Tips for Acing a Grant Application and Getting People To Care About Financial Literacy with Jailan Griffiths (Global Head of Purpose at Nasdaq) and Three Grant Winners
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Hey, money rehabbers. I'm going to be putting together a few totally anonymous surveys over the next couple months, and I would love to hear from you. The first one is up now at moneynewsnetwork.com slash survey. I would so appreciate it from the bottom of my heart if you could take a few minutes and take this survey. I promise it's short. And let me know your thoughts. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm Nicole Lappin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some money rehab. Money.

Today, you're going to get tips on investing, building generational wealth, teaching kids about financial literacy, and applying to grants. And you're going to hear this advice from three recipients of the Nasdaq Foundation's grant program. I am a huge proponent of grants. When it comes to fundraising, taking investments has been really glammed up by the likes of Shark Tank. There really isn't any equivalent for grants because honestly, grants are more paperwork, which does not make for awesome TV. I get it. But grants are

They're a great way to fund your business or project, and there are so many out there. I'd start by checking grant aggregators like grants.gov, grantspace.org, or grantstation.org. There are tons of grants for the arts, like the Grammys has a grant for musicians, pen.org for writers, comedy gives back for comedians, and on and on.

There are also a lot, but not as many as there should be, private companies that give out grants like FedEx, Elaine Fisher, Cartier, Allergan, and yes, NASDAQ. Before you hear the financial tips from the grant winners, here's Jalen Griffiths, the global head of purpose for NASDAQ. Jalen Griffiths, welcome to Money Rehab. Hello, Nicole. Thank you so much for having me.

Thank you so much for being here. You're the global head of purpose for NASDAQ, which is the coolest job title I've ever seen. Can you explain what your cool job title is all about? I love my job title. I really do. It is a good one. And like you said, I think not many people have it, but it's such a good one to describe what I do and what my team does and the approach to purpose at NASDAQ really. It starts with what is our purpose? I always like to start there.

NASDAQ's purpose is to advance economic progress for all. And what my job, my team does is thinking through, well, what does that mean? We work with the organization to be more purposeful across strategy and product development and so on, as we collectively think about how do we build more inclusive and more prosperous economies. And that's what we do every day. We work to make the markets work better for more people.

And you see that in our technology because it powers more markets across the globe. So that provides more access to more people. You see it then we've got like an anti-financial crime offering. That works to how do you make those markets safer for more people? So it's everywhere across what we do. We also run employee philanthropy and volunteering. So that ensures that our employees are really purposeful across the work they do.

and how they help and drive purpose in the communities that they live and work in. And then there's an ASDAC foundation, and that really thinks about, well, how do we invest in long-term impact for purpose? And then finally, there's an ASDAC entrepreneurial center, and that really creates opportunities for entrepreneurs, and there's great synergies with partners and networks. And thinking through, again, that really helps entrepreneurs drive and advance economic progress for themselves. So it all ties together, and that is purpose.

Well, what a coinkydink. Financial literacy is also a huge part of what we do here at MNN. And we also spend our days thinking about the why behind a lot of financial stories, because I think that's where the impetus really begins for a lot of people. It's not the numbers and the math. It's the personal stories. It's the stuff between our ears that gets in our way. So what's your personal story? What's your why? Were you always into finance? Yeah.

Oh, I have a master's in history. It started there. I started as a poetry major. So we're humanities girlies. It teaches me how to think, right? It helped her think and focus and structure. I'd say my financial journey

It starts with my parents. I was very lucky to have parents who talked to me about it, who helped provide me with opportunities to start to build my future and think through where I wanted to go and supported me in what I did. But that in turn gave me the lessons learned to need to know what I needed to do to gain confidence, to build a career, to have interests and go forward. So, you know, really,

right at the start, very early days, I had a savings account. And then when I got my first job, you know, my parents were the ones who advised me, okay, it's amazing. Congratulations. You're starting, you're starting your path now, but think about your future. Max out your 401k, start planning now. And it sounds crazy. It's kind of hard to do. You're a young executive, but it really is essential to start at the beginning. And it's like little pieces. Think about your long-term future and your long-term goal. You know? And so for me, when

when I think about my savings back then it was like okay what do I want to do? How do I save for major milestones? For me the first one was a deposit on a future home. I would say though a great lesson I learned early on was also about having the balance. So like my first bonus for example

Some of it went into savings, but I also knew it's okay to splurge every now and again and have a bit of fun and enjoy some things too. You work really hard for the money that you earn. So just understand that there's balance and plan accordingly for both of them. It's a great lesson. I think that a financial diet is a lot like a regular diet. If you don't allow yourself those small indulgences, you'll end up aging later on.

