What is Commonwealth?

Commonwealth is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to building financial security and opportunity for financially vulnerable individuals through innovation and partnerships. Their mission focuses on addressing systemic financial challenges faced by low- to moderate-income (LMI) households, particularly those disproportionately led by Black, Latinx, and women.

Why did the Goodman Family Foundation invest?

There is an enormous gap in the United States between those who aspire to invest, and those who actually participate in capital markets today. Income from labor alone cannot close the wealth gap that exists in the US today; to build wealth, households living on lower incomes must have access to well-designed, high quality ways to earn returns on capital, especially in financial markets. In the near term, investing in the stock market can cultivate families’ agency, feeling of financial security, and expand the time horizon of their aspirations. In the long term, investing can expand families’ choices, and contribute toward life goals such as financing children’s education, homeownership, or a secure retirement. As just one example, researchers have found that having educational savings of $500 or less makes it three times more likely that children from LMI backgrounds will attend college, and four times more likely that they will graduate. 

We know what it will take to close the wealth gap in the US. It takes modest seed funds, access to quality products, relevant and actionable investing knowledge, and a fundamental shift in who we expect can and should be an investor. Enabling wealth creation is a recurring policy aspiration, often across the political divide, as existing initiatives (e.g., NYC Kids RISE), recent policy action (e.g., Secure 2.0), and policy proposals (e.g., Baby Bonds) demonstrate.

What has been missing from these efforts is a broad-based push to enable capital market access for anyone living on LMI, regardless of specific financial aspiration, geography, or family circumstances. We have invested in Commonwealth because we believe they are best-positioned in the space to lead the broad-based efforts in the sector.

What impact are we hoping to achieve?

The Goodman Family Foundation has provided Commonwealth with a $500K unrestricted general operating support grant (2024) which will help them build and launch a national initiative that enables 1 million first-time investors—and a coalition of industry leaders committed to serve these new investors responsibly—that will provide a platform to showcase what is possible, demonstrate what’s been learned, identify where and what policy action(s) are required, and foster new conversations about who can and should build wealth. This national initiative will include commitments from multiple industry players who are not yet participating meaningfully in inclusive LMI investment access, as well as policymakers, and prospective first-time investors themselves.