Fool Community Foundation

09/01/2026

Meet our very first Fool in the Wild. 🎾💛

Before the U.S. Open, our Executive Director George Khalaf caught up with Sem Verbeek, Wimbledon mixed doubles champion, longtime member of the Fool community, and now officially Fool in the Wild 001.

Sem first found The Motley Fool the way a lot of Fools do: by listening. He wrote into the podcast mailbag in 2021, ended up on the show, kept showing up, and a few years later won Wimbledon.

What makes Sem such a meaningful first Fool is the reason he supports our mission.

He knows firsthand that professional sports aren’t always the “glitter and glamour” people imagine. Many athletes competing at an incredibly high level still deal with very real financial stress.

That’s exactly why Fools in the Wild exists: to celebrate people who believe more of us deserve a path from financial stress to financial freedom, and who are willing to use their voice to help move that mission forward.

We couldn’t ask for a better first Fool. 💛

Meet Sem, read his story, and nominate the next Fool in the Wild:
https://hubs.la/Q04w4VGY0

08/28/2026

We’re excited to welcome our first Freedometer Founding Teachers! 💛

Meet Tara Kelley, Travis Towne, Ed.D. | NBCT, and Debra Wilson, three incredible educators helping us shape the Freedometer from the very beginning.

The Freedometer is an interactive learning experience designed to help students explore investing, work with real-world data, and better understand how financial decisions can shape their futures.

We’re building it with teachers, not just for them. Tara, Travis, and Debra will be testing the Freedometer, sharing honest feedback, and helping us make sure it works where it matters most: in real classrooms.

We’re so grateful to have them along for the journey and excited to see what we build together.

Interested in joining the Founding Teacher Cohort?

👉 Apply here: https://hubs.la/Q04vHVZ90

08/26/2026

"His approach was simple: invest for the long term and leave it alone. It worked well for him, and it's worked for me too."

That's Martine Cruise on her dad, who spent time every week with the paper and the stocks he was following, and who taught her to pay attention to the companies already in her everyday life.

Martine has been with us since before we launched in 2021, and today she runs the Freedometer, our free investing education tool for high school students. The whole thing is built on the idea her dad handed her: start with a little, give it a long time.

Read her story: https://hubs.la/Q04vnR8w0

08/20/2026

“It’s not how much you make. It’s how you manage it.” 💛

When Abbie joined 3rd Decade, she was a recent college graduate, living on her own and navigating her finances independently for the first time.

What she learned changed more than the way she managed money. It gave her the confidence to build the future she wanted.

Today, those lessons are shaping the life she’s building with her future husband and, one day, the family they hope to have.

As Abbie puts it: “The ripple effect really knows no end.”

We’re proud to have as one of our ImpactFool (IF) Fund nonprofits, helping young adults build financial confidence that can last a lifetime. 💛

Read Abbie’s full story here: https://foolfoundation.org/if-fund/3rd-decade/abbies-story/

08/17/2026

Today, on National Nonprofit Day, we’re celebrating the people and organizations who remind us what’s possible when we show up for one another. 💛

The Fool Community Foundation was built on a simple belief: more Americans deserve the opportunity to move from financial stress toward financial freedom.

And we’re incredibly proud to do that work alongside the nonprofits in our ImpactFool Fund:

💛 NeighborShare, helping people through urgent financial moments when a little support can change everything.
💛 3rd Decade, giving young adults the knowledge and confidence to build stronger financial futures.
💛 Dollar For, helping people access financial assistance and relief from medical debt.
💛 Tzedek DC, helping people facing debt find legal support, financial guidance, and a path forward.

Different missions. Different approaches. One shared hope: that financial stress doesn’t have to define someone’s future.

Our story started with a question: What if we could do more?

We’re still asking that question. Still learning. Still growing. And still deeply optimistic about what we can accomplish together.

Here’s to the nonprofits doing the hard, human, hopeful work every day. 💛

Read our story: https://hubs.la/Q04tbBK50
Join our community: https://hubs.la/Q04tbq750

08/14/2026

What if 10 years could completely change someone’s financial future? 💛

In honor of National Financial Awareness Day, we’re sharing the story behind the Freedometer, an interactive tool designed to help young people see just how powerful starting early can be.

