Access to financial resources often is the bridge to getting people and businesses in under-resourced communities more mobility.
Kansas City-based Pathway Financial Education is an education and resource-driven nonprofit that aims to provide financial training and education to small business owners and individuals, hopefully helping the communities achieve self-sufficiency, financial health and well-being.
Created in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder, Pathway was started by Vince Clark, who is vice president of business development for investment advisement company Creative Planning. It launched in April.
Creative Planning CEO Peter Mallouk asked Clark if he wanted to take the lead on expanding financial resources for under-served communities. Clark, who has more than 25 years of corporate finance and investment banking experience, now is vice chairman of Pathway.
“When Peter asked me to create Pathway Financial Education, it was something that just naturally fell into place based on all the years I had invested my time being a good citizen for Kansas City,” Clark said.
Building a foundation
Kansas City's business players mobilized to get the nonprofit off the ground.
Clark encouraged Creative Planning's financial advisory and money management experts to start volunteering and teaching people in under-resourced communities for Pathway, particularly focusing on small business owners, young adults and high school students.
JE Dunn Construction made a substantial contribution to help build the 3,000-square-foot Financial Education Center, located at 1520 E. 18th St. The area had been blighted for four years.
The Opus Group created the architectural renderings for the building and directed the nonprofit to grant applications that helped it net more funding. The education center opened in April.
Mallouk leveraged his Wall Street contacts to get backing from firms like BlackRock Inc., Dimensional Fund Advisors, The Polo Group LLC, among other companies in New York, Minneapolis and Austin. Clark said the investors never had heard of 18th and Vine.
“Because of our connections and historical relationships with them, they answered the call without hesitation, and we were off and running,” Clark said.
Developing the curriculum
Pathway's curriculum, both online and socially distanced in-person, initially was built around small business owners, since they were most directly and adversely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Classes began as vaccines were being rolled out, so Pathway's first community outreach was done on Zoom. Over eight weeks, Pathway had nearly 200 participants and 35 small businesses on board.
The curriculum started with basic financial instruction. The nonprofit connected small businesses to Creative Planning's contacts and bankers to help them understand loan underwriting criteria and collateral packages. That foundation was necessary since most of the participants were using their own equity capital, Clark said.
More seasoned small businesses were given guidance on how to access capital.
The high school and young adult classes were developed by Pathway Executive Director Latasha Wilson and her husband Cliff Wilson. Their nonprofit Cornerstone Enterprises Ltd. is now a partner organization to Pathway that provides business coaching to Pathway students.
Wilson said Pathway's goal is not just to sustain mom-and-pop businesses, but to also help them gain economic mobility.
“When you talk about reversing the cycle of poverty, it is being able to have a business that then hires another individual in that community that then allows for them to teach those skills to the next generation,” Wilson said. “That is exactly what Pathway has begun to do.”
High school participants learned how to develop a financial plan, and they were taught how to create good habits, break the cycle of poverty, make better business decision and develop a better understanding of money. At the end of the course, students were tested on their knowledge.
At least 100 kids from Kansas City Public Schools are interested in doing the classes next, Clark said. Relationships with JE Dunn and Opus can provide future apprenticeships, and corporate sponsors can give lectures, sit on panels and start building relationships with students.
“We know we're just now scratching the surface,” he said. “We're introducing financial education to a new group of individuals who, as they mature and develop, will be better equipped to make better and more informed decisions."
Planning for the future
Recent high school graduates and young adults, including those without a high school degree, are a challenging but essential group for Pathway to reach.
Since they are no longer are part of a public school system or may not have joined a business association, Clark said Pathway wants to get involved with churches and other community organizations to expand its reach. It wants to home in on women-focused organizations.
"Nobody wants to talk about money," Wilson said. "Money is only a vehicle, and when you're able to leverage it in a way that it lifts and brings others up, it helps others begin to change the trajectory of not just their lives, but the generation that comes after them. There's no reason in my mind that the world, and particularly in the United States, for poverty to be this prevalent. There's too much access to knowledge and information for that to be the case."
