Podcast guest Brandon Calloway is the CEO and co-founder of G.I.F.T., a nonprofit that gives grants to businesses East of Troost – long known as Kansas City’s racial dividing line – to reverse the lingering effects of redlining that contribute to the racial wealth gap.

He talks with Sa-Aadu about the importance of saving money, why credit scores matter, and making it in a nonprofit climate he describes as a white savior industry. That is, an industry dominated by white philanthropists who, he thinks, sincerely want to help but don’t necessarily know the needs of the community.

Calloway learned the importance of saving early on and was good at it. He recalls a time when his parents gave him a $2 daily allowance to use at his discretion. Rather than spend it, he hung onto it because he wanted to purchase a PlayStation.

Once he had enough, he made the purchase. However, his enjoyment of the console was short-lived; Calloway’s family fell back on hard financial times, and his parents made the difficult decision to pawn his PlayStation for much needed cash. This was the first time Calloway became aware that sometimes despite his best efforts, larger circumstances would dictate his family’s financial priorities.

By the time he was 18, Calloway’s credit score was well above average, and he bought his first car. When the car needed major repairs that were more than his gas station earnings could pay for, he turned to his mother for advice. She suggested that he use a payday loan service.

“My parents, as well-intentioned as they were, did not have a lot of financial education,” he tells Sa-Aadu.

At the time, he didn’t worry about the effect a loan like that – or failing to make timely payments – would have on his credit. He lived in an area where jailtime was a frequent consequence of both mistakes and intentional actions, so in comparison, a ding to his credit felt like a minor punishment.

That ding didn’t seem as minor later.

“I went from having magnificent credit to horrific credit in the span of one month. … Once you get there, you feel like you’re drowning,” Calloway says. “Am I ever going to be able to get out of this?

“Your credit actually does matter, even though you’ve seen x amount of people get through life without having good credit.”

After earning a degree from Avila University in exercise and physiology with a minor in law, he served in the Army for three years. Later, he built up his business acumen by managing fitness centers. He realized quickly, though, that he wanted to do more; he wanted to make a difference in others’ lives.

Calloway decided to focus on businesses east of Troost. His nonprofit, G.I.F.T. (Generating Income for Tomorrow), grants approved applicants financial aid in the amounts of $10,000, $25,000, or $50,000 and provides them with an accountant for 12 months, a marketing team, legal counsel, and access to his on-staff business coach.

He thinks of what his organization is doing as working toward a systems-level change to eradicate the racial divide, as opposed to simply addressing one challenge after another. Calloway’s organization wants to boost businesses on the east side to the point where they no longer need assistance at all.

Below is an abbreviated list of resources, opportunities, and services G.I.F.T. offers:

• Black Business Market - Each month G.I.F.T. hosts a Black Business Market Pop-U. Vendors can take advantage of the opportunity to sell by signing up.
• Business Resources – Available by appointment
• Anti-Racism Education

Podcast guest Lolita Rucker is an insurance broker, notary public, and former Internal Revenue Service employee who understands the intricacies of forms many people find confusing. Now, she works to fill in financial knowledge gaps for other people.

Rucker was one of several children raised by a single mother on an income restricted budget – though “budget” might be the wrong word. She says she grew up watching her mother spend money without a plan. Her mother worked hard to pay the bills, but her income was never enough.

At 8 years old, Rucker had the valuable opportunity to establish a solid foundation in her own relationship with money. At the time, an older woman was renting a room in the basement of her family’s house. She approached the tenant asking if the woman would like any help with her cleaning and quickly landed her first job, earning $10 for her efforts.

“Back in those days, $10 was a lot of money for a child. It was a lot of money for a person, period. That was one of my earliest memories of actually being able to work and make my own money,” Rucker tells Sa-Aadu.

Later, through the help of mentors and her own trial and error, Rucker discovered that people with restricted incomes can still find ways to save money and avoid crippling debt. In this episode, she passes along some tips from her own experiences, including:

• Know how much money you have and prioritize your spending based on that number.
• Use credit cards sparingly to establish credit. Pay them off as quickly as possible.
• Visit the library and ask what resources are available to help you.

To learn more about Library business resources please visit the Small Business & Entrepreneurship page.

Podcast guest Dee Moore is a former stockbroker, self-taught business owner, and director of a personal chef company with a presence in 28 states. Raised by well-off grandparents in Houston, Texas, Moore never worried about money growing up. All of that suddenly changed after her grandmother disowned her, and she found herself living out of her car with her toddler and another baby on the way.

Until that time, Moore had never even considered applying for a job.

She knew she needed a plan that would turn her life around and give her children what they needed to thrive. Without much more than that idea, Moore first turned inward. She worked on internal messages about her self-worth, something she tells Sa-Aadu was a hurdle as far as it came to her relationship with money.

One of her earliest memories of money came from a shopping experience at a grocery store with her grandmother when Moore was six years old. Moore had stolen an item at the checkout line. Her grandmother noticed but waited until they were outside the store to confront her about her actions.

After Moore admitted her wrongdoing, her grandmother took her back inside to apologize face to face to the cashier. “Even though it was a negative experience, because I did something wrong, my grandmother did take the opportunity to show me that things cost money [and] you have to have money” to buy them.

Digging deeper, Moore shares that her motivations for stealing stemmed from her own sense of self-worth tied to money: She did not understand why she was not “good enough” to have what she wanted.

Later in life, Moore educated herself by spending a lot of time reading about the skills she would need for business success. “Things that you need to know are found and hidden in books. Read books about networking,” she suggests. “Networking will take you further than any degree or any amount of money.”

But the most powerful thing she ever did was buy a white binder. She called it her “credit binder” and placed photos of what she wanted on the cover: A house, a car, a vacation – all things she was more likely to obtain if she had a good credit score.

It was in using tools like her binder that Moore initially found the most satisfaction; she had control over how she’d achieve what she set out to. When she didn’t have control, she tells Sa-Aadu, reaching a goal was more difficult.

For instance, Moore visited banks to ask for financing that would allow her to increase the size of the photography business she’d started. She learned that navigating what she calls a “very white landscape” made finding capital harder than she’d imagined.

Moore watched as a white, male friend, speaking loudly and wearing a T-shirt and shorts, approached a loan officer. The loan officer called her friend “sir” and assured him that they’d find him the money he wanted.

Loan officers were not nearly as interested in assisting even a well-dressed, well-spoken, well-prepared Black woman.

Now, when she works with other people starting out in business, one of her goals is to keep them from suffering the way she did. Moore can’t single-handedly stop systemic racism, but she can educate and prepare her community.