Make Big Dreams Real - Page 2

MORE MACARONI NIGHTS THAN FILET MIGNON

In 1985, Godfrey was approached by a client to take a position as President of The First Women’s Bank. With her mother’s voice still in her ear, “no one is born knowing how to be a bank president, you just have to try it,” she accepted the position. Neale was 34 years old and the single mother of two children. During her tenure with The First Woman’s Bank, she was repeatedly struck by how disempowered women were about finances. Determined to raise her own children to be more aware of their finances, she looked for books that she could use as tools to teach them. She found none. Her five-year-old daughter, filled with the same determination that Neale’s mother had instilled in her decades earlier, suggested that her mother write the books herself.

Although no publishers were interested in the topic, not believing that kids and money was a subject worth writing about, Neale and her children decided that this was the right step to take. With the warning to her children that there would be more macaroni nights than filet mignon, she left her position as bank president and set out to prove that educating children about money was a necessary topic.

"...she set out to prove that

educating children about money

was a necessary topic."

Her first step was founding the First Children’s Bank at FAO Schwarz, an FDIC-insured institution that offered checking and savings accounts and certificates of deposit for college education to children. In its three years, the First Children’s Bank was wildly successful and created significant press attention that gave Godfrey more clout when re-approaching publishers about her ideas for children’s books about money. In addition to the First Children’s Bank, Neale also partnered with the Institute for Youth Entrepreneurs in Harlem, which began a greeting card business for highly-at-risk children. The successful program gave inner-city kids an opportunity to learn business skills while teaching them to take control of their futures.

In 1989, Neale formed the Children’s Financial Network to empower kids and parents to take charge of their financial future. Since then she has published sixteen books for pre-school through high-school students, including a #1 New York Times Best Seller, Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees: A Parent’s Guide to Raising Financially Responsible Children. She appears often in the media, including being on such TV shows as: The Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Morning America, The Today Show, CNBC, CNN, etc.

Her determination to make this information available on a large scale led Neale to the Deloitte Foundation which became the sponsor of her latest work, LIFE, Inc.: The Ultimate Career Guide For Young People, reaching hundreds of thousands of middle and high school students.

Neale Godfrey is going strong. She has endless energy and ideas. In addition to being involved in the lives of two grown children, she has the added joy of a new grandchild.