Financial Planning: Getting from Here to There

If your financial plan is not addressing inflation right now, then you are cheating your future and that of your family. Real financial planning engages coaching, knowledge on various options and strategies, and how to implement and follow the progress of your individual plan. There is a lot more than crunching numbers, and that is where we help you with your personal financial planning process, which will help you get from Here to There. The following video is a quick primer on one of the processes we use to help clients plan their resources and become good stewards for their families. Click below to view.

iSteward a Safe Place for You

Why is iSteward safe for you and your personal financial information? First, unlike banking sites and bill paying portals iSteward does not allow banking or any types of transactions or transfers period. iSteward’s Wealth Management System employs the most advanced security features and protocols to keep your data safe, private and secure, 24/7/365. Comprehensive security protection measures include password protection; secure socket layer encryption, firewalls, intrusion detection, audits, inspections and more. You can be confident that your important information is safe and secure.

It allows you to get a clear, easy to understand picture of your finances with graphics and data. This allows you and your advisors to be able to make a plan with both you and them saving time, and the frustration from having your financial data that is incorrect or out of date. Imagine you have multiple financial relationships and even some financial accounts that are held in a business name or with previous employers’ retirement accounts, now you can have all of your information consolidated and seeing all of it together to address your allocation to company or industry.

You are traveling or it’s a weekend and need access to important legal documents, now you can access anywhere in the world your personal vault document or perhaps a copy of your passport making the trip to Embassy much faster and easier to navigate. Perhaps you left a family member with another care giver and the hospital needs documents to treat them and you open your virtual vault and simply email it to the parties with a simple click.

Unlike portals that are driven by a banking or investment relationship the iSteward is driven based on sound planning advice for a fee, rather than the same “old park your CD here” and we will help your organize your stuff planning.

We want you to know that stewardship encompasses all aspects of your life, and is not about only a part of your life like giving away some money. iSteward can help.

Financial Tools For Professional Women

It is no surprise to any of us, that 57% of the workforce is made up of women. Now there is exciting news for professional women, there are useful tools to track your goals and progress with little to no effort. Save time and energy by having all your family and financial data online and at your disposal 24/7. This can include your different financial investments and family budget presented in a secure and useful package to help you make wise choices about for your family’s needs, paying off college loans, planning for future educational expenses and your retirement. It’s called iSteward and having a process like this will help you change for the better your planning and investment decisions.
Click on the video below to see how it can help you.

What is iSteward?

iSteward is an online collaborative tool that leverages the best security technology, which helps to provide individuals and organizations better management of their assets and liabilities. The personal financial planning platform allows for individuals to track daily their investments to make sure they stay on target to reach the goals set out in their financial plan. It allows you the opportunity to utilize the adjustments options to correct for both under and over achieving investments. Tax Professional and Attorneys both love the features in iSteward that provide a secured portal to exchange planning and tax information. Helping to reach your Retirement & College Planning have never been easier.

To better understand iSteward and the value it will provide to you, we recommend you watch the short video below.

Fair Trade as Solution to Poverty

Guest writer: Lizzie Wirgau

OUR STORY

We started Market Colors in August of 2011. Throughout our trips to Malawi and Kenya, we came face to face with “poverty” in a new way. What we previously thought was just a distant land became a place filled with friends and some of our favorite, and most difficult, memories. Pictures in Time Magazine sent us back to visits with refugee women across East Africa. We found ourselves awake at night, restless… anxious and willing to do whatever God called us to do.

On my second trip to Malawi, I met Gloria and Tiliangati. Gloria was 8 and Tiliangati was just a baby. Their mother, Lamas, had AIDS and was dying of pneumonia. I learned that when Lamas died, she would not have anything to leave to her children and her neighbors would have to look after them. It wasn’t because she was a bad mother. As a single mother, she simply did not have the means to provide for them. We sat outside her hut, placing hands on Lamas, asking God to comfort her and provide for her children. She passed away 8 days later.

OUR SOLUTION

We want to equip families in Africa. There are groups throughout the continent teaching women like Lamas how to become skilled craftsmen. They are showing them there is another way: provide for themselves in an honest way that honors the Lord. As often the sole providers for their large families, the craftsmen are fiercely driven. They have an extraordinary work ethic and exceptional drive and determination. But these craftsmen have such a small market where they can sell their products. We want to equip them to take their products from the village market to the world market. We believe that Market Colors can and will do this through promoting and selling their products through our e-commerce website. Our work is centered upon the goal of creating thousands of sustainable jobs throughout the continent.

We sell products made by groups in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Malawi. Some products we carry are: purses, laptop cases, iPad carriers, scarves, rugs, and accessories. Our competitive edge lies in the fact that each product is 100% handmade and accompanied by a product card, providing details about the African craftsman who made it.

Rather than doing charity work with just instant gratification, Market Colors equips men and women to sustain themselves for years. All surpluses are reinvested in Africa. Public support is raised to expand our reach to new groups of craftsmen throughout Africa.

We are a nonprofit organization utilizing the most current domestic and international business practices, Internet technologies, marketing tactics, and international finance to create a successful and sustainable business model. We honor the World Fair Trade Organization’s 100% Fair Trade commitment and have established fair trade working principles of our own.

Visit our store! Add us on Facebook and Twitter. Follow our blog. Spread the word about the craftsmen!