And that's dangerous. That's really dangerous. It totally is. And so it sounds like you paid it forward through the programs that you guys are doing at NASDAQ. How have those programs worked together to help advance economic progress for all, really? You think about the key core programs. We've got the NASDAQ Foundation work. There's the Good Works Employee Program and then the Entrepreneurial Center. The main core focus for the foundation was thinking, OK, purpose is to advance economic progress for all.

So then we focus on, okay, how do we help underserved and under-resourced communities by re-imagining investor engagement, by building financial literacy so they can start to understand the markets, understand and start to build generational wealth for themselves, their families, their communities. And then secondarily, how do you really help support entrepreneurs with the access they need to resources, to capital, to networks so that they can grow and sustain their businesses?

So with those two core focuses and core goals in mind at the foundation, we put together two programs. So we have the quarterly grant program that really allows us to be much more nimble than many other foundations in the grant giving. We get to fund more sort of local communities and organizations that are really trying to provide resources and tools for the communities they serve in the realm of financial literacy and entrepreneurship.

And then there's also the new investor initiative, which is sort of a longer term partnership approach model where we really focus on tackling the overlooked barriers to entry and to access of the markets to think through, well, you know, how

How do under-resourced, under-represented communities access the capital markets? And what's the barriers to entry? And what programs can we work on to help break down those barriers? Yeah, because you think of the NASDAQ, you think of money coming in, but you guys are giving a whole lot of money out.

We do. We do. So the foundation, we think, okay, what does that impact? We first started the foundation, I think in the first year we had something like 38 grant applications. And you fast forward to just last year, I think we had over 850, I want to say, grants.

Right. Yeah. And that cuts across, I think, 13 states and four continents. So it's expanding and the reach is there. The more and more work we do, the more and more initiatives and programs we fund, the more we're finding out about some amazing organizations and the programs that they've got.

to help communities. So we're always interested of learning more. I'm a huge fan of grants to fund businesses. I think, you know, before taking on investor money or before taking on debt, it's really important to like really do an exhaustive search on grants that could be applicable to you. I'm sure a lot of money rehabbers who are listening would be interested in this. So how much is it? Who can apply? Who's eligible? What are the details?

Sure. So you have to, of the basic criteria, you have to be a 501c3 as a non-profit organization for us to support and work for you. There's other criteria. And the easy way to do it is through the NASDAQ Foundation. There's a lot more information is available on nasdaq.com. So I would encourage people to go and take a look at there. There's the guidelines, there's the criteria. And really, we're looking for partners who really are focused on our two core goals of reimagining investor engagement and

and driving more diverse entrepreneurs in ecosystems. That's awesome. I mean, I think every company should care about financial literacy. I'm sure you agree. It's a no-brainer. It's also a no-brainer for NASDAQ to try and encourage financial education and literacy and new investors to get in the game. What do you think other companies could do more around financial? How do you think more companies can get more involved in caring about financial literacy?

I would say, listen to your employees as well. Employees are the most important part of any organization. And people really want to work for a purpose-driven organization. It helps employee engagement retention. I would say companies need to find the causes that align closely with their mission, their vision and values. Our employees are passionate about finding ways to make the financial system work better for more people. Hold on to your wallets. Money Rehab will be right back.

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And what about on the individual level? You also have a new investor initiative. Can you explain a little bit more what that program is? The new investor initiative actually came about right at the beginning when we did reimagine the foundation a few years ago. We really funded some research to take a look at inclusive investing and try and figure out the role the markets could play to close the wealth gap. And that research highlighted some areas of opportunity. And we chose to focus on two of them, the role of access and

to the markets and the role of investor identity which is there was a pre-existing perception investing was not for me or people like me or people who looked like me so we want to think through how can you transform investor identity to open up that possibility so one of the things we do we take a partnership approach with the new investor initiative and we've worked through the areas of okay

In order to transform investor identity, what would that look like? We've actually conducted with one of our partners, Commonwealth, a national pilot program that is actually, I think, the largest in its size so far, where we've provided over 860 low moderate income individuals with some small amount of seed money.

and then access to retail investing platforms, and thereby access to the resources and tools on those platforms. And they've been monitored over a period of time to kind of see the reactions, see what investing looks for those first-time investors, how their journey has gone, what are the pain points, what are the opportunities. Does

access to investing and resources and tools help excite people and drive interest into investing in the markets and so on. So, you know, it's been a really exciting time and we've come to showcase the findings from that report. I'm excited to read it and I'm excited to see what happens next for the New Investor Initiative and the other initiatives.

Now let's hear from the grant winners. Today you're going to hear from three. And in addition to their tips, you'll also hear about their work in their own words. I'll let them take it from here.