Our Executive Director, George Khalaf, joined Amropali Shetty and Pradeep Nalluri of our partners at Ayrin Digital for a conversation about how the Freedometer came to life, what we learned along the way, and why making investing feel approachable matters.

Because you don’t need a lot of money to start building for your future. But having time on your side can make a remarkable difference.

Read the article, watch the full conversation, and try the Freedometer for yourself. 💛

https://hubs.la/Q04t3W6h0

08/12/2026

Meet George.

He's spent more than a decade dealing cards on the casino floor in Mesquite, Nevada. At 57, he likes to hike, swim, and draw when he gets the chance.

Last spring, George found out he needed brain surgery for a pituitary growth. It took six months just to get an appointment. When the surgery was finally scheduled, his surgeon was out of network and his insurance wouldn't cover it. The surgery couldn't wait, so George went ahead anyway.

Then the bill came: more than $47,000. On an hourly wage, he figured that debt would follow him for the rest of his life. His daughter carried the worry right alongside him.

George was skeptical at first. "You don't know who to trust anymore," he said. But he found Dollar For, one of the nonprofits we work with through our ImpactFool (IF) Fund. He researched them, talked to a real person, and applied. They helped him with the paperwork. About a month later, $43,863.47 came off his bill.

"When they told me what was taken off, my daughter and I both cried," George said. "It felt like a huge weight was lifted."

George is sharing his story now so other families know this kind of help exists. In his words: "If you're struggling, don't assume you're out of options."
Read George's full story and learn more about the ImpactFool Fund: https://hubs.la/Q04sQpm90

If George's story moved you, your gift helps the Fool Community Foundation power nonprofits like Dollar For, so more families can get the relief he did.

08/07/2026

At 15, Clarity Burke left home with nothing but a habit of frugality and no real financial education to speak of.

She was 18 and working the 4 a.m. shift at Petco when she heard Suze Orman talk about index fund investing on the radio. She had a few thousand dollars saved, so she walked across the street to her bank and asked them to invest it. Less than a year later, the market crashed and she watched almost half of it disappear, one day after her 19th birthday. She kept investing anyway.

By 2013 she was a new teacher with $100,000 in her brokerage account, determined that her students would get the financial education she'd had to find on her own. So she built her own fin lit curriculum. Then her own nonprofit. Today she helps build the Freedometer, the tool she wishes she'd had back when she was standing in front of a classroom.

Ask her who taught her about money growing up, and she doesn't sugarcoat it: "No one taught me anything about money except how to be poor. That's why I have such a fire in my belly about fin lit."

That fire is exactly why we're so glad she's on our team. Read Clarity's full story for this week's Fool's Gold 💛

https://hubs.la/Q04sj4Jw0

08/04/2026

Our website has a new home, and we're so excited to share it with you. 💛

We rebuilt https://hubs.la/Q04rT1tR0 around what matters most: the people we serve and the work we're doing to help them move from financial stress to financial freedom. You'll find the Freedometer, giving high schoolers a hands-on way to understand investing before the stakes are real, and the ImpactFool Fund, backing nonprofits already changing lives for families living paycheck to paycheck.

Take a look around, and let us know what you think in the comments. 👇
https://hubs.la/Q04rT1tR0

07/31/2026

Every mission-driven organization has people whose impact isn't always front and center, but without them, the mission simply doesn't happen.

This week, we're excited to introduce Tee-Era Turner, Operations Manager at the Fool Community Foundation, in the latest edition of our Fool's Gold series.

When we asked Tee-Era what keeps her inspired, she didn't point to one defining moment. Instead, she shared something beautifully simple:

"It's not one lightning-bolt moment. It's a mighty group of people who remind me every day why I'm here."

It's the nonprofit leaders we partner with. The teammates who bring their hearts to the work. The stories of people moving closer to financial freedom. Those moments are what make this mission so meaningful.

💛 Read Tee-Era's story:
https://hubs.la/Q04rwx0B0

👥 Meet the incredible team behind the Fool Community Foundation:
https://foolfoundation.org/team

Welcome to Fool's Gold, our series getting to know the people behind the Fool Community Foundation. Three questions, one Fool at a time. This week: our Operations Manager.