This organization is helping women take charge of their careers and their finances.
As a young woman, Brandi Tillman never thought of herself as a financial role model. Growing up in Chicago, she was raised to believe that navigating the financial world was a task that was best left to men. “I know firsthand, boys in my family are taught to save money,” says Tillman. “Work a job,…
As a young woman, Brandi Tillman never thought of herself as a financial role model.
Growing up in Chicago, she was raised to believe that navigating the financial world was a task that was best left to men.
“I know firsthand, boys in my family are taught to save money,” says Tillman. “Work a job, save money, ‘this is how you get a house, this is how you get a car.’ The girls [weren’t] taught that [as much].”
So it’s understandable that when she opened her first savings account in college, she didn’t really try to understand how to use it.
“I didn’t know how to manage [a savings account] without overdrawing,” recalls Tillman. “I didn’t keep it long because I didn’t know what to do with it.”
Needless to say, Tillman had developed a bit of a financial blindspot over the years that was impeding her ability to achieve the level of success of which she was more than capable.
It impacted her career as well. She veered away from jobs that dealt significantly with finance.
Thankfully, Tillman got wind of an organization called Dress for Success that’s helping women learn the skills they need to succeed in both the workplace and finance world.
Started in 1997, Dress for Success Worldwide is a global organization that was created to “empower women to achieve economic independence by providing a network of support, professional attire and the development tools to help women thrive in work and in life.”
One of those tools is now a comprehensive financial education program. In partnership with Capital One, Dress for Success is offering its network of goal-oriented, career-driven women the opportunity to take a financial well-being course aimed at helping them define and achieve their individual goals.
Tillman was invited to participate through the Professional Women’s Group — a life-long network of employed Dress for Success women that offers support, practical information and inspiration to help them reach their goals.
She agreed because she had never taken any class or course on finances before. However, she wasn’t sure what to expect.
“When I signed up for it, I thought it would just be talking about how to make money, then how to spend it, then how to save. I thought those were going to be the main points, but there was this broad perspective.”
The 13-week program, hosted at Capital One’s Lincoln Park Café and facilitated by Café Ambassadors, went in-depth on subjects like stocks and bonds, mutual funds, how banks interact with consumers, and the tactics for building and maintaining good credit.
For Tillman, it was a game changer. “I heard about these things before, but I never got any kind of explanation on how to get them, what they’re there for, different ways they’re used,” she explains.
But the program’s not just about helping women gain financial knowledge. It’s helping women, like Tameka Flowers, land the job of their dreams.
A working mother of three from Los Angeles, Flowers was job searching frantically for something that could pay the bills immediately rather than thinking long-term.
“I was applying for any job,” says Flowers.
She went on 20 interviews, but kept coming back empty-handed. Then Dress for Success helped her clearly define her goals and think about the future. Soon after, she landed her dream job as Manager of Learning and Development for Goodwill Southern California. She also now serves as an Ambassador for Dress for Success Worldwide, and was invited to participate in the organization’s Financial Education Program.
“Just being a part of that program, it really took my confidence to the next level,” she says.
As much as the Financial Literacy Program is about strategizing and defining your own financial goals, it’s also about learning from other women of all backgrounds and financial histories, and creating a network of support.
Ana Maria Matos, a social worker from Portland, Oregon, who also took the course, likens it to learning to speak English as her second language.
“I don’t feel like you learn it in the classroom. You learn it by going out and speaking and talking to other people. I think financial [strategy] is the same way.”
“There were women who were 50, 60 plus in our class who could give insight on mistakes they had made…financial mistakes and financial goals they had throughout life,” explains Tillman.
And it didn’t only go one-way. Tillman said the younger members were just as adept at teaching the older women about online banking, cash-pay apps like Zelle and other technological advances in finance.
Now Tillman is interested in passing her newfound financial wisdom on to her 14-year-old daughter, Makya. In fact, at the top of Tillman’s newly defined financial priorities is opening a savings account in her daughter’s name.
Perhaps Tillman’s daughter will even have the opportunity to join this fast-growing network of strong and supportive women. Since its inception, Dress for Success Worldwide has expanded to more than 150 cities across 30 countries, and continues to invest in the lives of more and more women every day.
Being able to take charge of personal finances is vital to securing independence and security for the future, and should be a prerogative of every person, regardless of age or background.
Tillman, Flowers and Matos are just a handful of the women from Dress for Success Worldwide who’ve taken charge of their own financial well-being. And they hope to lead and inspire many more to follow suit.
“One of the things I really think we need to create [is] awareness,” says Matos. “All of us can dream and achieve goals. It just happens that we need to have somebody who can make us see that nothing is impossible.”
From Pakistan to Tanzania, the most effective education solutions are community-led. Here’s how local leaders, in partnership with Malala Fund and supported by Pura, are mobilizing entire communities.
When asked to describe what Tanzania smells like, Grace Isekore closes her eyes and breathes in deep. For a moment, she’s somewhere else entirely. Tanzania is a rich tapestry of sights and scents, from the smell of sea mist that permeates the coastline to the earthy cardamom and cloves she cooks with in her kitchen. But when Grace emerges from her reverie, her answer is unexpected.
“Tanzania smells like peace,” she says, her eyes still closed. “I see a beautiful country where we are free to move, free to speak. And there is peace within the community.”
For Grace, that sense of peace isn’t just something she smells; it’s something she works toward every day. As a project coordinator with Pastoral Women’s Council (PWC), a women-led organization that empowers pastoralist communities in northern Tanzania, she has seen firsthand how girls flourish when they have the opportunity to attend school. Like scent, education not only connects girls to their own culture, but also helps broaden their horizons, realizing new possibilities for themselves and others. That transformation reshapes entire communities and ripples outward, with the potential to change countries and transform the world for the better.
