In this episode I am joined by Janine Firpo, a distinguished values-driven investor and author, who has dedicated her career to fostering a more equitable financial landscape for women.

Throughout our discussion, we explore the profound impact of community support and the necessity of women supporting one another in their professional pursuits. Janine elucidates her journey from the tech industry to her current role as an advocate for women-led enterprises, emphasizing the importance of financial literacy and investment strategies that reflect personal values.

We conclude with practical insights on how women can take actionable steps towards harnessing their financial resources to effect positive change in their communities and beyond.

Our Guest This Week:

Today we have a 🌟 Values-Driven Vanguard🌟 in our midst!  

Janine Firpo is a values-aligned investor, social innovator, and author who has spent more than three decades leading transformative initiatives in technology and international development at organizations like Hewlett-Packard, Apple, and the World Bank. In 2017, she left her corporate and global development career to dedicate herself to helping women use their money to create a more just and equitable world. She is the author of Activate Your Money: Invest to Grow Your Wealth and Build a Better World, and the co-founder of Invest for Better—a nonprofit that has already empowered over 2,500 women in the U.S. and Europe to take confident, values-aligned investment action. Named to the Forbes “50 Over 50” list in 2024, Janine continues to inspire and equip women to grow their wealth while building a sustainable, equitable future for all.

Takeaways:

• Janine's commitment to empowering women through financial literacy highlights the importance of values-aligned investing.
• The significance of women supporting one another in professional environments is underscored through Janine's personal career experiences.
• Investing in community banks that prioritize social equity can lead to impactful changes in underserved communities.
• The discussion outlines the transformative potential of values-driven investments in creating sustainable and equitable futures.
• Janine's narrative illustrates the power of personal stories in shaping one's professional journey and belief systems.

Chapters:

00:07 Amplifying Women's Voices in Leadership

00:35 Transformational Moments and Career Choices

14:50 Understanding Values Aligned Investing

16:33 Investing Strategies and Personal Finance

24:55 Investing in Community: Building Wealth Together

Burning Questions Answered:

1.Why do so many women feel insecure about money and investing?

2.What is values-aligned investing, and how can you do it even with a small amount?

3.How can your money actively support women, communities, and the planet?

4.What practical first steps can women take right now to start investing?

5.How can talking openly about money change your life and legacy?

Favorite Quotes:

“When women come together to talk about money, something magical happens.”

"True evil, the worst evil happens when good people fail to step up.”

“We are afraid of making a mistake, but the only way to build confidence is to start.”

Guest Offers & Contact Information:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/janine-firpo-047282/

www.investforbetter.org/membership

Buy Janine’s book, Activate Your Money

From Women-Owned Bookstore:  https://bookshop.org/p/books/activate-your-money-invest-to-grow-your-wealth-and-build-a-better-world-janine-firpo/18710921?ean=9781394171347&next=t

From Amazon: 

https://a.co/d/dQ10tPn

Follow the #WisdomOfWomen show for more inspiring stories and insights from trailblazing women founders, investors, and experts in growth and prosperity.

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RSS Feed: https://feeds.captivate.fm/womengetfunded/ 

Coco Sellman, the host of #WisdomOfWomen, believes business is a force for good, especially with visionary women at the helm. With over 25 years of entrepreneurial experience, she has launched five companies and guided over 500 startups. As Founder & CEO of A Force for Good, Coco supports purpose-driven women founders in unlocking exponential growth and prosperity. Her recent venture, Allumé Home Care, reached eight-figure revenues and seven-figure profits in just four years before a successful exit in 2024. A venture investor and board director, Coco’s upcoming book, *A Force for Good*, reveals a roadmap for women to lead high-impact, high-growth companies.

Learn more about A Force for Good:

Website: https://aforceforgood.biz/ 

Are Your GROWING or PLATEAUING? https://aforceforgood.biz/quiz/

FFG Tool of the Week: https://aforceforgood.biz/weekly-tool/ 

The Book:  https://aforceforgood.biz/book/ 

Growth Accelerator: https://aforceforgood.biz/accelerator/ 

Welcome to the Wisdom of Women Show.

