Redressing Economic Imbalance with Financial Savvy

Having recently completed the New Zealand Certificate in Financial Services, I am equipped with the knowledge and skills to provide regulated tailored financial advice to LGBT people. Go me! However, this learning has illuminated a crucial insight:

While individualised support is lacking yet essential, it is not sufficient for achieving the systemic change required for true LGBT economic empowerment.

Background

Falling back on a discipline is a habit innovators deploy to navigate uncertainty, particularly in times of crisis. Through my career in #SocEnt theories of change related to financial inclusion repeatedly responded well, demonstrating evidence of impact. When the pandemic hit, Financial Inclusion was my go to.

Discipline and structure in uncertain times has helped me countless times. It does so in three ways:

1. Guiding Principles: Clear guiding principles, aligned to which my own immovable values are safe. Financial Inclusion provides clear principles such as, accessibility, affordability, and usability of financial services for all. Even during uncertainty we need to make decisions and maintain focus, and clear principles can provide a solid foundation.
2. Framework for Action: The established frameworks and methodologies within financial inclusion practice can be applied to identify gaps, prioritise actions, and measure impact. This structure helps maintain clarity and direction when circumstances are chaotic.
3. Focus on Resilience: Financial inclusion emphasises building resilience among underserved populations. This focus helps innovators develop strategies that not only address immediate needs but also enhance long-term stability and adaptability.

The outcome of this approach was that I could recover perspective.

The discipline of financial inclusion is not a panacea. It was though a simple, powerful, multi-faceted lens that unlocked other skills and my agency:

1. Empathy and User-Centricity: A financial inclusion lens inherently requires understanding the needs and behaviours of vulnerable populations. This empathy-driven approach helps innovators stay grounded in real-world challenges and design solutions that are genuinely impactful.
2. Data-driven Insights: Financial inclusion relies heavily on data to drive decisions. In times of uncertainty, data provides objective insights that can cut through the noise, offering a clear picture of what's happening and what actions are needed.
3. Community and Collaboration: The financial inclusion ecosystem often involves multiple stakeholders, including governments, NGOs, financial institutions, and community organisations. Innovators can leverage these networks for support, collaboration, and shared learning, which is particularly valuable in uncertain times.

So it was for me.

"Just off the boat" no one knew me from Adam. Being received as empathetic and user-centric was really important, as senses and cautious behaviours were heightened. Grounding my own insights in data, and recognising others, helped me show up in a useful way. I needed community and collaboration, which has been my life blood. International relocation during a global pandemic was otherwise a tourniquet.

Lived Experience Evolving into Lived Expertise

Earlier in life I had experience of financial hardship. Our experience of financial inclusion during the pandemic, as new migrants, and through empathy with the excluded, highlighted the vulnerabilities within the LGBT community "even here" where legal rights and economic protections are strong. This underscored the urgent need for LGBT Economic Empowerment. This has catalysed my passion for pioneering LGBT Intergenerational Wealth, transforming it into a focused and mission-driven vocation.

A. Highlighting Vulnerability: The pandemic disproportionately affected groups without or with less access to traditional financial services.

B. Access to Resources: During the early phases of the pandemic, access to financial resources became critical for survival. Those who were financially included had better access to emergency funds, credit, and financial tools that helped them to cope with sudden income losses or health expenses.

C. Digital Financial Services: The pandemic accelerated the adoption of digital financial services. Positively and negatively digital banking, mobile money, and other fintech solutions maintained economic activity and provide essential services when physical access was restricted, sometimes with unintended and negative consequences.

D. Government Support Programmes: Many governments rolled out financial aid and economic stimulus packages to support their citizens. Almost to a fault, these programmes relied on a relatively high bar in terms of financial inclusion, to guarantee effective and efficient distribution of these funds.

E. Economic Resilience: Financially included people and businesses tended to have more savings and better access to credit, making them more resilient to economic shocks, revealing an important foundation for future resilience.

F. Data and Insights: Financial inclusion initiatives often rely on data to understand the needs and behaviours of underserved populations. During the pandemic, this data was invaluable for policymakers and organisations to design targeted interventions and track the impact of their efforts. This was any area of failure for me and others, who failed to shine a light bright enough on opportunities to engage in data innovation during the pandemic in Auckland. Testament to the recent enterprise leadership changes at Auckland Council, I reckon a better breakthrough would be possible now.