Different scents, different approaches, and communities driving change
Spices in Tanzania. Captured by James Roh for Pura
For Grace and others around the world, education is freedom, as well as a pathway to a stronger community. Rooted in that shared belief, Pura, a home fragrance company, was inspired to build on their four-year partnership with Malala Fund to create something truly unique: a fragrance collection that connects people through scent to communities in Tanzania, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Brazil, where barriers to girls’ education are among the highest.
Using ingredients from each region, the new Pura x Malala Fund Collection uses scent to transport people to these regions directly. “Future in Bloom,” for example, invokes Pakistan’s lush valleys through notes of jasmine, cedarwood, and mango; while Tanzania’s fragrance, “Heart on Fire,” evokes the spirit and joyfulness of the girls who live there through cardamom, lemon, and green tea.
The new Collection honors the work Malala Fund does every day, partnering with locally-led organizations in these four countries to ensure every girl can access and complete 12 years of education. Each scent celebrates the joy, tenacity, and courage of the women and girls driving change on the ground, while also augmenting Pura’s annual grant to Malala Fund by donating eight percent of net revenue from the Pura x Malala Fund Collection to Malala Fund directly.
Just as each country’s scent is unique, so too are their needs related to education. But with support from Malala Fund and Pura, local leaders are coming up with creative ways to mobilize entire communities (parents, teachers, elders, and the students themselves, in their pursuit of solutions, understanding that educating girls helps everyone thrive. Here’s how their efforts are creating real, durable impact in Tanzania and Pakistan, and creating a ripple effect that changes the world for the better.
Parent-teacher associations help Maasai girls and their communities in Tanzania problem-solve
A girl’s school in Tanzania. Captured by James Roh for Pura
Northern Tanzania, Grace’s home, is home to pastoralist communities like the Maasai, a nomadic people who have moved with the seasons to nurture the land and care for their livestock for centuries. The nomadic nature of this lifestyle creates significant and unique barriers to girls’ education. Longstanding gender roles have enabled Maasai to survive in the harsh environment and have placed great value on both women and men. Over time, as nomadic life has been threatened by the privatization of land and stationary education models have been implemented, the reality of pastoralist livelihood has shifted and introduced new complexities. Now, the sheer distance to schools is both a practical challenge and one that often comes with danger from the landscape, predators, and potential exposure to assault along the journey. Girls shoulder the responsibility of household chores and there is often cultural pressure around early marriage – both leading to boys’ education being prioritized over girls’.
“There are very, very good [pastoralist] cultural practices, which are passed from generation to generation,” says Janet Kimori, an English teacher at Lekule Girls Secondary School in Longido, Tanzania. But when cultural practices act as educational barriers, “you have to sit down and look for where you are going to assist. As a school, as an individual, the school administration—all of us will chip in and know how we are going to deal with this problem.”
PWC works to ensure girls are able to exercise their right to an education while also preserving pastoralist culture. One successful approach, the organization found, has been the formation of Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs), created with help from Malala Fund. In PTA meetings, students, parents, teachers, elders, and government officials meet, discuss educational barriers, and come up with community-led solutions that preserve and honor their culture while advancing educational outcomes.
PTA meeting in Tanzania. Captured by James Roh for Pura
One recent PTA meeting highlights how these community-led solutions are often the most effective. At Lekule Girls Secondary School, the lack of fresh water forces girls to walk long distances to collect water for the school’s kitchen during the school day, and these long journeys not only disrupt class time but can leave girls vulnerable to sexual assault in isolated areas. Through facilitated discussion, PTA members landed on a solution: installing a borehole to pipe in fresh water to the school. Reliable access to water creates a better learning environment for the girls, but it also benefits the community at large, as local governments are then more likely to invest in health clinics and other community resources nearby.
With a solution in place, the PTA was then able to discuss ideas and map out a course of action. The women would raise money for the cost of the borehole, while the men would recruit workers to dig the hole and lay the pipe. Together, they would ask government officials to match their investment.
The benefits of PTA meetings within the pastoralist communities are undeniable. “The girls are talking and addressing issues in a confident way, and parents feel they are part of the resource team to solve challenges happening at school,” Grace says. One unexpected benefit: The larger cultural impact these PTA meetings have created. Thanks to the success of PTAs within pastoralist communities, the models are now being endorsed on a national level, and schools across Tanzania are starting to use them to solve problems in their own communities. When a community creates opportunities for girls to learn, everyone benefits.
Safe spaces in rural Pakistan help students and their parents connect, then drive change
Safe space for girls meeting in Pakistan. Captured by Insiya Syed.
A continent away in Pakistan, the country’s northernmost region of Gilgit-Baltistan seems like a land untouched by time. The region’s looming mountains, snow-capped peaks, lush valleys and crystalline lakes draw nature lovers and landscape photographers from around the world, but living among this kind of breathtaking scenery has its drawbacks. Schools in the region are few and far between, and the area’s harsh climate often makes roads inaccessible for travel. Poverty and gender-based discrimination are additional obstacles, making school even further out of reach, and girls are affected disproportionately. Going up against these barriers requires a persistent, quiet strength that’s found in the women who live there and reflected in Pakistan’s signature scent.
Saheli Circles are how local leaders in Gilgit-Baltistan are bridging the gap between girls and education. An Urdu term for “female friend,” Saheli Circles are after-school safe spaces where girls explore subjects like art and climate change, while also developing skills that help them manage emotions, set goals, and build positive relationships. Girls study in groups, visit the library, play sports, and tackle filmmaking and photography projects, all designed to develop self confidence and teach the girls how to advocate for issues that matter to them. But the work doesn’t stop there.
