Want to Create Wealth While Making An Impact? Tani Chambers Teaches Women How

As a community, we don’t talk about investments enough and yet we know that investments are a powerful tool to help build wealth. But don’t take my word for it – listen to an expert. Tani Chambers is a financial expert focused on the intersection of Black + Afro-Latina women and investing. She is on a mission to offer valuable tips on investing for retirement, wealth creation and personal finance while also teaching women of color how to create an impact.

We spoke to Tani to get some insight on the keys to investing and more.

C2C: What was your background prior to launching your business?

TC: I’ve been a full-time entrepreneur for about 20 years now, owning several businesses. Prior to that, I spent a lot of time in corporate in technology & finance, including a media company that was acquired by The Financial Times. I also spent time in marketing, specifically experiential marketing at a top ad agency. I was never afraid to try my hand at pretty much anything.

C2C: What gave you the fortitude to want to be an entrepreneur as it’s not an easy lifestyle?

TC: My first experience was in high school, my first attempt was marketing a bus ride (I think to Great Adventure), I had to sell the tickets and work out all the logistics. I think we ended up going with 5 buses. I made enough to cover my ticket, a couple of my friends, to go to the park – but I wasn’t thinking strategically like I would now in thinking how to make money off each ticket! I left corporate because I was unfulfilled, and I also wanted to travel, and work was getting in the way of that – so I looked at the older people around me. I made a brave, but a difficult decision that led to some challenging years, went out on my own, and started my own experiential marketing agency.

C2C: So, you had inspiration?

TC: Yes, and I also had a daughter! I was not only responsible for myself, but also someone else. So for me it was “how do I do this? How do I improve my quality of life? I want nicer things!” I figured it out. It was challenging – I would never suggest someone just hop off and go. Make a plan! Make a plan to transition from the job, make a business plan to actually execute the business, make a plan for actually making money from your business. I actually don’t recommend anyone leaving their full-time jobs until they are almost forced to when the business is taking over their life, especially the income. Today with tech, everything is “go, go, go”, but back then the advice I was getting was that it would take about 5 years! It makes sense – you need your ramp up period, you need to establish the business is going to work, then you need to start making a profit. THEN you can start thinking about expansion and growth. I didn’t have solid plan and I had to learn some lessons, but I kept going.

C2C: What do you say to people who think they can be that “unicorn” that launches their business off a great idea and make millions, if not billions, of dollars?

TC: Unicorns don’t exist – they’re a fairytale, right?! It’s not common! Statistically, some are going to fail. I’m not saying people shouldn’t have “unicorn” aspirations; I think they should have zebra aspirations.

C2C: What is that?!

TC: Zebra businesses are the more common businesses – these are the businesses that keep the economy going every day! It’s the small business and the solopreneur’s that are doing less than $1M a year, that make the United States go around. (Learn more about Zebra’s Unite and the zebra philosophy).

If you start by saying, “I want to make a $1,000 in this business,” and you just keep pushing the goal up and up – challenging yourself with each goal met, it has an impact. That way, mentally and emotionally you are having successes that inspire and motivate you to keep going. And turn the TV off, stop subscribing to magazines that put out the “top this under this” – that does not help.

The Black and Brown community – it’s different for us compared to the white community. Most of us are responsible for other people, maybe people in our home, extended family outside of your immediate family. Also, access to the resources we need are not readily available. Financially, we don’t get inheritances, we don’t leave inheritances,* so we don’t have that cushion to go out, try, and maybe fail. The mindset is “I’ve only got one shot at this”. There isn’t room to fail; when you do, it’s hard to climb out of that hole, most notably socially! That failure will be held against you (“remember when you did that thing a few years ago?!”).

C2C: The constant questioning can make you second guess yourself!

TC: Yes, but we should do it anyway. We need it economically for our communities, we need to own businesses. We are more likely to have a diverse staff. When we are making money, it improves our quality of life, which means we are increasing our health and living longer. That trickles down and has a positive effect on everyone – our community, our families, the GDP.
C2C: How can we get resources known to the community? Personally, I learned about Black Women Talk Tech through a random search one day and found this wonderful community. (I met Tani through an event she was hosting for BWTT.)

TC: Getting the information, the on us isn’t on us. It’s the government’s job, but in 2021 Google is your friend. You have to learn to sift through information and combined with your observations of those who are who they say they are, you start to find your community and don’t even know how you ended up there. Social media is another great tool (but still be wary, check on the person).

C2C: Lots of scammers!

TC: That’s my favorite word! You have to pay attention – there are a lot of people out there practicing advice malpractice. Take your time, don’t rush into these things, do the work and those things begin to sort themselves out. If you take the time to invest in your business, you’ll start to see patterns and can make better decisions, learning as you’re going. That helps you become a much better and formidable entrepreneur.