We are dedicated to amplifying the voice of women in business.

A new model of leadership is emerging and we are here to amplify the voices of women leading the way.

I am your host, Coco Selman, five time founder, impact investor and creator of the Force for Good system.

Thank you for joining us today as we illuminate the path to unlocking opportunities and prosperity for women led enterprises by amplifying the voice of women in business.

So today we have a values driven vanguard in our midst.

Janine Firpoe is a values aligned investor, social innovator and author who has spent more than three decades leading transformative initiatives in technology and international development at organizations like Hewitt, Packard, Apple and the World Bank.

She is the author of Activate your money, Invest to grow your wealth and build a better world and co founder of Invest for Better, a nonprofit that has already empowered over 2,500 women in the US and Europe to take confident values aligned investment action.

It is my pleasure to have you today, Janine.

Thank you so much Coco.

It's my pleasure to be here with you.

I really appreciate it.

Tell us a book that has been written by a woman that significantly influenced your life.

The book is by Ursula Heggie and it's called the Stones by the river and I read it a couple decades ago when I was starting to study evil.

I was curious what is evil?

Because I thought it was just when a bad person did something.

But what I learned from her book, which takes place as Hitler is rising in power in Germany, is that true evil, the worst evil, happens when good people fail to step up, when bad things are happening, when good people align with evil things because it's an easier path.

That's when the worst evil in the world takes place.

And it really has stuck with me ever since.

Wow.

And an important topic for any time.

But I feel like these times in particular where so much of the narrative has gone negative and maybe not what we all want and we want to maybe, maybe we're not in favor with everything's happening, but if we don't use our voices, we're just as responsible.

Yep, I very much feel that way.

So that is my book.

I love it.

I'll have to pick it up.

I haven't read it.

It's a really great read.

I feel like I've heard of it, but I have not read it.

So I'm going to pick that one up.

That sounds great.

I always like to ask about moments in your life.

I always like to find out for the people on the show, what are the moments that have really shaped you, the things that have informed who you are today, your belief system, the things you've learned as a result of these moments that paint a picture for us to understand the human being that you are.

Janine.

So I love that question.

I'm going to talk to you about three very different things.

The first one happened somewhat early in my career.

I started in the tech industry.

This particular job was in Silicon Valley.

I worked at a small firm run by a husband and wife team and I was doing customer support.

I was help training and doing customer support.

I had a mail boss and one day he called me into his office and basically he propositioned me and said that if I didn't like, perform certain favors that I wasn't going to get a promotion, that he wouldn't give me a good review, etc.

His office just happened to be right next door to the woman who was one of the co founders of the company.

I left his office, walked into her, sat down, and I said, I need to tell you what just happened.

And I told her the story.

Three days later, he was gone and I had his job.

That happened because that woman had my back.

She stood up for me, believed me when I told her what had happened.

And she made sure that that situation was rectified.

And I think that if it had gone a different way, my career would have been very different than what it was.

So I just applaud and really want to recognize women who step up for and support other women.

It's so, so important for us to do that.

Oh my goodness, it is.

And I mean, another reason why we need more women at the top, right?

These situations are still very common.

Your story is the exception.

A lot of times you don't get the response, the support, the action.

Exactly.

And I really value it.

So I recognize that another thing that had a really transformational impact on me, I always loved to travel.

In the mid-90s, I was still in the tech industry and I quit a job and I took an extended backpacking trip through Sub Saharan Africa, saw incredible poverty there and decided that I wanted to create a career that somehow helped work on solving that problem.

And so I came back from that trip, and it took me about a year to figure it out.

But I ultimately built a second career that looked at the role that technology and business think you could play in solving poverty.

I did that career for 20 years, and it was extraordinary on so many different levels.

I can't even begin to tell you how many things happened and the people I met and the places I went.

It was an extraordinary career.

And I think we actually had an impact as well, which is what ultimately is really important.

Well, and you did a big pivot from that, right?