“What we’re trying to achieve here will only be impactful if it trickles down to the home environment and the school environment,” says Marvi Sumro, founder and program director of Innovate, Educate, and Inspire Pakistan (IEI), the local organization that developed the Saheli Circles model and partnered with Malala Fund in 2021 to make it a reality. Ever since, Saheli Circles have grown to involve teachers, elders, and parents to encourage relationship building that’s essential for young girls and adolescents. “Our spaces can give mothers and daughters an opportunity to interact a little differently—do an art activity, or have a cup of tea together, or some good conversation,” Marvi says.
The relationship building is what makes the biggest positive impact throughout the community. Recently, one Saheli Circle was able to bring together parents, teachers, and administrators to advocate for better education at their local school, and together they convinced the department of education to hire a science teacher. Another Saheli Circle organized a fund where members of the community can contribute monthly to pay for uniforms, books, and other school expenses for the girls in their village, eliminating those small, hidden costs that are often a barrier to education for many. A third Saheli Circle was able to produce a short film about how gender-based household chores can take away valuable study time from girls, leaving them at a disadvantage. “The girls put the film together and showed it to the mothers, and the response from the mothers was just beautiful,” Marvi says.
Girls smiling in Pakistan. Captured by Insiya Syed.
The education and relationship building that the girls receive in Saheli Circles connects them to larger opportunities and economic freedom that are not possible in their hometown. “For girls in Gilgit-Baltistan, education is extremely important because of the fact that we’re so far away from where the economy is, where the opportunity is. Education becomes this bridge for us, for our girls, to access all the opportunity and economy that exists in [larger cities].”
From rural Tanzania to remote Pakistan, local organizations prove every day that prioritizing girls’ education benefits everyone. Communities that lift up girls are able to secure resources like clean water and well-staffed schools, as well as build stronger relationships.
These outcomes are only possible because of the women and girls who work tirelessly in these regions to overcome barriers and drive progress. The Pura x Malala Fund Collection is a way to honor them, celebrate their achievements, and unite people the world over around a shared belief that education is freedom. Like scent, that belief can build, travel, and has the possibility to transform the world.
Experience the Pura x Malala Fund Collection here, and connect with the stories of real girls leading change across the globe.
This story was originally shared on Capital One. Inside the walls of her kitchen at her childhood home in Guatemala, Evelyn Klohr, the founder of a Washington, D.C.-area bakery called Kakeshionista, was taught a lesson that remains central to her business operations today. “Baking cakes gave me the confidence to believe in my own brand…
Inside the walls of her kitchen at her childhood home in Guatemala, Evelyn Klohr, the founder of a Washington, D.C.-area bakery called Kakeshionista, was taught a lesson that remains central to her business operations today.
“Baking cakes gave me the confidence to believe in my own brand and now I put my heart into giving my customers something they’ll enjoy eating,” Klohr said.
While driven to launch her own baking business, pursuing a dream in the culinary arts was economically challenging for Klohr. In the United States, culinary schools can open doors to future careers, but the cost of entry can be upwards of $36,000 a year.
Through a friend, Klohr learned about La Cocina VA, a nonprofit dedicated to providing job training and entrepreneurship development services at a training facility in the Washington, D.C-area.
La Cocina VA’s, which translates to “the kitchen” in Spanish, offers its Bilingual Culinary Training program to prepare low-and moderate-income individuals from diverse backgrounds to launch careers in the food industry.
That program gave Klohr the ability to fully immerse herself in the baking industry within a professional kitchen facility and receive training in an array of subjects including culinary skills, food safety, career development and English language classes.
The organization also offers participants the opportunity to enroll in its Culinary Small Business Incubator, a 9-week training course that teaches participants to create and scale their own food-based startups.
During that program, LA Cocina VA provides participants with support for developing the internal operations of their businesses and provides a shared kitchen for community members to rent space at affordable rates.
Patricia Funegra, who founded La Cocina VA in 2014, said that helping people like Klohr is exactly why she wanted to create the incubator.
“I have firsthand experience of the difficulties of being an immigrant and person of color in America,” said Funegra. “At the same time, I also know the enormous opportunities that exist here to improve people’s lives.”
With the help of funding from Capital One, the center has been able to support 160 participants since opening with roughly 85% of graduates being hired for jobs in the food industry upon completion.
La Cocina VA also received support from Capital One’s Community Finance team as it provided financing for the construction of Gilliam Place, an affordable housing unit in which La Cocina VA moved its operations into in 2020.
After moving into Gilliam Place, Funegra launched the Zero Barriers Training and Entrepreneurship Center, a hub for startup founders that includes a kitchen incubator and a community cafe to provide workforce development opportunities for residents.
That support comes as part of the Capital One Impact Initiative, a multi-million dollar commitment to support growth in underserved communities and advance socioeconomic mobility by closing gaps in equity and opportunity.
La Cocina VA students also worked alongside Capital One Cafe ambassadors to learn skills in management and personal finance.
“The COVID-19 pandemic forced entrepreneurs, especially people of color and immigrants, to shift their entire business models just to survive,” said Emilia Lopez, the Senior Vice President of US Card Customer Resiliency, who serves on La Cocina VA’s Board of Directors. “As a La Cocina VA board member, I am proud of the commitment and support Capital One provides La Cocina VA and thankful for their effort this past year to help entrepreneurs quickly adapt their businesses to support alternative dining options.”
La Cocina VA is also in constant communication with employers, partners, hotels and restaurants to make them aware of their pipeline of graduates.
