Three-year, $15 million initiative taps entrepreneurs to develop
new technologies to alleviate hidden burdens of low-income
communities, improve economic opportunity for all
Millions more Americans slipped into poverty over the past year,
creating fresh concerns about deeply rooted racial inequities and
structural barriers to financial prosperity. Today, Wells Fargo and
ideas42, a leading nonprofit that uses insights from behavioral
science to drive social change, announced Shared Prosperity
Catalyst, a $15 million collaboration funded by Wells Fargo that
aims to increase pathways to economic opportunity and advancement
in the United States. The multiyear effort will initially focus on
alleviating the disproportionate cost burdens, both financial and
nonfinancial, faced by low- and moderate-income communities, and
particularly communities of color.
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Four entrepreneurs—Celena Green, Dr.
Kortney Ziegler, LaToria Pierce, and Santana Perez—have been
selected to join Ventures for Shared Prosperity to design and
launch new technologies that alleviate the hidden costs of living
in poverty in the U.S. (Graphic: Wells Fargo)
For people with lower incomes, the basics of everyday life,
including housing, food, child care, health care, transportation,
and financial services, come with significantly higher costs. These
costs may be financial, such as higher fees for accessing basic
services, or the costs of everyday goods like groceries, which
disproportionately affects low-income households. They may also be
nonfinancial costs, which are often hidden, such as extra time and
mental energy spent on care obligations and administrative hassles,
or the constant stress of managing scarce resources. To address
these cost burdens, four early-stage entrepreneurs will join
Ventures for Shared Prosperity — an 18-month-long challenge to
kick-start new technologies that make it easier for people to
access the resources needed to provide for their families and
achieve financial stability.
“Shared Prosperity Catalyst will expand the traditional view of
what constitutes financial health, such as income, debt, and
savings, to include larger structural barriers such as housing,
transportation, the justice system, and employment,” said Josh
Wright, executive director of ideas42. “Tens of millions of
Americans live with the effects of having too few resources and
opportunities, financial volatility, and uncertainty around income
and employment. Our work will enable better tools for financial,
physical, and mental well-being because they will be designed with
the real experts of poverty: those who have lived it and
experienced its effects.”
“The reality is that it’s expensive to be poor in America.
People with lower incomes pay a much larger share of their income
on housing, health care, and child care, and a premium for food and
everyday necessities. Unforeseen events like traffic tickets,
medical emergencies, or reduced work hours can strain household
budgets and cause a chain reaction,” said Darlene Goins, head of
Financial Health Philanthropy and Banking Inclusion at Wells Fargo.
“By reducing systemic barriers, we can create pathways to greater
economic opportunity and a more inclusive future for all. Everyone
benefits when more people can participate fully in the
economy.”
Shared Prosperity Catalyst will use a three-pronged approach to
seed innovation, while simultaneously tackling the longer-term
systems and policy changes needed to create more equitable
financial prosperity across the U.S. Each strategy will be informed
by behavioral science — the study of how people make decisions and
take action in the real world – and consider the financial,
physical, and mental health impacts faced by people living in
poverty:
- Narrative Change for Shared Prosperity: Development and testing
of messaging and tools for changing deeply embedded, false
stereotypes and cultural narratives about the causes of, impact
from, and solutions to poverty in the United States.
- Policy Lab for Shared Prosperity: Developing behavioral
science-informed, evidence-based policies at the federal, state,
and local level to address factors that lead to and keep people in
poverty.
- Ventures for Shared Prosperity: Designing and launching new
tools and technologies that meaningfully improve economic
advancement led by paid cohorts of entrepreneurs and innovators
from across the country.
Ventures for Shared Prosperity: Meet the inaugural cohort
After a competitive selection process designed to reduce
barriers to technology entrepreneurship, four entrepreneurs — each
with personal experience living within the realities of poverty —
have been selected to join Ventures for Shared Prosperity. The
cohort will receive 18 months of support, including a full salary
and benefits, and a team of experienced business builders and
behavioral scientists from ideas42 to help turn their concepts into
real solutions. The inaugural cohort brings a deep understanding of
the contexts in which they’ll be working, as well as the skills to
build visionary, impactful businesses:
- Celena Green, a social entrepreneur and ecosystem builder in
South Bend, Indiana, is exploring ways to save small businesses
from closure and help their employees maintain job security. With
over 20 years experience leading economic growth and inclusive
prosperity initiatives in emerging markets domestically and
internationally, Green has experience leading a range of programs,
from women’s entrepreneurship development in sub-Saharan Africa, to
startup and small business development programs in South Bend.
- Santana Perez, based in Houston, Texas, is a real estate
investor and former corporate finance professional. She is creating
a platform to help people access down payment assistance programs
and opportunities for homeownership. Perez, previously a credit
manager in the energy industry, has firsthand experience with down
payment assistance programs and a passion for helping others
improve their financial health and wellbeing.
- LaToria Pierce, an engagement specialist and entrepreneur in
Fairfax, Virginia, is exploring ways to help young, single mothers
with care obligations access remote jobs and other flexible
employment opportunities. Pierce’s previous experience includes
media, marketing, and FinTech in the areas of domestic violence
awareness, small business marketing, and financial stability for
families with limited income.
- Dr. Kortney Ziegler, a social entrepreneur from Oakland,
California, is developing a platform to help underbanked
individuals access instant funding for life emergencies. The
founder of several ventures aimed at addressing excess cost burdens
within Black and transgender communities, Ziegler’s most recent
business, Appolition, enabled incarcerated people to afford bail so
they could return to their families and livelihood.
Shared Prosperity Catalyst is supported by exclusive funding
from Wells Fargo. For more information about this initiative, visit
sharedprosperity.ideas42.org.
About Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is a leading financial
services company that has approximately $1.9 trillion in assets,
proudly serves one in three U.S. households and more than 10% of
small businesses in the U.S., and is the leading middle market
banking provider in the U.S. We provide a diversified set of
banking, investment, and mortgage products and services, as well as
consumer and commercial finance, through our four reportable
operating segments: Consumer Banking and Lending, Commercial
Banking, Corporate and Investment Banking, and Wealth &
Investment Management. Wells Fargo ranked No. 37 on Fortune’s 2021
rankings of America’s largest corporations. In the communities we
serve, the company focuses its social impact on building a
sustainable, inclusive future for all by supporting housing
affordability, small business growth, financial health, and a
low-carbon economy. News, insights, and perspectives from Wells
Fargo are also available at Wells Fargo Stories.
Additional information may be found at www.wellsfargo.com |
Twitter: @WellsFargo.
About ideas42
ideas42 is a nonprofit looking for deep insights into human
behavior — why people do what they do — and using that knowledge in
ways that help improve lives, build better systems, and drive
social change. Working globally, we reinvent the practices of
institutions, and create better products and policies that can be
scaled for maximum impact.
We also teach others, ultimately striving to generate lasting
social impact and create a future where the universal application
of behavioral science powers a world with optimal health, equitable
wealth, and environments and systems that are sustainable and just
for all. For more than a decade, we’ve been at the forefront of
applying behavioral science in the real world. And as we’ve
developed our expertise, we’ve helped to define an entire
field.
Our efforts have so far extended to 45 countries as we’ve
partnered with governments, foundations, NGOs, private enterprises,
and a wide array of public institutions — in short, anyone who
wants to make a positive difference in peoples' lives. To learn
more, visit us at ideas42.org.
News Release Category: WF-PESG – Philanthropy &
ESG
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Melissa Murray Wells Fargo melissa.k.murray@wellsfargo.com
Mitra Salasel ideas42 mitra@ideas42.org
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