G. Community Support Systems: Financial inclusion often involves building community-based financial support systems, such as saving groups or cooperatives, through to group insurance and new forms of resource usage. These systems played a crucial role during the pandemic in providing local, trusted support networks for financial and other forms of assistance. Supporting innovation in this area, such as affordable car leasing pilots with low-income families, was mutually rewarding. It also revealed deficits in these approaches for communities with more complex trust issues, and malformed social capital.

Catalyst for Realisation

Heightened Vulnerability

The pandemic exposed the greater risks faced by marginalised communities, including the LGBT community, due to limited financial inclusion. I see parallels with how #climatechange will similarly impact these communities disproportionately .

Interconnected Challenges

Without financial resilience, the LGBT community faces compounded risks, making economic empowerment a critical area of focus.

Intergenerational Wealth

Intergenerational Wealth is different for LGBT people. My passion for pioneering LGBT intergenerational wealth through economic empowerment and the magic of LGBT leadership addresses the root cause of financial and economic vulnerability. When we address literacy, access, and influence investment, we are building a foundation for long-term resilience. Otherwise the rich colour of LGBT intergenerational wealth is a shorter story, and some parts of that story will remain untold.

Economic Empowerment

This focus enables us to tackle systemic barriers head-on. By creating opportunities for financial growth and stability, we empower individuals and families within the LGBT community to thrive despite challenges.

This mission-driven approach is becoming a vocation in service of my community.

"Future Pride" Update

At the outset of 2023 I "projectised" this approach under the working name of "Future Pride". I have dedicated time and resources to exploring practical steps and strategies including:

i. Learning Environments and Awareness: Promoting financial literacy is the foundation of many strategies as is raising awareness of the challenge within the community affected. Women view money differently too. Leading initiatives in this space are led by women such as Angela Meyer .

When I talk about wealth, I don't just mean money. I mean freedom, or that sense of confidence

ii. Access to Financial Services: Advocating for and developing financial products and services tailored to the unique needs of the LGBT community is required. While banking services and investment opportunities are emerging in larger markets, microloans and solutions revealing the shortsightedness of industry stalwarts. Money Sweet Spo t exemplifies this opportunity for qualities of growth.

iii. Building Networks and Support Systems: Establishing networks of support, such as LGBT-focused financial cooperatives or investment groups is an area that really interests me. However, this should be co=designed following a strengths-based approach. Mutual aid, mentorship, and collective investment opportunities are an opportunity, not another problem. In this area I benchmarked affordable home-ownership pathways because of the mutually-reinforcing potential of investors working together. Leading this field is OurBoro out of Toronto. More inclusive New Zealand based models for shared-equity and fractional ownership have emerged and failed to gain traction, but there is massive scope for system change in such a failing system. We invested in some promising models through the Westpac NZ Government Innovation Fund.

Become a home owner sooner - simple as, and what an investment strategy for the wider community?

iv. Policy Advocacy: Engaging in advocacy to influence policies that promote financial inclusion and protect the economic rights of the LGBT community remains important. Even where these rights have been secured, they are by no means guaranteed to create the conditions for longer-term investment goals.

After 18 months my approach would aim to collaborate and contribute to the first two. Before contributing I chose to commit to the NZ Certificate in Financial Services (Investment) so that I am qualified to provide regulated advice in this area and to complement my existing coaching-based advisory practice.

Three and four are emerging as the pathways to influence and system change that would complement these direct interventions. A theory of transformation. It is time to start socialising a vision, and the next phase of the project is about sharing, because leading in this space has to be authentic, and is dependent, rightly, on rich social license.

Envisioning LGBT Economic Empowerment

My vision is to co-create a sustainable and inclusive economic ecosystem with the LGBT community. This includes:

• Intergenerational Wealth Transfer: Ensuring that wealth, financial and non-financial, capital and culture, are passed down through generations within the community and wider society.
• Resilience to Climate Change: Building financial resilience to mitigate the impacts of climate change, ensuring that the community can adapt and thrive in a changing world, and seeing economic empowerment as an equitable transition pathway.
• Empowerment and Independence: Fostering empowerment and independence, enabling individuals to take control of their economic futures, and contribute to the collective strength of the community.

