Plutus Foundation 2021 Year-in-Review

While the Plutus Foundation team is gearing up for an exciting year ahead, there’s an opportunity for us to look back on the past year. The COVID-19 pandemic continued to have a significant effect on what we were able to accomplish throughout 2021, similar to the prior year.
The team began the year with the hope that we would be active, hosting new and familiar events and serving the community of financial content creators, and we set out to do so after being locked down for most of 2020.
Thanks as always to our Plutus Foundation team as well as the Plutus Awards team for their dedication to serving the community and perseverance as we continued to adapt to the changing situations.
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Sherrian Crumbley
Charlotte Baker
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Lance Cothern
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Ashley Barnett
Ashley Jacobs Headshot
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Here’s a quick look at some of ways we were able to continue to further our mission to support financial content creators with grants and resources this past year.

The Plutus Foundation awarded more grants.

The Plutus Foundation awarded grants in two cohorts, Spring 2021 and Fall 2021, in our continued efforts to support important financial literacy work. Due to COVID-19, our focus has shifted to allow virtual programs and online projects in addition to live, in-person financial literacy efforts. We’re excited that many of the recipients reflect programs spearheaded by or focusing on the needs of under-represented communities in financial literacy.
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Olivia and Norman West
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Here are our newest recipient programs.
Future Money Camp for Kids, created by Holly Reid. This program offers an engaging and informative learning opportunity from home in a four-week curated learning experience designed for students ages 8 to 14.
Transform Your Money Accountability Project, created by Debt Free Divas. This project allows participants to connect with others on the debt free journey, learn tricks and tips to stay focused, find a safe space to work our your money challenges, and pay debt off once and for all.
Debt Free Like Me Family Series, created by Norman and Olivia West. This project is a series of classes: both grade-appropriate lessons for kids and fun and interactive workshops for parents. These ongoing classes will create trust and help build relationships between our organization and families that live in poverty in an effort to positively affect behaviors and change financial outcomes.
How to Save Grandma’s House, created by Courtney N. Richardson, Esq. and Chandra Betner-Gray, Esq. This program is a seven-week online educational program and fourteen-episode podcast focused on educating and empowering individuals on what it takes to actually save Grandma’s house.
Yo Quiero Generational Wealth, created by Jannese Torres-Rodriguez. In this program, Jannese has created a four-week program for Latina families, focusing on the eldest daughter in each family. The Plutus Foundation grant will provide seed money for the investment portfolio for five participants.
Get Your Financial House In Order, created by LaShana Bradwell. This project is a 10-week financial education series developed by the FDIC Money Smart Program held in partnership with the Wallace library branch of the Augusta-Richmond County Public Library System.
Women’s Personal Finance Access for All, created by Angela Rozmyn and Dr. Regina Moore. 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. The Plutus Foundation will provide three full-year scholararships for each new cohort of members, up to four cohorts a year.
Many of our prior grant recipients continued working on projects and provided us with updates. We are really excited for the creative ways some of our cohorts have found for their programs to thrive during the pandemic.
Visit our Grants hub and follow the Plutus Foundation and Awards on social media to be the first to hear when our next round of grant applications will be available.

We hosted the first ever Plutus Impact Summit.

Ramit Sethi Headshot
Natalie Torres-Haddad Headshot
Amanda Holden Headshot
We held the first Plutus Impact Summit on July 23 and 24, 2021. This was a two-day virtual event for financial content creators and those who interact with content creators, and the event featured sessions focused on having an impact on our businesses and in our communities. In addition to our main speakers Ramit Sethi and Natalie Torres-Hadad, we had panel discussions and activities to bring us together.
The Impact Summit took place during the afternoon on Friday, July 23 and Saturday, July 24. Amanda Holden hosted the event both days, bringing a ton of energy to the virtual program. Friday’s sessions were focused on the business side of financial content creation while Saturday’s focused on the community side. Naturally, there was some crossover in topics.
Each day started with a short session hosted by Jason Vitug that set the tone for the day through mindful preparation and a breathing exercise. Our first panel on Friday focused on branding and marketing and our second session allowed our panelists to share their best tips for taking a more business-like approach to their work. Between the sessions, all of our attendees participated in a unique networking activity.
The first day concluded with an in-depth fireside chat with founder Harlan Landes and guest Ramit Sethi. Ramit shared his experiences with I Will Teach You to Be Rich from its inception to today, and the talk was full of insight relevant for anyone looking to succeed with writing or talking about money.
Sessions on the second day included a panel about building your community and your audience, highlighting some of the differences between the two and offering invaluable insight about how to grow these aspects of your business. The second panel focused on how a mission can help you hone in on your strategy and help you grow a following.
Natalie Torres-Haddad concluded the Impact Summit with a special talk that brought everything together for our attendees.
Videos of the event are available to anyone who registered to attend.
The Plutus Impact Summit will return in 2022 in virtual form again, as the pandemic continues to discourage large in-person events.

