Blog – The Motley Fool Foundation

First-Generation Americans

First-Generation Americans Face Unique Financial Obstacles

The financial lives of immigrants and their children are complex in many ways.

Learn more: https://www.fool.com/research/study-first-generation-american-finances/

Women and Investing

Women and Investing: 30 Years of Research and Statistics Summarized. When it comes to investing, women and men differ. Here’s what the research says.

Learn more: https://www.fool.com/research/women-in-investing-research/

Meet Dan Weidenbenner

Motley Fool Recognizes Dan Weidenbenner as Rule Breaker.

Dan Weidenbenner, Social Innovator, Founder and Executive Director of Mill Village Ministries, joins The Motley Fool Foundation’s inaugural cohort of Financial Freedom Rule Breakers.

ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 1, 2023 – The Motley Fool Foundation (TMFF), a public charity dedicated to Financial Freedom for all, has announced that Dan Weidenbenner, founder and executive director of Mill Village Ministries, will be joining its first cohort of Financial Freedom Rule Breakers.

“The Motley Fool Foundation’s signature program, Financial Freedom Rule Breakers, is aiming to bridge the gap between the five drivers of Financial Freedom – housing, work, money, health and education – and help fewer Americans live paycheck to paycheck,” said Jennifer Gennaro Oxley, executive director of The Motley Fool Foundation.

Mill Village Ministries is the parent organization of a collection of social entrepreneurs working together to elevate the Greenville, South Carolina, community. The organization currently operates Village Launch, a grassroots entrepreneur and small business incubator; Village Wrench, a community-based bike shop; Mill Village Farms, an urban farm, youth employment, and healthy food enterprise; and Village Engage, a faith-based community education and organizing platform that focuses on confronting the systemic problems of poverty, racism, and environmental inequity.

“Mill Village Ministries started when community members and I began teaching four teenagers to grow nutritious food for communities with limited access to fresh and locally sourced produce,” said Weidenbenner. “Thanks to The Motley Fool Foundation’s Rule Breakers program, Mill Village Ministries will continue to grow to meet the community’s needs.”

By investing in Rule Breakers like Weidenbenner, The Motley Fool Foundation is currently impacting more than 115,000 lives and is on track to grow its program to fund 25 Financial Freedom Rule Breakers by 2025.

“It takes a special kind of person to create breakthroughs, and The Motley Fool Foundation is finding them, connecting them, learning from them, and helping them go further, faster,” said Oxley. “Our Financial Freedom Rule Breakers are social innovators bringing fresh, solutions-oriented thinking and paving the way toward a better equilibrium for all.”

Full Release Here

Fools for Good

The Motley Fool and The Motley Fool Foundation Recently Teamed Up to Serve Communities Around the World

The Motley Fool and The Motley Fool Foundation teamed up to Pay It Foolward! by volunteering for a half-day of service helping local and national nonprofits on Friday, December 9, 2022. Fools across 17 locations in the U.S. and Australia chose to work with organizations that included Carpenter’s Shelter, Habitat for Humanity, Jeffco Eats, Junior Achievement, Feed More, Note in the Pocket, Mecklenburg County Solid Waste Management, The River Food Pantry, Catchafire, DoSomething.org, Project Gutenberg, and the United Nations.

The Motley Fool Foundation Executive Director Jennifer Gennaro Oxley said, “With the Foundation’s focus on finding, funding, and amplifying ways to help people living paycheck to paycheck, and at this time of year when things are particularly difficult, it’s so important to recognize the value of lending a hand to the many organizations that are on the ground helping strivers become thrivers. Our team of Fools is committed to helping make change happen for those who need it most since it’s been an important part of our core culture and company DNA for the last three decades.”

Minutes with the Mindtrust

Minutes with the Mindtrust

The Motley Fool Foundation’s mission is to create pathways to Financial Freedom for those living paycheck to paycheck. Every day, we do this by finding, funding, and amplifying innovative solutions that enable strivers to become thrivers.

Entrepreneurism: A Pathway to Financial Freedom!

We are thankful for the Fools who have provided a hand up to support our Financial Freedom Rule Breakers!

We know that it takes a special kind of person to create breakthroughs. Our Financial Freedom Rule Breakers Program is finding these social entrepreneurs, investing in them, learning from them, and helping them go further – faster. The Motley Fool Foundation connects Rule Breakers with our Foolish members to help amplify their work.

As a part of the Financial Freedom Rule Breakers Program, we recently launched Minutes with the Mindtrust – real-time consulting sessions designed to help our Rule Breakers address the business challenges that slow their progress. In a recent session, Rule Breaker Tim Lampkin, CEO of Higher Purpose Co., a social impact organization focused on Black entrepreneurialism in the Mississippi Delta region, connected with Ollen Douglass, Managing Partner of The Motley Fool Venture Fund. Tim was able to get some key insights from Ollen’s many years of experience, and the two discussed their shared goal of helping communities of color launch successful businesses.

Here’s what Tim had to say:
“Ollen Douglass has helped me think about Higher Purpose funding streams in a more creative way. Higher Purpose Co. is currently supported mostly by grants and major donations. Ollen has encouraged me to explore revenue-generating initiatives to help sustain Higher Purpose, and we’re looking into those options now.”

Spark Conversation Series

The Spark Conversation Series

The Motley Fool Foundation, in partnership with Ashoka, presents the Spark Conversation Series, which showcases social innovators – people the foundation refers to as “Foolish Rule Breakers” – and the creative ways they’re working to help Americans transition from financially striving to financially thriving. Spark Conversations focus on real-life solutions developed by social innovators who are making changes now that will impact those living paycheck to paycheck for generations to come.

“The idea behind the Spark Conversation Series is to better understand what’s actually working to promote Financial Freedom,” says David Gardner, co-founder of The Motley Fool and chair of The Motley Fool Foundation board of directors. “What’s moving the needle that deserves more of our attention? But we also identify where there are gaps and where the opportunities lie to move from sparks to much bigger impacts.”

In episode five of the Spark Conversation Series, which was recently launched, Gardner and Ashoka US Director of Strategy and Partnerships Michael Zakaras talk with social entrepreneur Alex Bernadotte, founder of Beyond 12, about the work she’s doing through her organization.

Beyond 12 gets to the heart of social mobility and financial opportunity by creating a powerful feedback loop between K-12 schools and post-secondary institutions. Bernadotte and her team influence the national conversation about educational equity and student success by working with more than 2,000 students on 180 college campuses throughout the United States.

“It is possible to look at a child in this country and predict with alarming accuracy where that child will end up in terms of their educational and economic outcomes based solely on their race, their ZIP code, and their parents’ level of education,” says Bernadotte. “These are the gaps that fuel me as a social entrepreneur and are certainly the gaps that fuel our work and our desire to play a role in creating a society where race and income no longer predict post-secondary success and upward mobility.”

Previous episodes of the Spark Conversation Series feature social entrepreneurs from across the United States and from multiple industries and include Stacey Epperson, founder of Next Step Network; Brandon Dennison, founder and CEO of Coalfield Development; Alison Lingane, co-founder of Project Equity; José Quiñonez, CEO of Mission Asset Fund; and Priti Krishtel, co-founder and co-executive director of I-MAK.