Together we can transform lives throughout Africa.

Lizzie Wirgau
Founder

Micro Finance and How You Can Be a Part of the Solution

You have been hearing the term” micro finance” more frequently along with the terms “impact investing” or “purposeful investments. This is one of the fastest growing segments for philanthropy. While not a new idea, it has caught the media’s attention as one of the true feel good stories of finance. Individuals, families and communities are set free and given opportunity in the marketplace to create and bring value to others.

I personally have been blessed to take part in a few success stories in helping others thrive and flourish with the help of a small investment. You have heard it said, ‘If you give a man a fish, he eats for a day but if you teach him how to fish he eats for a lifetime’. In micro finance often the story is more often, you teach a woman to fish and she feeds the whole village. Market Colors is one such organization helping with fair trade in several African villages. I have purchased items for family and friends from Market Colors and can recommend them to you.

Why should you consider being a part of micro finance? 1) Likely could be the best return on investment you ever made in helping others 2) It is an easy way to care for others, while taking the focus off of ourselves.

There are several “Community Investment Funds” that focus on Micro Financing, and Calvert Investment is one of the oldest and largest of them. There are many small community investment funds that use Calvert as a facilitator and for back office support, here are three: Everence OneWorld Community Investment Program, World Vision and Opportunity International.

Having years of experience with organizing the individual projects, Opportunity International is much more involved with the sustainability and accountability with these projects.. If you have a community of friends, you could in essence fund a third world bank with experienced local banker for as little as $5,000 to $25,000.

Kiva (appears) more hands on, whereas as you select a project online and often see the name and business opportunity attached to it. Kiva is an online program, where small loans are packaged together from investments of several people to undertake a project often in third world countries.

Here are a few books I have read on the subject of helping others in the area of micro finance:
The Poor Will Be Glad by Peter Greer & Phil Smith; UnPoverty by Mark Lutz; The Hole in our Gospel by Richard Stearns.

Micro Finance in United States 2013

There is problem here in the United States as it relates to small business and entrepreneur start-ups. Many think micro finance is about global third world countries and yet the market here has never seen greater need.

According to Accion, an international microfinance organization, nearly 11 million micro-enterprises in the U.S. are not able to acquire loans through traditional means.

How are these loans being addressed here? Community Development Finance Institutions a.k.a. CDFI. Many of the CDFI programs have been pioneered by Credit Unions and are still highly supported in the Credit Union community. Some of the other participates are banks, community loan funds and specialized bank like Grameen Bank. Grameen Bank has even opened U.S. branches as well. Calvert Foundation is another major advocate and provider of loans as well. Look locally for a community loan fund in your area over the internet. Realize most of the funding is for lower income housing, however there are opportunities for business start ups as well.

Business incubators are another potential source for connecting angel capital and non-traditional finance. If you have a business doing “social good” there may be some other options to explore like “B Lab” or B Corporation can be found at www.bcorporation.net . Inc Magazine ran article on Hybrids. Real wealth creation is in and through businesses and not through governmental projects supported by taxes. There has never been a greater need for capital to fund businesses. Urge your friends seeking capital to look at these alternative methods to capitalize their businesses or projects.

Networked Nonprofit: Social Media is Key

Allison Fine wrote a book, “Networked Nonprofit” and spoke this morning and yesterday to groups of nonprofit professionals. As the President of Philanthropic Advisors Counsel of Central Florida I was included. See getting involved has some surprise perks

Here were a few executive summary thoughts as my take away:

The idea of Nonprofits as stand alone fortress with high walls and limited engagement outside of key donors is a dying model. Even though your nonprofit may not engage in Social Media the world around us is talking without your engagement. Ms. Fine expressed in several ways that story and engaging stories of personal interest are best. Do not send out broadcast messages to the whole world on how wonderful your group is and what help you are seeking. Rather find “Free Agents” those blogging and get their influence to re-tweet a story that get attention. The free agents are not loyal to a group rather they are seeking conversations and making observations to a large crowd that in turns has a much larger crowd connected to them.

Think of the network as tinker toys and the nodes are people (free agents) and the sticks are relationships and the conversations that connect each other. Fine was mostly talking about Face Book and sharing wonderful successful examples. Realize that when a free agent re-tweets something about you or your organization to the world that carries much greater weight, trust and credibility.

Social Media has always been here- tribes and communities and story are the way we connect over the centuries. Digital media is inexpensive and easy to use and 2-Way conversation and grows bigger without resources required in traditional marketing. Broadcast TV, radio for example you pay for eyeballs or ears and not so with social media.

It is intentional and not a spectator sport rather requires actions. Paint what is possible in your stories to those you connect with online and learn both the language and framework of the social media space.

Framework starts with BE: understanding networks and then work with crowds. Be creative social culture and then do the work with free agents. Be ready to listen, engage and build relationships so you can then do friending to funding. Be trustworthy through transparency (break down the walls) so you can then do the governing through networks. Lastly come from clear simplicity and tell stories.

Honor others in the network and report back to them when you ask for opinion or feedback. She gave some excellent examples on how this is walked out in real life. Again not about what you had for breakfast this morning rather the change you stand for and how your life is making change in and around others associated with your vision and passion. Get networked takes more than setting up the right accounts and asking a few to join you. There are huge opportunities to build awareness and support with intentional work and focus. Have fun! It matters.