I mean, that was like, I've heard you talk about this.

This was like leaving a very, you know, you were, you were on a track, you were making a lot of money.

You could have made more money.

It was a big decision to change at that moment.

It was.

In fact, one of my friends thought I burned out.

He's like, you've just burned out.

I mean, what's wrong with you?

And when I left on that trip, I was in something called the multimedia and CD ROM industry.

When I came home four or five months later, the Internet had come online and my industry was gone.

And everyone I knew was in this new Internet age.

And I was so well positioned to ride that train.

I mean, I'd already had executive positions, I already had 15 years in tech under my belt.

So I could have easily gone into the dot com world, and who knows where that would have led.

It just wasn't where my heart was anymore.

Something shifted for me at a very deep level when I took that trip, and I just knew that I needed to create something different.

So it meant pay cuts, it meant ridicule, it meant a lot of things, but I did it anyway.

And I couldn't be happier that I made that choice.

It really.

Well, I, I, I love, I love this story because it is when you think this is often not just for women, but I think it's unique to women.

We need more than just, you know, monies and titles and ladder advancements to, to, to, to continue to do what we do.

We need that.

It's part of our DNA and it's a really good thing.

Yeah.

And I think we also like to help people.

At one point in my life, I was a triathlete, so I did.

And there's a particular, I live in the Bay Area, and there's a particular triathlon here that's really special.

It's called Escape from Alcatraz, where you go out on a boat to Alcatraz island, jump in the water and swim Back to San Francisco and do your biking run.

I was a marine biologist at one point, and I've always been afraid of water.

And so this swim was really scary for me.

What I ended up doing was finding someone to swim with.

The person that I ended up swimming with was even more afraid than I was.

And so what ended up happening is I had to help him.

That's the watt.

I had to help him across the bay.

And focusing on him rather than myself made my swim not scary at all.

It was a great swim because I was so focused on making sure that this guy that I was swimming with was actually okay and that he was going to make it to the end.

So when we help each other, there's something so powerful in that, and it brings so much joy to ourselves.

I think we forget that sometimes.

I think that's such a wonderful story, and it's a beautiful example, too, of how you didn't just say, oh, I'm afraid of that swim, so I'm not going to do it.

In fact, I'm going to set myself up.

I'm going to ask for help, which is not something that we're always very good at, and then it's going to work out where I have to help him.

And what a beautiful metaphor for how to get inside our own resistance to doing big things in the world, like understanding our own psychology for what will make it possible for us to do that hard thing and not shrink away from it.

And for women, I think that's a part of unlocking that I think is really keen.

So I also, you know, I. I also.

I.

You talked about.

You didn't talk about your mom.

And so.

So I would love for you to just tell a little bit about your mom and how her story has influenced your life.

Because I know when I learned your story about your mom, I thought, wow, please tell the story about your mom.

So, thanks.

Thank you so much for asking that I dedicate my book to my mom, because I know for a fact that I would not be in the position I am today if not for her.

My mom grew up in the Depression.

Money was always a big deal for her, so it was a big deal in our family.

But what.

My mom ended up going into real estate and started flipping houses, going and buying houses that were foreclosed on on the court steps, not even knowing what was in them and buying them.

And then we were her crew.

My sisters and I were her crew.

We'd go in, in the summers, we'd repaint, we'd strip floors we'd fix things, we'd help her get the houses ready.

My mom taught me through exposure about how to buy and be successful with real estate.

She taught us because she was really transparent about this.

And I learned so much from her around how to be smart around money.

She always told us how much she was worth.

We knew it.

She started divesting herself of her assets before she even died.

There was so much trust between my mom, my sister and I because of the openness that my mom had around money.

She actually moved assets to us under our names while she was still alive.

And we all knew we were not to touch that money until my mom wasn't with us anymore.

She trusted us enough with her own well being.

When she passed away, there was no issue about money at all.

My sister and I both had gotten exactly the same thing.

I can't tell you what a gift it was the way my mom handled money and handled talking to us about it.

It was a gift on so many levels at different points, points in my life.

