By any measure, Vanessa Lowe is a good saver: She retired at 56 after a 21-year career in federal service. That’s almost a decade younger than the federal retirement age.
Though Lowe was good at saving, she hadn’t really considered the impact her money could have. She’d invested in fairly traditional ways, putting money into retirement accounts that invested in the stock market, not really thinking if the companies she was investing in aligned with her values. She was using fairly standard S&P 500 funds.
But Lowe’s values abound: As a Black woman, she cares deeply about racial and gender justice; she has also been paying attention to climate change, in particular, the negative impacts of heat waves on Philly.
Then, around four years ago, she saw an ad on Linkedin for Invest for Better, a national nonprofit that teaches women how to invest and how to leverage their money so that they can impact the causes they care about, and a lightbulb went on. Invest for Better promised a community where she could learn about impact investing alongside other women. Since 2019, over 2000 women have participated in their programming, to learn how they can drive change with their money.
Lowe immediately signed herself up for an Invest for Better “circle,” a seven-session virtual course that taught her how to assess her portfolio to see if it matched her values, and showed her how to move her investments into funds and things like venture capital portfolios that did. Today, Lowe is proud that her decades of saving are contributing to causes she believes in. She even began working as an Invest for Better consultant — and has helped lead 140 Philadelphia women to complete the program on their own.
If you’re a woman who’s saved but wants to invest better, you might want to attend a ticketed investment showcase at Morgan Lewis at 22nd and Market streets the afternoon of November 6.
Invest for Better Philly
Invest for Better works by allowing folks to organize circles for their communities and providing a curriculum to start these conversations. Margaret Berger Bradley launched Invest for Better Philly’s first circles in 2023 after working in the local community investment space for 25 years. She been chief operating officer at the Reinvestment Fund, vice president at Benjamin Franklin Technology partners and a board member at ImpactPHL, a nonprofit that seeks to grow impact investing in Philly.
Throughout her career, Berger Bradley had seen larger organizations invest both locally and in value-aligned companies. She did not, however, see that happening among individuals. So often people — including socially conscious people — just put money into their 401(k)s and … forget about it.
The question is simple: “When you’re thinking about moving your money, what is it that you’re moving it for?” — Vanessa Lowe
Yet many investors— especially women — want their savings to do good. Seventy one percent of women under 30 said they prefer to invest in companies that align with their values, and 55 percent said they would invest more if they knew their money was positively impacting society, per a 2021 BNY Mellon study.
“When women invest, they bring their values,” Berger Bradley says. “As more women have more assets that can have more of a difference.”
Berger Bradley knew about Invest for Better because of her work in impact investing. She liked their mission and wanted to spread the word about mission-aligned investing to more people. So she recruited one circle, then another one and used their curriculum to create impact here in Philly by teaching women how they can invest in the local economy and align their investments with their values. This summer, Philly became the first regional hub for Invest for Better, connecting alumni and ensuring more women can continue to receive this education. Their effort is in partnership with ImpactPHL.
“Having an impact locally feeds a hunger,” Berger Bradley says. “We’re finding women are finding great delight in tackling this in community.”
Telling your money story
Each circle begins by asking the participants to “tell their money story.” New mothers have asked about investing for their children. Eighty-year-olds have shared end-of-life financial concerns. Participants have talked about how their relationship with money changed when they got married, divorced, widowed, promoted, or laid off.
“You see how money, and the relationship with money, and the type of money and funding you need to live your life changes,” says former Comcast executive Yael Futer, who joined at the urging of her friend, Helen Horstmann-Allen, director of special projects for The Merchants Fund and one of the first circle participants. Futer loved what she learned and has since gone on to lead circles so she can remain involved in the community.
Even in 2025, when more women are working than ever before, many shy away from investing. Berger Bradley estimates that about a quarter of women who come to the circles self-describe themselves as knowing little about investing; a quarter say they’re very experienced; the rest are somewhere in the middle.
For years, only about 40 percent of women invested their money in the stock market, according to data from the CFA Institute. That’s changing, 2025 research from Fidelity has found, with 74 percent of millennials and 77 percent of Gen Z women investing. When women do invest, they’re more likely to let men manage their money, however, or put their funds in lower-risk options like bonds.
“There is a lot of talk about ‘mission-related investing’, ‘values-aligned investing’,” says Berger Bradley, “The test really is when you can move from people who are interested in it to people who act on it.”
Invest for Better’s curriculum both teaches women (in groups of about 20) about the fundamentals of investing and helps them see what they’re invested in. Over seven in-person sessions — which cost $125 to cover materials — they learn about saving and investing, identify options for investing with their values and create a workbook to help track and plan their financial decisions. They also learn what their current investments are doing in and to the world.
“The moment that makes most women’s jaw drop is realizing that their money is invested in private prisons,” Horstmann-Allen says.
“Having an impact locally feeds a hunger. We’re finding women are finding great delight in tackling this in community. — Margaret Berger Bradley
Local, investable opportunities
On November 6, attendees will be able to talk with representatives of 10 to 12 different investment and money management organizations, including CDFIs, credit unions, angel investor networks, and wealth managers including FINANTA, the National Energy Improvement Fund, Zenith Wealth Partners and Honeycomb Credit before heading to a rooftop reception
The event is intended as a one-stop-shopping showcase of conscious investing. “You can invest in something that’s going to build homes in Philadelphia, support small businesses locally, or whatever your own values may connect to,” Berger Bradley says. “If we do it right, it will create relationships for local investable opportunities that otherwise don’t meet these people face to face.”
Both Invest for Better alumni and local newcomers will be in attendance. Admission is $28.52.
A growing community of investors
Invest for Better Philly’s alum are already moving their money in ways that support the local economy. Some have moved money into CDFIs or credit unions to help keep their dollars local. Others have started businesses to help them earn more, so they can save and invest more, or have found they have unclaimed property with the state, which they can put toward their savings for investing.
“We started our circle last Monday, and asked the question, hey, has anyone made any changes that they’re really proud of?” Futer says. “There were five women who raised their hands.”
Five hands may not seem like a lot, but they’re part of a much larger — and growing — movement. ImpactPHL, for example, has helped individual and institutional investors alike move more than $400 million into local nonprofits and foundations. What’s more, as the movement grows, so does its ability to cater to more specific populations. Invest for Better Philly recently hosted its first LGBTQ circle, and plans to expand locally beyond Center City, with an eye to locations that are accessible via SEPTA.
The idea is to get women of all ages, backgrounds, incomes and values interested in growing wealth while giving back — a virtuous cycle. Vanessa Lowe believes if a single social media ad could work on her, imagine when word of mouth spreads to more women like her. The question, she says, is simple:
“When you’re thinking about moving your money, what is it that you’re moving it for?”
Invest for Better Philadelphia — Investment Showcase, November 6 from 4:30 to 7pm, Morgan Lewis, 2222 Market Street, $28.52, RSVP here.
Corrections: Invest for Better Philadelphia’s Investment Showcase takes place from 4:30 to 7pm and features local, private, values-aligned investment opportunities. Also, this summer, Philly became the first regional hub for Invest for Better, connecting alumni and ensuring more women can continue to receive this education. Their effort is in partnership with ImpactPHL.
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