A Millennial's Letter to Financial Services Industry

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in “The Millennials Perspective” issue of Green Money Journal.Click here to view more posts in this series.

By Liesel Pritzker Simmons

As a millennial, I have recently noticed a flurry of studies, articles, and reports about my generation, authored by a diverse range of interested parties. Quite a bit of the pure sociological data suggests that the 80 million of us born between 1980 and 2000 are narcissistic, lazy, and optimistic to the point of being delusional – it’s enough to make me want to delete that selfie!

Interestingly, the selfish characteristics so rampant in the sociological studies seem to dissipate when researchers start looking at how we millennials spend our time and money. We want our work to have meaning for ourselves and the world, and we place a higher value on consumer goods that have some sort of beneficial social or environmental impact. Climate change is not a debate for us, and we probably still nag our parents about separating the trash from the recycling. Although we are generally more conservative in our investment decisions than previous generations (can you blame us?), we are willing to take on more financial risk if it increases exposure to ESG impact. Impact Assets recently authored this excellent Issue Brief outlining many of the attitudes of millennial investors.

There is little doubt in my mind that the plethora of studies on millennials, and particularly the way they intend to invest their money, will continue to multiply, for underpinning nearly every report is one essential, ubiquitous fact: Millennials will inherit over $30 trillion from the baby boomers in North America alone. This is the largest transfer of wealth the world has seen to date, and it could present an enormous opportunity for the financial services industry. If only advisors knew what these selfish, self-less millennials wanted to do with their assets…?

To add anecdotes to data, my own motivations as a millennial investor stem from a few formative experiences that fundamentally shaped my worldview. I grew up in a very wealthy family, but one that valued hard work and giving back. I was brought up with a firm understanding that I had an obligation to help leave the world a little better than I found it – with great fortune comes great responsibility, to misquote FDR and Uncle Ben from Spiderman. When I inherited control over my assets at age 21, I wrestled with what to do. Like many who inherit wealth they did not create, I view my role as a steward – though I may be making decisions regarding its management, this wealth is not “mine”.

Rich white girl goes to Africa

Confused and curious, I decided to start reading and traveling. I read Amartya Sen while volunteering in India, Jeffrey Sachs and Muhammad Yunus while working at a microfinance institution in Tanzania. It was the first time I really witnessed that level of extreme poverty, and it made me feel even more unworthy of all the wealth I was born into.

More than anything else, though, I was moved by the people I met and the complexity of their lives. Examining daily cash flows, asking women how they thought about savings or paying school fees, how they made decisions when emergencies arose – I was humbled by how complicated it all was. And markets were everywhere – even in the most impoverished places, I saw clear evidence of financial problem solving and ingenuity. I know how cliché this sounds: Rich White Girl Goes to Africa, Has Life-Changing Experience. But alas! There it is.

I returned from these experiences, energized and eager to help. So I took a portion of my assets and started a foundation, because that’s what rich people do when they are energized and eager to help. Under my mother’s leadership, the IDP (Innovation, Development, Progress) Foundation has become a leader in the low cost private school movement, focusing on expanding educational opportunities in Ghana and other parts of the world. And while I am very, very proud of the work the foundation has done, over time I found myself feeling constrained by the limits of philanthropy and aid. Many of my experiences and frustrations have been corroborated by the work of economists like Dambisa Moyo, who cites compelling data about the ineffectiveness of some aid-based development. Programs start and stop, funding agendas change, and many well-intentioned “interventions” are designed halfway around the world from the very communities they aim to help. Oftentimes, aid reduces systemic issues into technical problems that can be “solved” with two-year interventions. There didn’t seem to be much space for dignity – or the indigenous problem solving I had witnessed.

What I found to be particularly bizarre, however, was the disconnection between the talk and the action. At many philanthropy conferences, I would hear the buzzwords: We should be engaging in “strategic”, “catalytic”, “venture” philanthropy that seeks “measurable”, “scalable”, “operationally sustainable”, “market-based” solutions to the world’s problems. It seemed odd to me… If there was a growing consensus that aid should be administered like business, well, why don’t we just simply do business?? Let’s stop talking like first year MBAs and just do it.

This was the real light bulb for me. But let me be clear – I don’t think all philanthropy is bad or ineffectual. Indeed, philanthropy can take risks and prove concepts. It can fund research and pick up the pieces when disaster strikes. And philanthropy can “buy down” risk in order to attract market-rate capital to help address chronic social problems. Some very important parts of society, such as the arts, will always need at least some philanthropy to recognize meaning and value where the market does not.

What I realized, however, is that philanthropy simply isn’t enough. I needed to use all the resources I had at my disposal to help scale solutions for a broad set of stakeholders. So I set out to learn as much as I could about how to leverage business and finance as a means for social impact.

Profit with purpose

Luckily for me, there were already many, many examples of how good business practices can generate real value for communities all over the world. People were experimenting with creative ways to share that value, through innovative ownership structures like the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) and new corporate structures like Benefit Corporations. There were financial products that cater to these types of businesses through funds or debt facilities. I can barely keep up with all the new reports and conferences about impact investing. Even the large banking institutions seem to be in an arms race over new Social Impact Bond issuances.

Read the rest of Liesel's article here.

Article by Liesel Pritzker Simmons, Co-Founder and Principal of Blue Haven Initiative, a family office dedicated to investing for-profit and non-profit capital to solve social problems. BHI looks across asset classes and capital types to find solutions-oriented opportunities both in the US and in developing markets.

She is the Co-Founder of the IDP Foundation, Inc. (www.idpfoundation.org ) a private foundation with a mission to mobilize resources and strategic support to increase educational opportunities. Established in 2008, the IDP Foundation has supported and developed a wide range of programs in the education sectors most notably the innovative IDP Rising Schools Program in Ghana, which leverages microfinance networks to empower nearly 200 low cost private schools with trainings and financial services.