It's incredible, actually.

It is incredible.

She's way ahead of her time, you know, and I feel like women have, myself included, hesitance, insecurity about how to take the lead with money.

I'd love for you to talk a little bit about that because I know that's a big part of your mission to empower us.

Whether you have some cash in a checking account where you have lots to invest.

Right.

There's.

You are very focused on making it accessible for women to learn about the power of money.

Tell us about what holds us back in your experience.

So I think it's a couple of things.

It's a lack of confidence.

Most of us really haven't been trained around this at all.

And.

And so we're afraid.

We are afraid of making a mistake.

And then the other thing is we often think that we have to be experts at everything before we can do anything.

We have to know everything.

We have to know how to dot every I and cross every T. And so we're reluctant to take a first step because we might make a mistake and we could lose money.

And so we're really afraid.

And what I will tell you is when you invest, you will lose money.

Just expect it.

It's part of the process.

The market will go down, you will lose money.

You will also get better at it and you will learn and you'll make money ultimately.

So it's only by starting and taking steps and doing things that are small at first, build your confidence and then take a bigger step once you have your confidence.

So I really think it's about confidence.

There's no way to build confidence in anything without taking steps.

And that's one of the things I love about your book.

It really is a step by step at hand.

It really does help you.

And it's not just investing, it's values investing.

Right.

So walk us through.

What is values investing and why should we want to do this?

The reason?

Well, first of all, what Values Aligned investing is, is it is being conscious of the impact that your money is having in the world.

Because whether you realize it or not, every single dollar you have, even the dollars you have in the bank, are being used by someone to some end.

If you're not paying attention, chances are that the end to which they're being used are against things that you care about.

I mean, maybe you want to see a safer, less violent country and you're invested in the gun industry.

Maybe you want to see a sustainable planet that we can pass on to our kids and our grandkids.

I will bet that you are more invested in the oil and gas industry than you are in alternative energies.

Right.

Maybe you care about uplifting other women.

I would bet that you're not necessarily invested in companies or funds or other types of entities that are helping uplift women.

This is really about first being conscious of what are your values and what are your priorities then, and then being conscious about how your money is investing and whether it's supporting those things or undermining those things.

I love it.

There's a whole section that's on values helping you figure out what your priorities are.

Highly encourage our listeners to pick up the book and go through and read that.

But what I really would love to do is get really tangible and talk about because I think it will illustrate more clearly what you mean and what we should be doing.

I literally want your advice.

Where should I be putting my cash?

What are better options for bonds and fixed income?

Like educate me on options for equities and alternative investments.

How could I?

You know, and some of our listeners might have money in the bank that's just sitting in a 401k or an IRA or something where others might have more.

So tell me what I should do with my money.

Okay, so first of all, you need to know that I am not a financial advisor certified to tell you what to do with your money.

What I can do is share what I have done with some of mine in terms of my cash.

I have moved all of my cash.

So the way the book is written, you're right, there is a section on your values and what this kind of investing is and why we do it.

Then there's a section that goes asset class by asset class and in asset class, for those who don't know what it is, is a category of investment where there's an expected return, risk profile, cash is an asset class.

When you invest your cash in a bank, in a checking account, savings account, money market, whatever, you are expecting that that money will be safe and that you will get basically no money interest for it.

You don't expect much of a return for the safety you're getting.

That changes with other asset classes like the stock market, where your money can go up and down in value.

There's more risk with also greater upside potential.

There's a section in the book that goes through different asset classes and the first chapter I wrote was on cash.

So I started moving my money into different banks to see what that was like.

And I now have three different accounts.

I have some of my money in a bank in Oakland called Beneficial State Bank.

It's a triple bottom line bank.

And they provide loans to people who are underserved in my community.

And many of those people are women looking for loans for homes, cars, school or businesses which would not otherwise get that capital from a bigger bank.

But because this is a community bank, they get it from that bank.

I also have some of my money, some of my fixed income actually is in a certificate of deposit with a bank in Florida called First Climate Bank.

It's either Climate first or First Climate.