“La Cocina VA taught me not just the physical work that goes into baking and cooking but also how to have a good understanding to mentally and financially launch my business,” said Klohr. “They’re helping me make those connections and I know they’ll always have my back.”
America’s urban areas are often known as concrete jungles due to their abundance of asphalt and lack of parks and natural grassy areas. These neighborhoods are often populated by low-income, communities of color because of discriminatory lending practices known as redlining. These policies, which date back to the 1930s, were put in place to reinforce…
America’s urban areas are often known as concrete jungles due to their abundance of asphalt and lack of parks and natural grassy areas. These neighborhoods are often populated by low-income, communities of color because of discriminatory lending practices known as redlining. These policies, which date back to the 1930s, were put in place to reinforce racial segregation and reallocate city funds to white neighborhoods.
Redlining policies perpetuated inequality that was not only economic but environmental as well.
The buildings, roads, and unnatural infrastructure that make up urban areas absorb and re-emit the sun’s heat more than natural landscapes. This turns urbanized areas into “heat islands” that experience warmer temperatures than greener, less populated neighborhoods.
Richmond, Virginia’s urban heat islands can reach temperatures as much as 20 degrees warmer than the greener areas of the city. Heat islands look to become an even greater problem in the coming years as extreme temperature shifts caused by climate change become more common.
To help create green space in heat-island communities, Capital One is supporting the Arbor Day Foundation and Groundwork RVA with $75,000 in grant funding to plant and distribute roughly 300 trees in affected neighborhoods across Richmond.
“Greenspace and access to fresh food [are] vital to the communities we serve. We are proud to work with Groundwork RVA and the Arbor Day Foundation to help address those needs here in Richmond,” said Andrew Green, Director of Capital One’s Office of Environmental Sustainability.
Together, the three organizations will strive to improve green infrastructure in three areas that have been identified as some of the hottest, least-resourced in Richmond.
“That coalition is working hard to use resources to mitigate the disparate impacts that those communities have had,” says Rob Jones, Executive Director of Groundwork RVA. “There’s an open conversation in Richmond about how to ameliorate inequities that stem from the direct connection between the discriminatory practice of redlining and the communities impacted by urban heat island effect today.”
The effort began, appropriately, on Earth Day in April of this year when Groundwork RVA’s Green Team and Green Workforce — cohorts of Black and Brown high school students and recent graduates in Richmond — created a volunteer event to plant 50 fruit trees at Sankofa Community Orchard to enhance food access in the city.
The Earth Day project also distributed 50 shade trees to residents.
Members of the Green Team and Green Workforce plan to plant the remaining 250 trees by the end of the year, focusing on neighborhoods in Southside Richmond that have a lot of concrete and a real lack of shade.
The volunteers are also building and maintaining green infrastructure in a variety of ways, including the development of rain gardens, rain capture systems, and permeable pavement.
Several of Groundwork RVA’s participants live in Richmond’s Hillside Court housing project. Volunteers are looking to plant trees in the community to work in tandem with its recently launched mini-farm project to help address the food desert.
“It’s so surreal to see how we can take empty places and turn them into a spot for people to grow food and enjoy the space,” says Darquan Robertson, a Groundwork RVA Green Workforce participant and Hillside Court resident. “I want people in this community to feel like this space is meant for them.”
Over on Richmond’s Hull Street, the goal is to cool down the neighborhood by filling many of the area’s vacant tree wells with high-quality, shade-producing trees.
Through support from Capital One and the Arbor Foundation, Jones says that Groundwork RVA will be able to purchase equipment, such as a watering truck, needed to sustain its efforts to support the growth of each tree during the two years that follow planting.
“We’re thankful to receive funding from Capital One and the Arbor Day Foundation to plant more trees and build healthier neighborhoods,” Jones said. “This work is not only vital for our communities today but the survival of future generations, especially as we tackle climate change.”
Growing up in Virginia, Dominique Meeks Gombe idolized her family physician — a young Black woman who inspired Meeks Gombe to pursue her passion for chemistry. While Meeks Gombe began her career working in an environmental chemistry lab, after observing multiple inefficient processes in and around the lab, she took the initiative to teach herself…
Growing up in Virginia, Dominique Meeks Gombe idolized her family physician — a young Black woman who inspired Meeks Gombe to pursue her passion for chemistry.
While Meeks Gombe began her career working in an environmental chemistry lab, after observing multiple inefficient processes in and around the lab, she took the initiative to teach herself to code in order to automate and streamline those issues.
That sparked her love for coding and imminent career shift. Now a software engineer at Capital One, Meeks Gombe wants to be a similar role model to her childhood mentor and encourage girls to pursue any career they desire.
“I’m so passionate about technology because that’s where the world is going,” Meeks Gombe said. “All of today’s problems will be solved using technology. So it’s very important for me, as a Black woman, to be at the proverbial table with my unique perspective.”
Since 2019, she and her fellow Capital One associates have partnered with the Capital One Coders program and Girls For A Change to teach coding fundamentals to middle school girls.
The nonprofit’s mission is aimed at empowering Black girls in Central Virginia. The organization focuses on designing, leading, funding and implementing social change projects that tackle issues girls face in their own neighborhoods.
Girls For a Change is one of many local nonprofits that receive support from the Capital One Impact Initiative, which strives to close gaps in equity while helping people gain better access to economic and social opportunities. The initial $200 million, five-year national commitment aims to support growth in underserved communities as well as advance socioeconomic mobility.
Through the Capital One Coders program, girls can gain early access to computer science education which can directly inspire their confidence levels and interest in computer science.
