By Bria Overs
Not enough Black people use investment vehicles to grow wealth. The rate of investors over the last 25 years mirrors that of a stock market ticker. Some years, it’s up, others it’s down.
The number of Black people investing today is as low as it was in 1998, which was 57%, according to the Ariel Schwab 2022 Black Investor Survey, which looked at 1,035 Black investors. In 2020, it hit a low of 55%, and in 2022, it barely increased to 58%.
While it’s a slight positive change, Schelo Doirin, founder of Black Women Invest, expects this number to grow even more in the coming years. She says it’s because of an “awakening” among Black women.
Doirin, 30, sees a way to accelerate the number of Black investors — create a safe space and community for Black women to learn how to invest, grow wealth, and build their ideal futures.
“The momentum is already there,” she says. “This is our time as Black women to transform the narrative. Black Women Invest is just here at the right place, at the right time, and it’s the right platform.”
With 14,000 members nationwide, Black Women Invest offers educational tools and resources on stocks, index and mutual funds, real estate investing, and more through a six-week accelerator program. But the foundation of the business is its online and in-person community. There are chapters in Columbus, Georgia; Charlotte, North Carolina; Houston; Louisville; Southern California; and its most recent addition, Washington, D.C.
“There’s nothing new about the importance of community in regards to investing,” Doirin says. “I think people need validation that this will work for them. Because if you don’t have anyone around you who’s done it, then it feels like a foreign concept, and it’s not really possible for you. It helps you believe in yourself.”
Know Better, Do Better
It was 2014 when Doirin started her “investment journey,” as she calls it. She might be well-versed in investing now, with a background in finance and years of experience working in real estate investing, but that was not always the case.
In the beginning, investing was this mysterious and uncharted thing. Doirin tried reading books about it, but that didn’t give her the knowledge to make smart financial decisions. Conferences didn’t do much good either. It wasn’t until she started working in real estate investing that the concepts made sense.
She would host courses and events at her job, but looking around the room, she barely saw any Black women. Doirin wanted to talk about money and her investment desires without feeling ashamed.
“We were extremely underrepresented, and it became very clear to me this was the case across the country,” she says. “I wanted to find other women interested in investing and people I could become friends with.”
Black Women Invest started as a small community for friends. In January 2020, she had around 300 members. By May 2020 — 5,000.
The COVID-19 pandemic shook the world. People lost jobs, income, and overall security. Black women wanted to learn to do things differently so they’d be ready if something like this ever happened again.
“That’s when it really became a business,” Doirin tells Word In Black. “I started to provide services because I realized the questions these ladies were asking, I was equipped to answer.”
Community and Investing Go Together
There are a lot of things that need to be clarified about investing. Some believe they need a lot of money or are too old to jump in. A windfall rarely happens to people, and waiting could lead to losing money. And with the right kind of strategy, investment accounts can grow in a short amount of time.
“One thing I’ve learned over time is that people don’t want to go to boring investment conferences, and they don’t want to be oversold,” she says. “I’ve had women tell me that the classes they’ve taken and events they’ve attended [with Black Women Invest] are the best investments they’ve ever made in their lives.”
The organization is deeming 2024 the “Year of Abundance” and hosting its first annual conference on April 12-14, 2024, in Temecula, California. Doirin says her company stands out from the crowded world of courses and boring investment conferences because she doesn’t teach fluff. Participating in the Black Women Invest community costs $25 monthly for a membership and $497 for the six-week program.
“How do I keep the momentum going?” she says. “It’s through consistently listening to the community, their needs, and figuring out the best way to serve them.”
This article was originally published in Word In Black.
