BY JA E LY N M O LY N E U X
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
New ways to teach financial literacy are creating opportunity for those who have been previously excluded. t’s estimated that, by 2028, women will control almost $4 trillion in Canadian financial assets. That’s nearly double what that number would have been 10 years earlier. But, while women rack up financial power, access and education (the other side of the coin) aren’t necessarily keeping pace. A growing number of organizations are changing the way we learn about money, however, and, in the process, increasing the financial potential of groups who have been overlooked or alienated by traditional financial education. The filling of this knowledge gap means more equal participation in finance. The non-profit sister organization of The51, a feminist financial investment platform that brings women into venture capitalism, Movement51 emerged in 2021 to target women and gender-diverse earlystage investors and founders. As The51 began attracting investors, it was clear there were plenty of other women who were interested in investing but needed a toolkit to get started. Movement51 facilitates investing labs in partnership with the University of Calgary. Female investors learn everything from how to decide what to invest in, to negotiating term sheets. The information is developed and delivered by experienced entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and academics.
44
“It’s really about democratizing access to finance and providing programs that have academic rigour and also have a gendered lens,” says Movement51 executive director Danielle Gifford. That common female-driven view creates a supportive community that underpins everything Movement51 does. “There’s an energy and vibrancy that you can feel. People are excited,” says Gifford. “They want to meet people with similar motivations and learn more. It is a safe space. You don’t have to be worried about asking a question that you might feel is silly. There is inclusivity and accessibility that isn’t that traditional old voice. That’s really important.” Calgary-founded Flahmingo also sees itself as an alternative to that traditional old voice. The DIY investment app allows Canadians to create their own portfolios by investing in stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). It uses fractionalized stocks, which means investing can happen with as little as $1 and its target audience is millennials and gen-Z members who want to learn, but often feel alienated by legacy banks. “The majority of our users come to the application knowing nothing or knowing very little about investing,” says Flahmingo’s co-founder and CFO Kunal Seth. “They want to learn from people who look and feel like them. They don’t want to learn from somebody wearing a suit that’s talking in a specific way and using words that they don’t understand.”
Along with its clever pies-and-slices approach to investing, education is a big part of what attracts younger people to the app. Its Flahmingo Central is a collection of videos of experts speaking directly to the camera, explaining concepts or answering questions in three minutes or less. The tone is casual and the content is vetted by trusted and reliable sources — unlike a lot of other investing-related content on social media. Flahmingo is, after all, regulated by the Alberta Securities Commission. The videos, along with the ability to start investing with a smaller amount of money, reduces the barrier to entry and offers hands-on learning to empower new investors. Financial empowerment facilitator Theodora Warrior Healy developed a series of workshops on financial wellness for Indigenous communities in Treaty 7 territory. Warrior Healy is Blackfoot and her by-
may/june 2023