The name is escaping me right now.

But what they do is give loans to people who are looking for.

EV.

Or solar panels or they want to do something, they want to invest in something that is a climate forward technology.

This bank will give them loans for that.

So it's very climate focused bank.

So that's just two examples.

But there are banks that support women, there are banks that support small agriculture.

There are banks in your community.

There are banks that are run by black people, there are banks that are run by indigenous people.

So there's all kinds of choice.

I already mentioned something that I did in fixed income.

But another thing I do is I have a financial advisor who buys and sells bonds for me.

I gave her a chunk of my money and said, I want you to manage my bond portfolio.

She knows what my values are, so she's buying things for specifically for me.

So you brought up my mom.

A great example is I own A bond in the Lucille Packard Children's Hospital based in the Bay Area.

And it is for children in their families who have acute or terminal illnesses.

And I wanted to expand the hospital.

They also have a hotel facility there for the families to stay when their kids are being treated.

And my mom always gave to that hospital philanthropically when she was alive.

And so this bond became available for the expansion and I bought into that bond and I feel like by owning it I'm doing a good thing.

I'm supporting my mom's legacy and I'm getting a 5% return.

So can't hate that.

In the stock market I have sort of a horizontal and a vertical strategy.

The horizontal strategy is to buy funds.

I don't invest directly in companies.

I don't have the time for all of that.

So I buy.

So I buy with the majority of what I put into the stock market.

It's in broad based, primarily large cap US and international funds.

But then I also check them out on a tool called as you sew, which is.

I love that.

So invest your values.

You can put the name of any stock fund in there and it'll show you how it is doing with a letter grade in terms of seven different values that you may have.

So I looked and did my research and found some things that do well on that.

And then I have a vertical strategy and where I also may invest in ETFs which are so specific.

So you can buy ETFs in agriculture and in affordable housing, in solar, in clean water, in so many different things.

So with a fraction of that money, I do verticals.

Do a big shout out for Debbie's CEO.

Oh yes, that's great.

Yes.

So Hypatia Capital Braga.

Absolutely.

And what's important about that?

So WCEO is a fund that is started in, managed by a woman named Patricia Lizaragra and she is only investing in companies that have female CEOs.

That's what she does.

And what's really interesting is there's not a lot of women like her who are managing funds.

The vast majority of funds in the stock market are managed by men.

Even if you put in a little bit of money, buying some of that is great because it helps her and it helps other women step into the space.

Space.

It's valuable for us to help women managing these funds.

It's only like $30 a share.

Anybody pretty much can get into that.

It's a really great point.

I do private investing.

I'm an angel investor and one of my favorite investments is Actually, a debt investment in a bagel company around the corner from me.

The woman who started it needed $100,000 when she was starting, and a number of people put money into that, and I was one of them.

And she, she's been remarkable.

I mean, there's a whole story there, but I don't think we have time for that.

But so I do that and then I do real estate, and I have a real estate investment.

We're still waiting to see exactly how it's going to play out, but I decided to get involved in a development.

This was brand new for me.

This was probably one of the riskiest things I've done because I just don't understand this space.

But there were two women in Portland, Oregon, who had a vision of building 100 units of workforce housing.

They were developers, real estate developers and female real estate developers who are doing socially responsible real estate development.

Not a thing.

So I joined with them.

We bought some land with a property on it, and then over two years, they raised the money to do their building.

In April of this year, the building was completed and it's being rented out now.

I'm now part owner of 36 units of workforce housing, affordable housing.

It's so awesome.

And I've heard you talk about this story, and it is so inspiring to me.

I'm thinking about helping my housekeeper make an investment and get started in having multifamily.

Helping her get her first and then helping her grow from there.

I have this desire to make it more scalable.

I don't know how to do that yet, but maybe when I'm part of your Invest for Better community and in one of your circles, one of your cohorts, I know you do those in February and in September every year.

Maybe I can come up with a way to do that.

But I think this is the thing, right?

We, we as women, when we come into any ability to use our money, we want to make it.