With my own business, Ravn, people are asking when I’m going to open it up to the public and my answer is “when it’s ready”. We want to be different from what’s out there, we are positioning ourselves to be a resource to Black and Brown people when it comes to investing and creating wealth through investing and having an impact on the community.

C2C: So let’s discuss Ravn -how it started, what you are hoping to accomplish, who your partners are, anything you can share.

TC: Personally, it started when I was about to turn 40 – I wasn’t where I wanted to be financially. I realized I needed to start thinking about things in more detail. I started teaching myself, reading books, reaching out to the people who I knew were wealthy to understand better. When you think about it, by the time you retire you’re going to live for at least another 10 to 20 years – what are you going to live on?

We started as a WhatsApp group in 2019, and just started having discussions. We also started holding each other accountable and started doing. From there we started applying knowledge and bringing in people. We were able to eliminate hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, increase wealth, acquire assets, created partnerships, people were co-investing together.

The general advice that was out there on investing really doesn’t apply to Black and Brown people. We realized that we were behind the eight ball, and we need to catch up. One of the main things for us was that even if we didn’t benefit, the next generations would. That was the genesis for Ravn – wanting to share this information to bring other women into the fold.

Ravn is a community-first model. There is education and technology. We do cohort-based training on investing and creating wealth. When you come into a cohort, we want to you to feel that you can grow with that group. We also provide vetted professionals that you can have access to while completing the program.

C2C: What can you share with the community, tips they can act on?

TC: Most people always want to get into the flashy products, but you need to understand where you want to be when it comes to investing.

Take a moment to face your financial picture by looking at where you are right now. What IS your financial picture? Do you know your financial EQ? What is your mindset on investing? Why haven’t you been investing? Are you living day to day, or planning for the future? Can you afford to invest?
Be honest about how you see money. Is it only for necessary items? Do you want to splurge occasionally?
Look at your debt profile. If you invest in the stock market, ETFs – think about the last few years where you would make an average of 8% on investment return…but you have credit card debt where the interest rate is considerably higher (average of about 25%). You are not making money! It looks good on paper, but you are not gaining ground. On the other hand, with school loans interest rates you can still invest and make a profit. Definitely pay off credit card debt and high interest debt.
Have an emergency fund! At least 3 to 6 months. Ideally 6.
Max out the free money made available by your employer. Are you contributing to the 401(k)? Do you have a health care savings account? Are you maximizing all the opportunities to you?
Entrepreneur? Do you have an IRA set up? Are you prepared for a rainy day?

C2C: And there are also alternative investments.

TC: Yes, but you have to have the stomach (for the risk), the financial wherewithal to understand what they are. It’s not for everyone, and not for any financial level. Some people who invest in those areas in our community have stable assets that can sustain them. With regards to cryptocurrency, it’s in its infancy stages compared to the stock market where you have businesses that have been around for hundreds of years.

That’s we also talk about risk tolerance in the cohort – not only mentally and emotionally, but also financially.

Only invest what you are willing to lose.

When you know you’re ready, this is where Ravn comes in! I believe people should invest in what they understand to make informed decisions that work best for them.

C2C: I think you’re going to get some curious people checking Ravn out after this!

TC: Okay! In the Fall, we’re going to start a pre-course to help those who are curious get themselves ready to be in the community. We are working on building out other tools such as calculators, dashboards, simulators to help cement that education.

We have a big vision! We need to be investing. This is how we are going to generate wealth, grow our wealth, narrow the wealth gap, and (despite the systemic government issues) establish foundations for the future generations. Every day we are not investing and increasing our wealth, it’s a day that we are closer to living in poverty and living a lesser quality of life than we deserve.

*Inheritance statistics provided by Chambers:

Black women are far less likely to inherit wealth (nor do they expect to) in comparison to their white counterparts.
Black women face a 90% wealth gap.
The average Black woman has almost 10 times less investment assets (stocks, bonds, etc.) as the average white woman.
Black women who earn over $100k a year consistently save or invest considerably less than their white counterparts at the same income level.
The median average white family in the U.S. has approximately $171,000 in net wealth, while the median African American family has approximately $17,000 and 60% of Black households are headed by women, the highest share of women-led households.

Here’s where you can find Tani on social:

Website: www.TaniChambers.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanichambers/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tanichambers/

Find out more about Ravn here:

Website: www.JoinRaVn.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/JoinRaVn

About the Author

Amanda Baird is always on a journey to learn and evolve – in the past few years she’s explored social impact, blockchain, product management, and data science. To talk about entrepreneurship, career transitions, pop culture, and many other subjects, connect with her on LinkedIn.