Amid conversations and uprisings surrounding racial justice, Juneteenth is quickly becoming a company holiday. However, with all of the increased awareness, Goalsetter is launching the #SavingOurSelves initiative to help reverse the wealth gap.
Founded by Tanya Van Court, Goalsetter—a Black-owned app that provides culturally-relevant financial literacy tools for kids and families to save money—is committing to getting one million Black kids signed up for savings accounts.
“Juneteenth is a celebration of our freedom from slavery, but African-Americans can’t truly celebrate freedom until we are financially liberated and the wealth gap is closed,” said Chairman of Vista Equity and Goalsetter investor Robert F. Smith. “By giving Black kids a savings and financial literacy app created by a Black entrepreneur, we can change the way a whole generation of Black kids learns about money and thinks about building wealth. And that can have a profound impact on our entire community.”
On June 19, 1865, the last remaining slaves in Galveston, Texas, were freed two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Periods of extreme poverty and financial insecurity that followed that “freedom” have had lasting effects on the Black community. Today, Prosperity Now reports that African-Americans are projected to have a negative net worth by 2053.
To launch this movement to financial freedom on Juneteenth, Goalsetter will commission popular Black TikTok creators to encourage account sign-ups, get banks and financial institutions to sponsor the movement, and engage Black organizations to spread the word.
The hope is that kids who are saving will think about their financial health more often and for the future. Plus, on a larger scale, while many fight to end police violence, Van Court explains that economic freedom is just as pertinent to our overall freedom.
“We need for every Black family to focus on our physical freedom and our financial freedom because those two often come hand in hand,” she told Urban Geekz. “While we are protesting and marching for the ability to have our basic humanity recognized, to not be gunned down in the streets, the protests that are happening across America are just the beginning of our human rights revolution. We need the same freedoms that other groups in America take for granted – freedom from unjust bodily harm, freedom from oppression, freedom of expression, and financial freedom.”