Hi, I'm Judy Herbst, the executive director of Savvy Ladies. And Savvy Ladies is a nonprofit where we provide free financial literacy for women. And we have a free financial helpline that is so unique and so valuable where we connect women with their financial question with a community of pro bono financial advisors.

My name is Gail Villani. I'm the Executive Director of Go Project, and we provide academic and social-emotional support to more than 700 New York City public school students through year-round programming that happens through a summer program and on Saturdays during the school year in order to close academic gaps and help students achieve success in school and in life. And we run concurrent programming for families to help support the whole family unit. My name is

- This is Sarah Dillman Perry, and I'm the Vice President of Economic Mobility and Neighborhood Allies, which is a nonprofit community development organization based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Neighborhood Allies has a number of initiatives focused on building wealth for women of color. One of those is called Money Talks, which is a learning community for black women in Pittsburgh to learn about saving, building credit, reducing debt, and investing.

And what tip would you give our listeners to building generational wealth? So many women that I've talked to that are interested in investing, for instance, that's why they come to Money Talks. They're interested in investing, but we really start with money management. And they are trying to get rich, but they're motivated by building wealth that they can use in retirement and to maybe pass some along to their kids later.

Most people can't rely on inheritance and they need to build their own wealth through home ownership, perhaps, or business ownership, but that's not for everybody. So we're really teaching women how to invest. And this can be another way to build wealth over time, but investing can be very scary. And many women don't do it because they don't see their friends or family doing it and they don't think it's for them. So our program, Money Talks, is kind of like a support group

that teaches and encourages and helps women of color specifically to gain knowledge and confidence about money and about investing. So finding a way to learn the basics in a community or with a couple of friends, you know, first money management, paying down credit card balances and starting to save, and then simple ways to start investing, such as contributing to your employer's plan in retirement,

plan or using a robo-advisor can just be an easy way to start. So find a friend or two and learn together. Like with any new practice, there'll be ups and downs, but having some accountability and support will mean you're more likely to keep going.

I love an accountability buddy. It works for fitness. It should work for financial fitness too. Judy, can you give us one tip for how listeners can invest for the very first time? I'm going to tell listeners that you can invest and start really small. So don't feel you need to have a lot of money to invest because think about it, that your savings is also an investment.

So some of your savings, there are many ways that your savings account and checking account can actually work harder for you. And that money can be invested. So in today's world, we have money markets. We have CDs versus letting your money sit as cash in a checking account at a 1%. Look for something that is 4.5%, 5%. And that money can work harder for you. That is an easy way to start investing. And then as that money grows, you can then invest it and it'll grow and expand.

I think the key is younger, it compounds. So you can have that compound growth over time. Yeah, you don't need a lot of money. You need the most time possible.

Gil, if you could give our listeners a tip specifically for parents who want to teach their kids about financial literacy, what would that be? You know, I think it's a similar concept of time. And so just starting as early as you can and talking about the value of money and connecting that to work and making it developmentally appropriate for children. And so,

when they're younger, maybe it's about giving an allowance for things that they're doing around the house to help and kind of connecting that to things that they might want to purchase and maybe saving that money. So whatever you can do to kind of connect it to where they are, I have teenagers, so they're now working themselves and they have savings accounts. And so we spend a lot of time talking about that value of money because they're now working for it. And so we can equate, you know, kind of that very big coffee to their hour of work.

And for them to make decisions about their money and also saving and kind of looking at that account and if there's charges and then really understanding everything kind of connected to the value of money for them at the time and whatever might be developmentally appropriate to just help build their understanding. And what advice would you give someone that's filling out a grant application for the first time? Any grant?

I love this question because when I joined Savvy Ladies as their executive director, my first grant that I wrote was the NASDAQ grant. And it was really exciting because we got it. But the reason we got it and the advice I would like to give to anyone writing grants

is you don't need to be an expert, but you need to know what is the mission of that grantor and understand their pillars that they are asking for. So while you might think it's a good match, you need to read their prospectus. You need to understand if those pillars are aligned with what you are asking for for your organization. And that's when it

is a match. And then you rank that. So I knew that the NASDAQ foundation was going to be a great ask. And we did, we asked about technology to support the Savvy Ladies Free Financial Helpline and to build an app.

That's what we got granted the foundation money for. And that's what we've been doing and building our app since we received that money last year. It's been fabulous. But when it's not right, don't waste your time and don't waste that grantor's time. So if you think it's going to work, but you're not sure, you know, pick up the phone and ask if you can, because many times they'll answer you. But it's really don't waste your time because you will spend a lot of time and you should spend that time writing a grant.

Don't get discouraged if you get turned down. I've probably applied for twice as many grants as I've received, and it's probably been dozens, if not hundreds of grant requests.

