Spotlight: Gervonni Cares, Inc. & Gervonni Leggett

Goals

Gervonni Cares (GCI) is a 501c3 nonprofit organization in the state of Arizona. Our goal is building strong relationships in our communities with collaborators, partners, volunteers, and families. GCI will provide financial literacy programs to build sustainability in financial wealth along with providing financial assistance to hard-working families who face an unforeseen financial circumstance. during our first year we plan on serving between twenty-five and fifty individuals through our financial programs. We plan on increasing that amount by seventy-five percent second year. We will continue to provide follow-up and financial coaching support through our partners for financial coaching support. We can no longer rely on local, state, or federal governments to take ownership of all the issues we are facing in our communities. We have to be readily available to face the realities of current environment needs for programs that will provide better decision making when it comes to their finances.

Motivation

Financial literacy is so important. When you are financially stable, you have more control of your finances, which helps relieves stress, that is associated with relationship issues, past due bills and unforeseen circumstances. We want everyone in our programs to be sustainable and knowledgeable of their finances. This motivates us to help!

About Gervonni Cares, Inc.

We serve adults eighteen and older. We will be launching our program January 2022, which is already full. We provided our learners with refurbished laptops so they can access classes via Zoom two times a week in the evening. Our learners are able to keep these laptops after successful completion of the classes. Our instructor is a Certified Financial Educator Instructor. We plan on having ten more by 2023, who will expand our services to various states where our board members reside so we can continue teaching financial literacy.

Strengths

Our team is our board members, staff, sponsors and volunteers. We reside in different states. We all have a personal story that details why financial literacy is so important. We also want to share how it has impacted us and our lifestyles until we became knowledgeable and took control of it. This will help our program because many Americans of all socioeconomic backgrounds can relate.

Challenges

Previously, we were going through a financial coach to teach our classes to our learners. Since we are a non-profit, we wanted to keep our funds within our organization so we could help more individuals or families in their time of need. After careful review the team we had in place already had financial literacy backgrounds and training. We focused on additional training for our team and decided to share our impact amongst others through our team first. We wanted to reach in, before reaching out. This took a little more time before we could roll this out, but it was a great decision financially.

Raising Awareness and Building a Sustainable Initiative

We raise awareness by posting on social media (Facebook, YouTube, twitter and Instagram), sharing stories, accomplishments, etc. We are using private donations from our board members, family and friends currently. At this time, we have no specific sponsors. We need help purchasing laptops and purchasing packages to give teachers the opportunity to become certified to train our classes so we can expand financial literacy knowledge and our services.

How can Readers Support Your Efforts?

Readers can donate via GuideStar, our Facebook page, Paypal, or at our website. If you want to become certified to teach financial literacy classes so you can volunteer feel free to contact us at 602.675.9589.