Not just make us money, but we want to make the world better.

Exactly.

And since you referenced the circles, let me explain what that is and what we do at Invest for Better.

Where we started was.

We started.

It's really important.

One of the first steps you can take if you want to start becoming better with your money is start talking to your girlfriends about money.

Just start talking about it.

Have conversations, have money dates with your spouse.

Go out and, you know, once a month or once a quarter, maybe once a quarter is better.

Once a quarter, go out and have a conversation about your money and where you are with It I think it's so important.

And that ability for women to come together to in a safe space to talk about money and to share their stories was a thing that we really thought was needed.

And so that's what Invest for Better does.

We have created a seven part curriculum called Investing with Purpose.

It meets either once a month if you do it in person, or every other week if you do it virtually.

You go through some pre work, do some learning and then go into a facilitated conversation with eight to 20 other women, facilitated by a couple of women who've been trained and prepared to do that.

And you actually learn, but you're also having dialogues with each other about your money, about what's worked for you, you what hasn't worked for you, where you want to go and you learn from other women.

So we, as you said, Coco, we do this twice a year.

We do it in February and then again in September.

We usually have about 200 women go through each of those times.

Anyone can become a member of Invest for Better.

The course is only $125 by the way.

Can't believe that it's really like anybody can do that.

Exactly.

That's why it's priced that way, because we want anyone to be able to do it and we don't want anyone to have to say $1,200, I'm not sure, 2,000, I'm not sure, but 1:25, it's like, yeah, I can do that.

And I know time is an issue for a lot of women, but we're not getting younger.

And every year that you let your, your money not do what you want it to do is another year that you're not learning and you're not moving forward and investing, we all know this, it's cumulative, right?

And so it compounds.

So the more you do, the earlier you do it, the richer you're going to be at the end of your life.

If you already have oodles of money, then the more than paying attention to this stuff, it's fun.

I mean that's the thing.

It's like amazingly cool to know that your money is doing great things in the world.

I feel proud every time I think about Boy Chick Bagels.

I was just one of her investors, but I'm still so proud of her.

Every time I hear her success.

I'm so proud of the two women that I joined together with in Portland.

I'm so proud of them.

What they've managed is so fantastic.

And the fact that I could use my money to help catapult that is amazing.

Right?

So there's so much goodness that comes from all of it.

The other thing you can do is you can become a member of Invest4better.

It's 100% free.

You just go to investforbetter.org backslash membership and you will get a free Getting Started guide and our newsletter twice a month.

We don't overwhelm you, but our newsletter will keep you informed of when our next circles are forming.

It will also let you know about our free monthly webinars and workshops.

We do at least one every month and those are all free as well.

And you become part of our community.

It's no cost to do that.

It's a really huge value.

And I know you also have a lot of women who've started book club circles where they read the book together.

I highly recommend it because I am going to join the upcoming cohort.

I know I need to do what's in here.

It's a little overwhelming to do it all at once, but a little bit at a time with somebody holding your hand and doing it with other women.

I think it's really powerful.

I encourage you all to pick up the book, activate your money, become a member.

This is such an easy thing.

It's free.

You know, become a member and, and learn more about the cohorts that have that are happening all the time and the, the, you know there's hubs creating too, right?

So you've got invest for better hubs that are happening around the country and you might be interested in that.

You could reach out.

Janine, I appreciate you being with us today and sharing all of your wisdom and I'm going to put lots of information for our listeners into our comments below the show notes so that you can really tap in.

There's a couple of videos that I highly recommend of Janine that really goes into several of her areas of expertise around investing.

I think the thing I really want you all to come away with is you don't have to have a lot of money.

Like you don't have to have a ton of money and founders.

I know you're putting every single penny into your business, but you can do little things like putting your money into a community bank that's women founded or Women Forward or whatever your value is.

You can invest in ETFs.

These ETFs are very accessible.

You have money somewhere in a 401k or a Roth IRA.

Janine, thank you so much for being here.

The world is made better by women led business.

Let's all go make the world a better place.

Wonderful.

Thank you.