When Saundra Davis decided to change careers in her mid-40s, she opted to earn a master’s degree in financial planning. Her goal, she says, was to understand what wealthy folks knew about acquiring, building and transferring wealth and apply those principles to her low- and moderate-income clients.
As she got to work, Davis encountered a system that historically kept poor people, including people of color, out of the running when it came to building and passing down assets. “There were things [wealthy] people knew about money that most black, brown and poor white folks just didn’t know,” says Davis, who now works as a financial coach and financial behavior specialist in San Francisco. “We have to help people recognize their personal power within this larger construct, which is, quite frankly, designed to crush them,” she adds.