In fact, a report from Code.org says that Black and Hispanic students who take computer science classes before college are seven times more likely to major in computer science.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Meeks Gombe helped to develop a virtual curriculum that included breakout rooms with custom games and quizzes. In her role as a lead teacher for Girls For A Change, Meeks Gombe’s visibility as a Black technologist and leader is helping to create a lasting impact on her students.
“Just having girls see the variety of career opportunities led by people who look like them opens up that possibility. There’s a connection made when girls see me in a role that they don’t usually associate themselves with. I can’t reach every girl, but I want them to know that they can do this,” Meeks Gombe said.
Capital One Vice President of HR Technology, Maureen Jules-Perez echoed Meeks Gombe’s perspective. For Jules-Perez, who served on the organization’s board for a few years before becoming the new Board Chair of Girl’s For a Change this year, the mission of the nonprofit parallels her motto of “Tech For Good” which uses tech to improve social, environmental, and economic outcomes. The organization’s long-term programs give girls the option to see themselves as artists, entrepreneurs and technologists, among other career opportunities.
“I came from a similar background so I feel like I’m one of those girls,” said Jules-Perez. “I know what it’s like to have someone champion you, but also the opposite feeling of knowing someone who doesn’t think you’re worthy. I’m haunted by the thought that there’s a Black girl or a person of color who doesn’t feel seen or doesn’t think the world wants them. Girls For A Change prepares Black girls for the world.”
Beyond helping girls see their potential as future technologists, Girls For A Change’s CEO Angela Patton is working hard on her action-oriented vision to help realize the unmet needs of all girls in Central Virginia.
Her focus is particularly on what she calls “at-promise” youth who have natural gifts and innate potential where their circumstances don’t define their identities. For more than a decade, Patton has supported at-promise girls with incarcerated fathers through Dance With Dad, a rehabilitation program founded by a group of young girls who wanted to invite their jailed fathers into their lives on their own terms and define their futures. The girls, Patton explained, wrote to a police sheriff to allow them to hold a dance with their fathers in jail. More than a decade since the program began, not one of the fathers had been reincarcerated again.
“We’re teaching girls to elevate their voices,” said Patton. “We want them to experience the moment where they feel ownership and empowerment so that they can change their own lives.”
Girls For A Change has partnered with Capital One since 2017 to connect girls with career and life opportunities for which they otherwise may not have access or insight.
Since the partnership began, Capital One has supported 15 different programs with Girls for A Change. Seven of these programs were Capital One Coders camps and nearly 80 Capital One Tech associates have supported Girls For A Change girls over the last few years through those programs.
“For some of the girls aging out of the Girls For A Change program, they had a chance to do mock interviews with Capital One associates and get feedback for entry-level positions,” said Patton. “I love that I have resources to point my girls to so that they can have a chance at better outcomes.”
We and other personal finance experts have long talked about the financial challenges of the LGBTQ+ community. That includes access to equal housing, services protections and wage inequality because of one’s sexual orientation or gender identity. While those protections would be included in the Equality Act, legislation remains pending in Congress. To be fair, the…
We and other personal finance experts have long talked about the financial challenges of the LGBTQ+ community. That includes access to equal housing, services protections and wage inequality because of one’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
While those protections would be included in the Equality Act, legislation remains pending in Congress.
Let’s break down some of the obstacles confronting members of the LGBTQ+ community.
Queer people are often expected to pay more
One LGBTQ+ financial challenge is the expectations — and misconception — that LGBTQ people can or should pay more because we don’t have kids. While 15% of LGBTQ people have kids — compared to 38% of opposite-sex couples — it’s not a cause for LGBTQ people having more money.
In fact, because of wage inequality for people in the LGBTQ community, having fewer opportunities for career advancement and in many cases needing the physical and emotional safety that comes with living in an LGBTQ-friendly city (many of which often have high costs of living), it’s likely that your LGBTQ+ sibling or friend doesn’t have as much financial security as their straight counterparts.
This is why we didn’t travel for the holidays for three years while paying off credit card debt. Adding $800 to $1,000 in plane tickets to the credit cards we were working hard to pay off didn’t make sense. Yet, our families never offered to come to where we lived for a holiday and foot the travel expenses.
A similar situation arises when caring for aging parents. LGBTQ folks are more likely to be asked to care for aging parents, which is backed by a 2010 MetLife study. This increases the financial burdens and restricts the savings opportunities for LGBTQ folks.
Queer people, especially gay men, struggle with the ‘hysteresis effect’
There’s also the lingering consequence of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on the LGBTQ community, specifically for gay men.
As Paul Donovan said on Queer Money® episode 252 about his book, Profit and Prejudice: The Luddites of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, that then created a hysteresis effect.
The hysteresis effect occurs when a singular event has an economic effect that lasts even after the initial event no longer exists.
Of course, we’re still fighting HIV/AIDS. But we know more and have more resources to fight HIV/AIDS and it’s no longer the death sentence it once was. A lingering economic effect for many LGBTQ+ people is “an unhealthy short-term view when it comes to finances,” according to Donovan.
Our struggle with the hysteresis effect is one reason we got into $51,00 in credit card debt. We had a myopic view of what being successful was and spent accordingly.
The consequences compound on the challenges above and the many LGBTQ+ financial challenges about which we and many others have written. For example, LGBTQ+ people have smaller emergency savings accounts, less in retirement savings and more in debt than the general population, according to Student Loan Hero.
How to overcome those challenges
Get clear and become committed to your life and money goals
There are a lot of emotions tied to money. We attach our self-worth and value to money. We sometimes feel guilty that we have money while we also sometimes feel guilty that we don’t have enough money. If we’re letting family or loved ones guilt us into paying for what we can’t afford, paying more than our fair share, or risking our financial security, we likely have emotional reasons, such as the need to please, to cause that.
