Can you tell
us how people can find your program Seeds of Fortune UM,
where they can find you on social media so that
they can follow along and hope fully get some grants,
(14:01):
get some money here. These are some big money moves indeed,
so you can find us on ww dot, Seeds of
Fortune dot org. Our application is currently open for students
for fall, and then you can find us on social
at Seeds of Fortune on i G but also LinkedIn
Twitter as well as Facebook. Okay, I have one final
(14:22):
question because I'd be remissed if I didn't ask. Because
our money Moves audience is quite diverse. Are there any
plans of opening up the program to include young men
as well? I am so glad you said that. So
this summer we experimented with our first boys infiltrating our
organization and we say that you know, our mission is
(14:43):
to financially empower young woman of color, but if you
vogue with us and you want to learn how to
get these money for scholarships and grants, UM, boys are
welcome to and we found that it was just the
more the merrier for us. So boys can definitely apply
to our program as well, UM, to be able to
get financial information and tools on how to fund their
(15:04):
education for college. All right, well, I love this. I
love that you were helping us get to the money,
build generational wealth, get rid of those saddle bags of debt,
like you were really changing lives for so many people
and the work that you're doing reaching out to young people. UM,
we're so excited that we had your voice on our
Money Moves podcast today. So Nataia, thank you so much. Um,
(15:26):
you are truly a gem and making a difference to
the community. Thank you so much for having me today
and it's such a pleasure. Thank you so much for
tuning in Money Moves audience. If you want more or
a recap of this episode, please go to the Bank
Greenwood dot com and check out the Money Moves podcast blog.
(15:48):
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