11/27/2024 Sunny Day Fund Newsletter
Sunny Day Fund ??
Workplace emergency savings & financial wellness that measurably improves retention, productivity, & retirement metrics.
As we wrap up this short workweek to spend time with family and friends in gratitude for all we have, we also focus on all that we continue to strive for - better world and means for all. To that end, here's some reading for your holiday travels:
Summary:
And don't forget - for ongoing insights on workforce financial well-being, follow us on LinkedIn or schedule a meeting with Rachel.
Inaugural Workers' Wealth Lab
The Workers' Wealth Lab, hosted by The Aspen Institute Financial Security Program and Defined Contribution Institutional Investment Association (DCIIA), brought together employers, benefits pioneers, financial providers, and policymakers to ask a question:
?If it took 26 years - an entire generation - to get roughly half of working Americans to start saving for retirement, what should we strive to get done in the next generation? The answer - it seemed - started with addressing workers' liquidity challenges. Essentially, if the dream is to build a skyscraper of wealth for every household, we really need to address the assumption that there's a solid foundation of emergency savings and more.
?We were grateful to be a part of this crew and learned a lot! We also shared our big idea with Manifest, enabling a tighter coupling of the retirement transfers and emergency savings use cases to preserve and grow wealth. Big thank you to Karen Andres, Kara Wooley, and the Aspen & DCIIA Teams, and the moderator at our table, Pam Hess from DCIIA, for this incredible event - just the start! - See the post
Fidelis Wealth: "Eat What You Cook"
Sam Tenney is the Founder of Fidelis Wealth Advisors, and is showing what it means to lead by example. Before introducing Sunny Day Fund to his business clients, he's ensuring is own team experiences the benefits first.? Sam says, "We want our team to know we have their back, and that we eat what we cook." Fidelis isn't going to recommend something to clients that they're not doing themselves. Gotta love that! - Read more
Sun-Ray: Light from our social stream
We're starting a new, recurring section of our newsletter to spotlight our social content that seemed to resonate. Since Rachel's nickname growing up was Ray-Rae, it seems only fitting to spin out a new bit - would you expect anything else from us?? :)
Here's one recent post that got lots of attention. Rachel tells this story that we often hear from employees and employers alike, who are seeking a better solution to this common problem. While our intent was to keep this skit lighthearted and may not be the exactly accurate for every plan structure out there, it's a serious and heartbreaking situation that too many Americans are struggling with.
Employers and employees both have the best of intentions here, but we need to make sure they've got the right tools for the job. And if employees are already using the 401(k) as if it's an Emergency Savings Account, it's likely time for a real ESA as an employee benefit, to prioritize the liquidity that employees need. - Watch the video skit
Takeaways from DCIIA's Academic Forum
The Defined Contribution Institutional Investment Association (DCIIA) recently held their Academic Forum at Goldman Sachs in NYC. The takeaways here remind us that financial wellness isn't isolated. It's interconnected with broader health, caregiving, and tech factors.
Welcome Yash to the SDF Team!
We're proud to announce that Yash Chaturvedi has joined the Sunny Day Fund team as a full stack engineer. Yash came to us from the University of North Carolina in Charlotte where he graduated with a Master of Science degree in Computer Science. Welcome, Yash!?
"Sunlight" on Thought Leadership