This is just one reason why it’s important for LGBTQ+ folks to get crystal clear on what matters most to us. We must figure out what we want our lives to look like and what we want to achieve, then architect our lives to reach those goals. That includes financing. If being helpful, giving or being charitable is one of our goals, we can include that in our life and financial plans.
If we have fewer resources at hand, then being clear on the one or two things we most want to achieve in life can help us efficiently spend our money and have money left over to help the people we care about or to meet our obligations.
Let’s be hopeful (and intentional) about our future
As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. famously said, “the arch of the moral universe is long and bends toward justice”.
There’s no doubt it’s bending toward justice in the LGBTQ+ community. The solution is that we must recognize that.
This means that while we live our best lives today, we must consider our long-term financial security and the lives we want to live when we’re older. To be clear, living our best lives today and having financial well-being to live our best lives in the future aren’t mutually exclusive.
It’s by talking with our friends and family about money, working with a Money Coach at a Capital One Café or other financial planner to recognize what matters most to us today and what we want in the future.
It’s for these challenges and opportunities that we’re strong advocates for LGBTQ+ financial independence and why we’re proud to partner with Capital One. Though people have nuanced backgrounds, Capital One believes, as we do, that finances should work for everyone. That’s why Capital One supports LGBTQ+ communities facing unique economic hardships through both products and programs supporting our needs.
Marim Albajari was a high school senior living in New York City during the onset of the pandemic. Suddenly, the prospect of starting college directly after graduation no longer seemed like a sure thing. Due to a lack of resources to help her navigate the college application process, she was almost a victim of the…
Marim Albajari was a high school senior living in New York City during the onset of the pandemic. Suddenly, the prospect of starting college directly after graduation no longer seemed like a sure thing.
Due to a lack of resources to help her navigate the college application process, she was almost a victim of the “summer melt”—a term used to describe students who cancel plans to attend college before classes begin.
The “melt” is a common problem disproportionately affecting students from low-income families—many high-school graduates who have been accepted to college and plan to enroll are quickly knocked off-course if they do not obtain sufficient financial aid, miss administrative deadlines, or most importantly, lack support from family and friends.
The COVID-19 pandemic worsened the problem, as high school graduates who immediately went on to college in Fall 2020 declined by nearly 7% when compared to the previous year, for obvious reasons. Even without a pandemic, finding the right information about things like course load, financial aid, and housing can be time-consuming and overwhelming for students without a guide.
That’s where Oli comes in.
A free AI chatbot service, nicknamed “Oli”, is offered by The Common Application (Common App). In 2018, the Reach Higher Initiative merged with Common App and partnered with AdmitHub to develop the AI chatbot that would eventually become Oli. The group then joined forces with the College Advising Corps to offer counseling services to get more first-generation, low-income, and diverse students enrolled in college.
Now a freshman at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Albajari can attest to the value of Oli’s help.
With the help of $1.4 million in grant funding from the Capital One Foundation, nearly 675,000 high school students applying to colleges through Common App have gained access to information on admissions and scholarship opportunities.
“The Capital One Foundation saw the need and stepped up to help by moving as quickly as possible to maximize the number of people that could be helped,” says Eric Waldo, executive director of the Reach Higher Initiative at Common App. “Our colleagues at The Foundation have gone over the top to connect us with resources across their organization and are continuing to help us achieve our mission to assist as many students as possible through its continued support to the Class of 2021 and beyond.”The result? Resources provided by Oli have saved students nearly 18,000 hours that traditionally would’ve been spent consulting with an advisor.
“Oli was my guardian angel,” Albajari said. “As a first-generation college student, I didn’t have the privilege to get the help I needed at home on my college journey. Even though Oli may be a robot, I felt like someone had my back.”
The result? Resources provided by Oli have saved students nearly 18,000 hours that traditionally would’ve been spent consulting with an advisor.
“Oli was my guardian angel,” Albajari said. “As a first-generation college student, I didn’t have the privilege to get the help I needed at home on my college journey. Even though Oli may be a robot, I felt like someone had my back.”
“It is imperative that all graduating high school students be equipped with the tools necessary to avoid delaying their dreams of attending college,” says Andy Navarrete, Head of External Affairs at Capital One. “The playing field of opportunity in higher education has never been level, and the COVID-19 pandemic only made that fact more clear. We’re committed to continuing our efforts to support equitable access and persistence for aspiring college students of all backgrounds.”
That support from The Foundation comes alongside an initial $200 million, multi-year commitment from Capital One to advance socioeconomic mobility through the Capital One Impact Initiative.
In addition to exclusively funding the initial launch of the AI chatbot for Class of 2020 students, Capital One is continuing to expand this resource by contributing both financially and through pro bono support from its tech associates. Since the chatbot’s inception, nine associates from Capital One have volunteered 500 hours of pro bono service to optimize the chatbot’s ability to help prospective college students.
“As a first-generation college student, I remember having a lot of the same questions that students interacting with the chatbot were seeking answers to,” says Elizabeth Souza, a Capital One associate who helped support the development of this chatbot. “Volunteering to support the development of this chatbot has been a tremendous opportunity to ensure equitable access to technology and resources for all.”
Those efforts in turn helped first-generation college student Jennifer Sanchez, a California native now finishing her freshman year at the University of La Verne. With the help of resources provided by the AI chatbot, Sanchez earned a scholarship, received a grant to help offset the cost of housing and was connected with councilors at each university she received admission to best decide which school would be the best fit for her.
