Overview:
Community Wealth Partners, a non-profit organization, is working to help Cleveland businesses sustain themselves by hosting eight-week workshops on financial literacy and entrepreneurship. The workshops not only give practical advice and tools but also uncover behaviors and habits that contribute to mismanaging money and making uninformed business decisions. The financial literacy adult workshops cover four main concepts- risk diversification, inflation, interest compounding, and numeracy, and the entrepreneurial workshops help businesses with business plans, state registration, pitching, and other essential elements of business.
By Vanessa Carter
According to the 1 U.S. Census Bureau, nearly 38% of Ohio businesses took a major financial hit during the pandemic. Currently, 20% of Ohio businesses struggle to implement tactical business practices and strategies. Due to the new expectations of business owners, companies are worried about staying competitive and financially afloat. Luckily, there’s a company working aggressively to help Cleveland businesses sustain themselves, the Community Wealth Partners.
Andrea Boyd, the owner and operator of the non-profit Common Wealth Partners, hosts eight-week workshops for adults and teens on both financial literacy and entrepreneurship. “Our goal is to be the catalyst for positive financial change,” said Boyd during a recent zoom interview.
Andrea Boyd, owner of Community Wealth Partners
Both workshops not only give practical advice and tools but also uncover behaviors and habits that contribute to mismanaging money and making uninformed business decisions. Within each teen-focused literacy class, they learn about college grants and loans. Since most teens are entering the workforce, Andrea teaches them how to save toward retirement early. “Planning for retirement is so important to underserved communities and minorities. We don’t save early enough. This is how we build generational wealth,” said Andrea.
The financial literacy adult workshops are comprised of four main concepts- risk diversification, inflation, interest compounding, and numeracy. Andrea emphasizes that behavior and knowledge are two of the biggest factors in successfully managing money. Andrea says, “Twenty percent of our financial success is in our knowledge and eighty percent is our behavior.” During the class Andrea also brings in her community partners to talk about practical money skills, credit, retirement planning, money value evaluation, and wealth building.
In the entrepreneurial workshops, she helps businesses with business plans, state registration, pitching, marketing and other essential elements of business. Andrea and her team helped over 200+ companies and individuals develop business plans and leverage their finances.
Danielle Fields, a participant in Andrea’s entrepreneur workshops, was introduced to Andrea’s business through a mutual friend. Danielle told her friend she wanted to organize her business in order to stay competitive and wanted to dive deeper into understanding her consumer. “My friend had so much excitement about Andrea and her business, so I called immediately,” says Danielle. After attending Andrea’s classes Danielle has started her business plan and is building better relationship tactics with her clientele.
Danielle is not the only person making strides from the support of Commuity Wealth Partners. Carmella Willams is an elected official in Shaker Heights and the Records Management Analyst at BakerHostetler Law Firm. She sought out Andrea’s financial literacy courses to better utilize her personal income for emergencies and to create a solid retirement plan.
After speaking with Carmella, she noted her job has many tools for creating a unique retirement plan. “All the tools are great, but I couldn’t really grasp how they worked together for my benefit. There’s a knowledge gap there,” says Carmella. After attending Andrea’s workshop Carmella felt seen for her unique financial situation. “(Andrea) spoke directly to my specific need and helped me understand how to better utilize the tools my job provided.”
Now, Carmella has successfully allocated 12% of her income toward her retirement and 5% for emergency funds. “The information Andrea gave, along with her constituents, really opened my eyes on leveraging my income.”
Both Carmella and Danielle were inspired to take the initiative to better their business and financial competence for the sake of their families. Andrea notes,“ The wealth gap can be solved if we develop a better relationship with our finances and responsibilities.”
Community Wealth Partners www.communitywealthpartners.com.
Citation 1: “Small Business Pulse Survey Data.” Respondent Portal, https://portal.census.gov/pulse/data/#data. Accessed 30 August 2022.