Social Licence

Lived Experience

I have experienced financial hardship first-hand, and I am attune to the vanilla and darker discrimination and barriers encountered when engaging the financial services industry even today. I have collaborated with entrepreneurial LGBT people globally. They shared unique insights into the vulnerabilities and challenges faced by LGBT people seeking to realise their economic rights.

Experiencing the compounded risks of limited financial inclusion, relating to the intersectionalities at play, plus these clear signals about vulnerability related to climate change, gives me a profound understanding of the urgent need for economic empowerment.

Lived Expertise

Deep knowledge equips those open to learning with a nuanced understanding of the systemic barriers and specific needs of the LGBT community. This is the basis of my own expertise, and growth for those able to reframe their mental model with an investment mindset.

It took me a long time to recover from earlier experiences, and having survived those challenges, I offer genuine empathy and relatability that I hope enables me to connect with and support others in the community.

This is not a crusade, my personal and professional journey are woven, and my passion has been transformed into a focused mission. This focus is driven by both my experiences and a commitment to creating positive change, which is open to allies and accountable to critics.

Pace is important, not least to protect and include more LGBT people exploring longer-term investment goals. So the vision has a bias for action, through practical, informed solutions, that are directly relevant to the needs and the realities of the LGBT community. The strategies are grounded in real-world understanding, and the actual catalytic capacity of the financial services industry.

System Change

Contemporary approaches to System Change can be criticised. Many approaches are fragmented, with multiple initiatives working in silos rather than in a coordinated manner, perhaps around missions . This lack of a collaboration leads to duplicated efforts, inefficient use of resources, and missed opportunities for synergy. Like we have the time ...

There is often an overemphasis on short-term results and quick wins rather than long-term, sustainable change. Superficial changes that do not address the root causes of systemic issues, leading to persistence of underlying problems. Conversely, some initiatives are overly focused on long-term visions without taking pragmatic, actionable steps to achieve those goals. Perhaps as a protective behaviour, where understanding leads to a belief that knowledge alone can drive solutions, practitioners create barriers to practical action (ironically), and resist collaboration with those better suited to implement changes on the ground.

Many system change initiatives, understandably because of the influence on policy change, can become top-down, driven by policymakers or external experts, without sufficiently engaging the communities affected by the changes. This can lead to solutions that are out of touch with the real needs and contexts of these communities, resulting in limited buy-in and impact. The LGBT community bears witness to this. HIV was a story written first and foremost on the bodies of homosexual men. It took years for the health system to engage them without stigma. What was learned about community-led public health strategies was transformational. Today that quality community engagement enables HIV medication to be so effective.

Contemporary system change efforts often fail to adequately address power dynamics and structural inequalities. Without challenging and transforming these power structures, initiatives may inadvertently reinforce the status quo. System change is complex and relies on adaptive processes that require continuous learning and adaptation. Many approaches lack mechanisms for iterative learning, feedback, and course correction, leading to rigid and ineffective strategies.

Navigation Systems Change Practice As Well As System Change Itself

We are researching and developing an approach which focuses on the power of an industry, an industry known for its capacity for innovation and continuous improvement. Targeting this sector is about trying to leverage an existing infrastructure that is already interconnected and primed for comprehensive solutions; akin to the motivation so many changemakers have in working through schools and education systems. This counteracts fragmentation to concentrate on a sector with significant influence and potential for scalable impact.

I hope the emerging vision honours hope as a powerful force, as well as reveals itself to be pragmatic and practical, with actionable steps, that invites collaboration.

The transaction points in financial services are important. This is where the root causes of systemic bias and discrimination manifest in ways that are measurable. This is where we can see the needle moving. As a result of the pandemic, New Zealand banks changed some of these settings, such as the timing of transactions, and the tone - yielding results which have amplified inclusion and fostered innovation.