“I was considering not even going to college because of how the pandemic financially impacted my family, but that chatbot gave me access to financial and educational resources that I would’ve never known existed without it,” Sanchez said. “I think of that Oli like a friend. It supported me on my journey, like a friend would, every step of the way.”
A little encouragement and access to the right information can take us places we never imagined.
For Festus Oyinwola, a 19-year-old first-generation college student from Dallas, Texas, the financial burden of attending college made his higher education dreams feel like a faraway goal. As his high school graduation neared, Oyinwola feared he would have to interrupt his educational pursuits for at least a year to save up to attend college. That…
For Festus Oyinwola, a 19-year-old first-generation college student from Dallas, Texas, the financial burden of attending college made his higher education dreams feel like a faraway goal.
As his high school graduation neared, Oyinwola feared he would have to interrupt his educational pursuits for at least a year to save up to attend college.
That changed when Oyinwola learned of the Dallas County Promise, a new program launched by The Commit Partnership, a community navigator that works to ensure that all North Texas students receive an equitable education.
The Dallas County Promise covers any cost of tuition not included in financial aid grants. To date, nearly 60 high schools in Dallas County currently participate in this initiative.
It pairs students — including Oyinwola — with a success coach for the following three years of their education.
To ensure that students like Oyinwola have the opportunity to build a solid foundation, The Commit Partnership is supported by businesses like Capital One who are committed to driving meaningful change in Dallas County through improved access to education.
The bank’s support comes as part of its initial $200 million, multi-year commitment to advance socioeconomic mobility through the Capital One Impact Initiative.
“Businesses have a responsibility as neighbors in our community to help foster a more equitable and vibrant future,” said Sanjiv Yajnik, President of Financial Services of Capital One. With this level of support, the plan is to build thriving, inclusive communities that generate and foster prosperity.”
The education gap exists: 85% of jobs that pay a living wage require a postsecondary degree while only nearly 40% of young adults in Dallas hold an associate’s degree or higher. The Dallas County Promise strives to help build a key foundation for professional success by ensuring that students have the resources needed to attend college.
In an effort to bridge that gap, The Commit Partnership has also launched Dallas Thrives, an initiative that aims to double the number of young adults earning a living wage by 2040. This program will lean into strategic partnerships with local businesses, nonprofits, elected officials and educators to launch Dallas Thrives and strive to create lasting change.
Those initiatives aim to prepare North Texas students like Oyinwola for success in the classroom and workforce.
As a Promise Scholar, Oyinwola first attended Richland College and has since transferred to the University of North Texas at Dallas where he studies biology and chemistry. Receiving tuition assistance has enabled Owinyola to spend less time worrying about how to pay for his studies and instead focus on his goal of attending medical school.
He hopes to serve as a model for his younger sister and create a cycle for his family members to pursue a higher education directly following high school. Now that his sister is approaching her own high school graduation, Oyinwola has encouraged her to apply for the Dallas County Promise so she too can have the same opportunities to study in her field of interest.
“When I was in my first year of college, I had to figure out most of those things by myself,” Oyinwola says. “My hope is that she doesn’t really have to do that because she has me.”
Learn more about how Capital One is closing gaps in equity and opportunity.
After years of service as a military nurse in the naval Marine Corps, Los Angeles, California-resident Rhonda Jackson became one of the 37,000 retired veterans in the U.S. who are currently experiencing homelessness — roughly eight percent of the entire homeless population. “I was living in a one-bedroom apartment with no heat for two years,”…
After years of service as a military nurse in the naval Marine Corps, Los Angeles, California-resident Rhonda Jackson became one of the 37,000 retired veterans in the U.S. who are currently experiencing homelessness — roughly eight percent of the entire homeless population.
“I was living in a one-bedroom apartment with no heat for two years,” Jackson said. “The Department of Veterans Affairs was doing everything they could to help but I was not in a good situation.”
One day in 2019, Jackson felt a sudden sense of hope for a better living arrangement when she caught wind of the ongoing construction of Veteran’s Village in Carson, California — a 51-unit affordable housing development with one, two and three-bedroom apartments and supportive services to residents through a partnership with U.S.VETS.
Her feelings of hope quickly blossomed into a vision for her future when she learned that Veteran’s Village was taking applications for residents to move in later that year after construction was complete.
“I was entered into a lottery and I just said to myself, ‘Okay, this is going to work out,’” Jackson said. “The next thing I knew, I had won the lottery — in more ways than one.”
That drop continued a steady decline over the past decade, as the number of veterans experiencing homelessness has fallen nearly 50 percent since 2009.
National Equity Fund (NEF), a nonprofit LIHTC syndicator and partner to Capital One, brought Veteran’s Village to the bank, which responded by providing a $14.3 million construction loan and $15.6 million long-term equity investment through the purchase of low-income housing tax credits.
“Everyone deserves safe, secure, stable housing — especially the heroes that protect our rights and freedoms,” says David Musial, a Capital One Senior Director of the Bank’s Community Finance team, which specializes in financing affordable housing. “We are honored to be able to support communities like Veteran’s Village as stable affordable housing is fundamental to physical and financial health and access to opportunity.”
Veteran’s Village strives to be more than just an affordable housing development. Its staff functions as a support system to help residents navigate their individual situations to ensure that each resident is equipped with the tools they need to thrive.
“Through the support of Capital One, we were able to provide much-needed housing for U.S. Veterans,” said Amy Hyde of Thomas Safran & Associates, an affordable housing development and management organization whose properties include Veteran’s Village. “Our goal is to enrich the lives of the people who reside in our buildings and Capital One’s funding is helping us do just that,” Hyde said.
For Jackson, that goal is realized through the sense of community throughout Veteran’s Village.