The Plutus Community continued to grow.

In the past year, hundreds of content creators shared opportunities, asned and answered questions, and began new collaborations through our Plutus Community, a members-only community group organized on Facebook.

The 12th Annual Plutus Awards ceremony was held in Austin.

The 12th Annual Plutus Awards presented by Capital Group took place this fall in Austin, Texas during #FinCon2021. It was great to have this event safely in person and reconnect with members of the community. The awards ceremony was hosted by Joe Saul-Sehy (in-person) and Natalie Torres-Haddad (virtual) and featured Shante Nicole from Financial Common Cents with a musical performance.
You can watch the entire ceremony here.
Our Plutus Awards Panel selected excellent finalists and winners, and we enjoyed celebrating them, whether they joined us in person or watched online. It was also our honor to announce the Fall grant recipients (listed above) at the awards.

Plutus Voices events are postponed to 2022.

While we were originally planning to host additional Plutus Voices events in cities all over the United States this past year, we were unable to do so due to the pandemic. We are, however, working hard to bring all of these events back to in-person venues in 2022, pandemic permitting. We will start with Plutus Voices Detroit on March 30, 2022.
The Plutus Voices series consists of small group events that feature discussions for financial content creators that focus on making a bigger impact with audiences and communities. Each event features two or three speakers who give short talks on a topic and a special group activity that engages all participants. Tickets are highly limited to keep each event intimate and impactful. Stay tuned for announcements for the next Plutus Voices events, coming soon and safely to your city.

The Plutus Awards Podcast With Sarah Li Cain featured many guests.

Sarah Li Cain continued hosting the Plutus Awards Podcast throughout the year for Seasons 3 and 4. Here were some of our favorite episodes.

The Plutus Awards Showcase highlights the week's best articles and episodes from the community.

Every Friday, the Plutus Awards team looks for the best new articles, posts, podcast episodes, and videos from throughout the world of financial media. We bring the five best to you each week. Sometimes, the articles are focused around a theme, but usually, we are just looking for excellent content.

Catch the latest Showcase and submit your latest and greatest pieces for consideration.

The Plutus Foundation thanks our team and our supporters.

Capital Group continued to partner with the Plutus Foundation as the headline partner for the 12th Annual Plutus Awards and the national partner for Plutus Voices. We can’t thank Capital Group and their agency, Golin, enough for their support in a year where the pandemic has significantly changed the form of our events.

As written above, the Foundation and Awards teams have worked so hard to create projects, support this community, and get the word out about all that we do. Thank you to all who have helped, whether it was in the form of organizing a series of virtual events or stepping in to run an Instagram takeover.

Thank you to our board of directors, who have continued to provide excellent governance and help us connect with resources. You may apply for the board of directors at any time.

And I would like to offer a big round of applause to everyone who has made a financial contribution to the Plutus Foundation. Contributions go directly to the programs we support and operate. As a 501(c)3 nonprofit, your contributions are tax-deductible.

Thanks especially to all who have initiated an automatic monthly contribution. You, too, can support the Plutus Foundation with a monthly or one-time contribution.

You can donate or sell your blog or other property to the Plutus Foundation. There may be tax advantages for doing so. Contact us for more information.

We're looking ahead to 2022.

The Plutus Foundation is committed to growing again in the coming year. We plan to build upon our success with the grant program by offering more grants and working to track the impact our grants are having in our community of financial content creators and beyond.

As mentioned above, we intend for Plutus Voices to move back into in-person events when it is safe to do so. In addition to Detroit, we are planning events in Portland, Los Angeles, Orlando, New York City, and other locations to be announced soon.

The Plutus Impact Summit will return as a virtual event this summer before potentially moving to an in-person event in 2023.

The 13th Annual Plutus Awards will be getting underway very soon! We will be looking for members of the community to join the Plutus Awards Panel to help determine this year’s awards categories. And beginning this year, winners will receive a cash prize.

Exciting changes are coming to the Plutus Awards Podcast, so subscribe now.

Additional new projects benefiting financial content creators (authors, speakers, bloggers, podcasters, video bloggers, etc.) are slated to be announced in 2022. Follow our social media and subscribe to our newsletter to be the first to learn about how you can benefit.

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