For example, the banker has your data and expertise, this is power. They can wait until you need debt recovery, or they can engage you early enough to make a difference, with options and a pathway that prevents the pain of default and its consequences. Mental models have to shift, then behaviours, then products and services. A system grows towards inclusion, having grown so far on the back of concentrating the power. One is sustainable, the other is not.

Our approach emphasises the power of agency and qualities of community engagement. Call me arrogant if needs be, but this stands or falls as a community effort, and there are many stereotypes about the rich gay white man, or profligacy with money that need to be overcome to meet me half way. Self-determination in this area is also the catalyst for collective determination. A collaborative effort is intended to mitigate the risk of arrogance or intellectualising the problem, in favour of leveraging diverse perspectives to drive effective change.

Therefore this approach is inherently bottom-up, focusing on empowering LGBT individuals through financial services. By recognising the critical role of transaction points, we aim to address the specific challenges faced by LGBT individuals in accessing and using financial services. This ensures that solutions are tailored to the actual needs and contexts of the community, leading to more relevant and impactful outcomes. While bottom-up the approach directly tackles power dynamics and structural inequalities. Financial services are where economic power is concentrated, and by ensuring LGBT individuals have access to these services, they are empowered economically. This shift in power dynamics is crucial for achieving systemic change and addressing long-standing bias and discrimination.

This industry is known for its innovation and continuous improvement. By aligning the approach with this sector, we inherently adopt a model of iterative learning and adaptation - we don't have to explain and win the argument for that as well. Financial services continually evolve, and our strategy leverages this dynamic nature to ensure that interventions remain relevant, effective, and responsive to emerging challenges and opportunities. We hope that this community, is part of a market, that this industry wants to understand and serve better.

Building on Best Practice

"Outsized Impact" makes a compelling case for setting system-level goals to address LGBTQIA+ inequity. The key objectives include:

1. Promoting LGBTQIA+ Equity in Corporations and Financial Institutions: By leveraging policies and programmes, we can drive equity and inclusion at an institutional level. I would acknowledge and hope to collaborate with Pride Pledge on this in NZ and AUS.
2. Increasing Access to Capital for the LGBTQIA+ Community: Ensuring broader access to financial resources supports economic empowerment. Mihi to my mentor Kerry Topp in this area.
3. Improving Financial outcomes for LGBTQIA+ Founders: Fostering wealth generation among LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs strengthens community resilience. This is because intergenerational wealth is different for LGBT people, and entrepreneurial leadership is part of the magic of LGBT leadership. On this we hope to collaborate with Rainbow Auckland operating in this space for 40 years.
4. Developing LGBTQIA+ Equitable Social Structures: Creating supportive frameworks enhances social cohesion and inclusion.
5. Driving Financial Inclusion: Promoting economic growth through inclusive financial practices. Pioneered here by government through the Retirement Commission and by ecosystem pioneers like Sustainable Finance .
6. Improving Data Capture: Enhancing data infrastructure to track progress and inform strategies, hence another reason for loving the deepening collaboration with AUT and in this case the Auckland Centre for Financial Research

Attracting the resource to establish connections with the best-in-class, towards right-sizing how investment strategies could align for LGBT Economic Empowerment in NZ and Australia is my focus for the rest of this year. Understanding how to change the system before embarking on a socially entrepreneurial venture is me learning from previous experiences (read failures!)

This more methodical approach should lead to more informed strategy development, from a holistic perspective. The challenge is about balancing vision with pragmatic action, both crucial for meaningful community engagement, which itself is the foundation for navigating power dynamics. Ultimately this about co-creating adaptive capacity, collaborative spaces, for sustainable impact.

This update shares lots of detail to answer the questions:

• What made you study for the NZ Certificate in Financial Services?
• What is this move to creating some space for free-lancing all about?

and most importantly;

• How may I help or contribute to this mission?

Or as Oscar Wilde would have put it,

"The only way to atone for being occasionally a little over-dressed, is by being always absolutely over-educated."

Deep knowledge, continuous learning, and passion are a foundation for driving meaningful and impactful change. There is some magic in LGBT leadership. Bayard Rustin, was the young black gay man and Martin Luther King's speechwriter. He captured the potential of this community.

"We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers"

The LGBT community is a powerful force for social and economic transformation; deal with it.