“It’s home for people who served their country and want to serve each other,” Jackson said. “We take care of each other and we look out for each other. We’re a family here.”
In addition to supporting housing for veterans, Capital One supports affordable housing for residents throughout the Los Angeles area, including Vista Grande Court, an affordable development that supports people over 60 years of age and Palo Verde Apartments, which includes 49 affordable units with 25 reserved for formerly homeless veterans and their families.
Capital One’s support to affordable housing communities in Los Angeles comes as part of its larger Capital One Impact Initiative, an initial $200 million, multi-year commitment to advancing socioeconomic mobility through advocating for an inclusive society, building thriving communities and creating financial tools that enrich lives.
Jackson said that while she is grateful for her living arrangement at Veteran’s Village, there is a long road ahead in ensuring that every veteran has access to stable housing.
“I pray that there will be more communities like this built because there are so many of my veteran brothers and sisters on the streets that don’t even realize their living situation doesn’t have to be the way it currently is,” Jackson said.
As the cold, dark days of winter carry on, restaurants all over the country are struggling to keep patrons coming in the proverbial door. Despite expensive and elaborate upgrades to help make restaurant dining safer, the one-two punch of the pandemic and frigid temperatures has done a number on restaurants’ cash flow. Already, 17% of…
As the cold, dark days of winter carry on, restaurants all over the country are struggling to keep patrons coming in the proverbial door. Despite expensive and elaborate upgrades to help make restaurant dining safer, the one-two punch of the pandemic and frigid temperatures has done a number on restaurants’ cash flow. Already, 17% of all restaurants in the United States have permanently closed since the start of the pandemic.
The National Restaurant Association described the industry as being “in an economic free-fall” in their plea to the U.S. House of Representatives, for some economic relief. If no help is received, they expect 58% of restaurants to continue furloughs and layoffs in the first quarter of the year.
There are, however, some big businesses doing their part to support the restaurant industry in its time of need. Capital One, for example, is taking a multi-pronged approach to helping the restaurant industry. One of those initiatives is providing over 30 restaurants nationwide with funding to safely and successfully winterize their outdoor dining options so they can stay open and keep their occupancy up.
“Restaurants are anchors in the communities in which we live and work, which is why we’re providing them support so they can better access the tools they need to survive these difficult winter months,” says Monica Bauder, Head of Cardholder Access at Capital One. “At Capital One, the dining industry has always been an important community to us and we want to continue to find ways to help them through this difficult time.”
Cotogna, an Italian restaurant in San Francisco’s Jackson Square, was able to build an outdoor structure with a roof and heaters at each table thanks to Capital One’s help. The staff also put olive trees between the tables to act as barriers while maintaining the restaurant’s ambiance. Now Cotogna can operate at full capacity entirely outdoors.
“We are really committed to making guests feel safe and comfortable and want them to feel like they’re eating at the Cotogna they know and love,” says Matt Cirne, Cotogna’s beverage director. “Having partners like Capital One that are willing to be creative and really help restaurants navigate the uncertainty that lies ahead is crucial.”
Two well-known restaurants in Washington, D.C., ABC Pony and Maketto, have also received support from Capital One during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since everyone uses online reservation services these days, Capital One partnered with SevenRooms to provide complimentary table reservation services to restaurants like them. This service will be invaluable for restaurants whether they’re able to be open now or later.
“It’s going to be crucially important to have constant communication with our guests once it’s safe to reopen our indoor dining rooms to ensure that each person feels comfortable,” says Erik Bruner-Yang, a Washington D.C.-based chef who also manages ABC Pony and Maketto. “Capital One’s sponsorship of our transition to using SevenRooms as our management system will help keep our guests up-to-date in real-time about our COVID-19 safety practices and other important updates.”
The impact on the restaurant industry is changing month-to-month though, which is why Capital One is adapting its support to fit the new needs. For example, the company is also working with Bruner-Yang on The Power of 10, an initiative he created that is helping restaurants keep their employees employed and food insecure communities fed. The initiative found that a restaurant can keep 10 full-time staff employed and make 1,000 meals for frontline healthcare workers and other vulnerable community members with $10,000 a week. So far, the partnership has lead to over 55,000 meals served and 280 jobs saved.
In order to help the thousands of restaurant workers who’ve lost their jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Capital One has also partnered with Get Shift Done, a nonprofit that’s hiring impacted restaurant workers to help put together food boxes for food-insecure communities nationwide.
And since keeping a restaurant afloat during the pandemic is an uphill battle, Capital One, the official credit card partner of The James Beard Foundation, hosted a free webinar series for restaurant owners as part of the foundation’sOpen for Good Initiative. The initiative was designed to act as a guidepost for owners during this unprecedented time when the future looks so uncertain, and provided useful information on cash flow, business credit, human resources, social media, and public relations.
Despite the challenges that businesses have faced – and continue to face – more than two-thirds of business owners remain optimistic that their businesses will return to pre-pandemic operations and revenues, according to a recent survey conducted by Morning Consult on behalf of Capital One Business.
While that optimism is encouraging, it’s taken resilience and dedication among business owners to navigate the stressful environment of the past year.
Many businesses, including those in the food services industry, have taken measures to help navigate the economic shutdowns and social distancing mandates brought on by the pandemic. They’ve adopted contactless payment options, delivery, online ordering and curbside pickup to keep their doors open and stay connected to customers.
To support local restaurants and the broader small business community, Capital One partnered with a coalition of brands and nonprofit organizations to launch Small Unites, a national advocacy program that is providing ongoing support for small businesses across America. As part of Small Unites, anyone can donate to verified small business fundraisers, as well as the Small Business Relief Fund.