So ask the funder for feedback if you do get turned down and learn from the experience. It could be you're not telling a compelling story, even though you see a great need for the funding. Or it could be you're not finding the right funders who care about that particular kind of project or program.

And then another little piece of related advice is in order to find the right funders is to get to know funders before a grant is due. When a grant is due, it's too late and they might just see you out of the sea of other applicants and you won't stand out.

Get on mailing lists of national networks that you admire. For me, that's Prosperity Now and Financial Health Network, just to name a couple. Sometimes grant opportunities are listed and you can learn about innovation and trends. You could ask other nonprofits in your field who is funding them. Read websites, read publications sponsored by those funders.

You can meet funders at conferences, make connections between their priorities and your work so that when a grant opportunity is announced, you already know that you're a good fit and they may have some knowledge of you too. I think being very clear on what the project and initiative is, is really important. Making sure that you remain true to your mission while aligning with the funding guidelines of the foundation is really important. And so really finding that it's a partnership

a foundation for the organization is really entering a partnership. So making sure that it works kind of for both. What's one piece of financial advice that you would give your former self? Always work. And that's something I actually did. But as you're working, think that you are earning that money. And when you make a bonus, invest it. So just don't spend it on

you know, a vacation. You can put your money and take like a third, a third, a third. So I remember I had a boss at one point very early on who, when she gave me a bonus, she said,

Don't spend it all on clothes or going out to dinner. Take a third, a third, a third of it and invest a third of it. Pay down some debt if you have debt and then buy yourself something special. But don't spend it all on sort of that big. Wow. Invest because you will really appreciate it later on.

I would say try to understand your attitudes, your values, your habits around money that affect kind of every financial decision that you make in your life.

And those can come from what you've picked up from your culture or your family, both positive and negative, and also what you've learned from experience, also positive and negative. Knowing what your tendencies are and where they come from can help you make positive changes in your own money management. And further, they can help you understand your partner and make better decisions together.

Yeah, I think, you know, this is a message we heard across the series that we held for our families is just that like time is your best asset. And so the sooner you're able to start putting money away and saving and really enabling your money to grow over time, even if it's starting small, just having the gift of time is something that I think all of us look back on and wish we had known then what we know now. And so whether that's saving for, you know, something small, like, you know,

car or something you want to buy or like those bigger goals like retirement or saving for your child's future education, the earlier you can start saving, the better. Money Rehab is a production of Money News Network. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Money Rehab's executive producer is Morgan Levoy. Our researcher is Emily Holmes.

Do you need some money rehab? And let's be honest, we all do. So email us your money questions, moneyrehab at moneynewsnetwork.com to potentially have your questions answered on the show or even have a one-on-one intervention with me. And follow us on Instagram at Money News and TikTok at Money News Network for exclusive video content. And lastly, thank you. No, seriously, thank you. Thank you for listening and for investing in yourself, which is the most important investment you can make.

Money rehabbers, you have money hidden in your house. Yeah, just hiding there in plain sight. Okay, so I don't mean you have gold bars hidden somewhere in walls, treasure map style, but you do have a money-making opportunity that you're just leaving on the table if you're not hosting on Airbnb. It's one of my all-time favorite side hustles. By hosting your space, you are monetizing what you already own. It doesn't get easier than that. For me, hosting on Airbnb has always been a no-brainer. When I first signed up, I remember thinking to myself, selling

you pay a lot of money for your house. It is time that house returned the favor. And to get real with you for a sec, I felt so much guilt before treating myself on vacation because traveling can be so expensive. But since hosting on Airbnb, I feel zero stress for treating myself to a much needed vacation because having Airbnb guests stay at my house when I'm traveling helps offset the cost of my travel. So it's such a win-win. I mean, if I could do it

you could do it. And your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.com slash host. Money Rehabbers, you have money hidden in your house. Yeah, just hiding there in plain sight. Okay, so I don't mean you have gold bars hidden somewhere in walls, treasure map style, but you do have a money-making opportunity that you're just leaving on the table if you're not hosting on Airbnb.

It's one of my all time favorite side hustles. By hosting your space, you are monetizing what you already own. It doesn't get easier than that. For me, hosting on Airbnb has always been a no brainer. When I first signed up, I remember thinking to myself, self, you pay a lot of money for your house.

that house returned the favor. And to get real with you for a sec, I felt so much guilt before treating myself on vacation because traveling can be so expensive. But since hosting on Airbnb, I feel zero stress for treating myself to a much needed vacation because having Airbnb guests stay at my house when I'm traveling helps offset the cost of my travel. So it's such a win-win. I mean, if I could do it, you could do it. And your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.com slash host.