We are pleased to announce the recipients of the Plutus Foundation’s Fall 2021 grants and partnerships. We received a significant number of outstanding submissions and are pleased to announce the four recipients for this round.
Here are the grant recipients for the Fall 2021 cohort.
How to Save Grandma’s House
How to Save Grandma’s House is a 7-week online educational program and 14 episode podcast focused on educating and empowering individuals on what it takes to actually “save grandma’s house.”
Through this program, two licensed attorneys in Pennsylvania and New Jersey will educate participants and listeners on how to save Grandma’s home by increasing their income, understanding local programs and how to qualify for them, understanding the value of real estate, and the basics of Estate Planning and Estate Administration.
Our program’s target audience is families of color in eastern Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey.
About the founders
Courtney Richardson has over eighteen years of experience in the 
Financial Services industry. She started as a Financial and Investment Advisor in 2003 and worked her way up to Assistant Vice President at one of the top brokerage firms in the world before the 2008 stock market crash.
After graduating from law school in 2012, Courtney founded The Ivy Investor in 2014. The Ivy Investor is a resource for women seeking to navigate the maze of the investment world in simple terms.
Since starting her legal practice, Courtney has practiced real estate law and has expanded to working with local Municipalities, real estate taxes, and Estate Planning. Courtney is licensed to practice law in Pennsylvania. She holds a B.A. degree in Philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh. She also holds a J.D. from West Virginia University College of Law and an LL.M. in Taxation and Certificate in Estate Planning from Temple University Beasley School of Law. She has been featured in The Huffington Post, Forbes, New York Mag, CNBC, Black Enterprise, and Business Insider. Courtney was named as one of the 7 Black Millennial Financial Experts To Follow On Instagram in 2019 by Black Enterprise.
Chandra Betner-Gray is an Attorney and licensed Real Estate Salesperson. She is the owner of the Betner-Gray Law Office located in Mt. Holly, NJ. Chandra focuses primarily on Real Estate, Business Formation, Estate Planning, and Estate Administration.
Chandra has been practicing law since 2016. She is admitted to practice law in the State of New Jersey. She is also a Continuing Education Instructor. Chandra received her J.D. from Rutgers University School of Law, Camden, in 2011 and her undergraduate degree from Seton Hall University in 2009.
Yo Quiero Generational Wealth: Investing Mentorship Program
Yo Quiero Generational Wealth is a mentorship program that will support Latinas in learning the basics of investing and provide each with a seed fund to start their portfolio. Each recession has a compounded effect on low-income Latinx communities. A combination of machismo and familial obligation makes it so that much of this financial burden and responsibility to put the family ahead is shouldered onto the eldest daughter in a Latinx family.
By supporting the eldest, head of household Latina daughters of immigrants towards opening their first investing accounts, we are directly intervening in closing the generational wealth gap.
About the founder
Yo Quiero Dinero Founder Jannese Torres-Rodriguez is a nationally acclaimed Latina Money Expert, Educator, Speaker, Writer, and Business Coach. She became an accidental entrepreneur after a job loss led her to create a successful Latin food blog, Delish D’Lites. Now, she helps her clients and listeners build successful online businesses that allow them to pursue financial independence and freedom.
Jannese is on a mission to educate marginalized communities on topics like entrepreneurship, investing, and building generational wealth through her personal finance podcast, “Yo Quiero Dinero.” The podcast has been featured on BuzzFeed, Business Insider, Yahoo Finance, NPR, NextAdvisor(Time), Grow Magazine (CNBC), Bankrate, and more.
Get Your Financial House In Order
Get Your Financial House In Order, in conjunction with the Wallace library branch of the Augusta-Richmond County Public Library System, is a 10-week financial education series developed by the FDIC Money Smart Program.
The goal of this educational series is to have each attendee walk away with a clearer understanding of their personal finances and having created a sustainable budget. Some of the course sessions include:
- Money, Values, and Influences
- Financial Products and Services
- Protecting Your Identity and Assets
- Protecting Yourself During Financial Disasters
About the founder
LaShana Bradwell is the founder of LaShana Bradwell Speaks, LLC. After serving for 20 years in the U.S. Army as a Senior Paralegal, LaShana harnessed what she learned and created her first company, MPS-Virtual Paralegal Services, where she works as a contract paralegal for attorneys across various legal fields. In addition, LaShana serves as the branch manager for a local credit union. While serving as branch manager, LaShana realized that her knowledge of personal finances and how to overcome seemingly overwhelming financial difficulties needed to be shared with others in similar situations.
Throughout her career, LaShana has always had a passion for learning and passing the knowledge she acquires along to others. Utilizing her own personal first-hand experience and business expertise, LaShana can be found these days conducting relatable seminars, workshops, presentations, meetings, and conferences on various topics ranging from obtaining financial freedom to estate planning in collaboration with various civic and social organizations.
Women’s Personal Finance Access for All
Women’s Personal Finance’s Insiders Club is a place where women and nonbinary folks can come together, make friends, and be supported in their money journeys. We have a free Facebook group (40,000 and growing), but the Insiders Club has a monthly membership fee.
Access includes monthly live Zoom events by personal finance experts, an exclusive Discord channel, and regular voice/video chats with a community of women and nonbinary folks who place importance on money and the intersectionality of how it impacts all of our lives.
Although one free annual membership for every nine paid annual memberships is given per year, the goal is to extend this to more people. Every scholarship given is another year’s worth of exclusive content to support and educate women.
About the founders
Angela Rozmyn is a tree-hugging, traveling, cooking millennial looking to reach financial independence by her mid-40s. She loves to garden, cook, hike, camp, run, read, and explore while lightening her impact on the planet in everything she does.
She’s a mama to one awesome five-year-old son and has been married since she was just twenty-one. She works as a LEED AP for a company that builds green, affordable communities in urban areas. She has no plans to quit but is still very much focused on financial independence because it will give her the option to say “I want to be here,” not “I have to be.”
Dr. Regina Moore is a community pharmacist by background, an innovator at heart, and a lifelong advocate. She focuses on promoting and advocating for the psychedelic medicine space, including a 10+ year hobby around mycology. She also focuses on cancer advocacy as the parent of a cancer patient, holistic whole family care, combating financial toxicity, and mental health support (which is a bridge to her psychedelics interest). She is also interested in digital health and how pharmacists will expand their roles in this revolutionary age.
On her website, The Frugal Pharmacist, she often touches on topics that target pharmacists and healthcare providers, though most of her content is applicable to anyone. Especially working mothers. She endeavors to enjoy her life, be a great mom, decrease her stress, maintain the health of herself and her family, try to learn to do yoga on her own at home, be better about mindfulness, make real friends as an adult (it’s hard), try to wean herself from so much technology, spend more time on her hobbies and think less about work. You know, all the regular stuff!
Thank you to everyone who applied for our Fall 2021 grants. In such precarious times, it is wonderful to see the creativity, diversity, and expertise that continues to define this community.
Congratulations to this season’s grant and partnership recipients. If you are interested in receiving support from the Plutus Foundation for your financial literacy project, subscribe to our newsletter to be the first to hear when the next round of grants is available for submissions. You can find out more about our grants and previous recipients by visiting our grant page.
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