Former Merrill Lynch advisor launches effort to help inner-city families build wealth

A former Merrill Lynch financial adviser became the new head of the East Chattanooga Improvement League and landed $40,000 in grants to start wealth-building classes at inner-city churches.

Oliver Richmond, founder of Richmond Financial Group, replaced the retiring James Moreland as executive director of the nonprofit organization and focused the organization’s efforts on economic development in the inner city.

He secured a $20,000 grant from the Maclellan Foundation and another $20,000 from the Community Foundation to start classes. Richmond’s goal is to raise another $30,000 for staffing.

After the workshops, each participant will get a two-hour consultation to cover their family financial plan of action.

Richmond hosted a workshop Saturday at Greater Tucker Missionary Baptist Church.

“For too long, people in the community have suffered because we lack basic financial literary skills. This workshop starts with the basics and goes further,” said the Rev. Gary Hathaway, pastor of Greater Tucker and an insurance agent with New York Life for nearly 30 years.

Richmond travels with a team of professionals, including an insurance agent and an attorney who spend one-on-one time with people and help them learn about accumulating wealth.

Pete Cooper, retired Community Foundation president, helped Richmond start the program in Chattanooga and said the information on wealth building is vital to community improvement.

“People with the least income also seem to be the folks least prepared to handle money, so they make the most expensive mistakes,” he said.

Richmond started the classes this month. His next class is Saturday at Orchard Knob Baptist Church, and another on Feb. 27 at Greater Tucker Missionary Baptist. The classes are free, but Richmond asks participants to preregister because he limits classes to 25 people to allow time for questions and those who need special attention.

Richmond said he has had the desire to assist inner-city residents since he saw how much his advice benefited his mother and others who had no prior knowledge of investing.

His mom, a single woman raising Richmond and four other siblings, worked at General Electric for more than 20 years, but never invested in her retirement plan until Richmond asked her about it.

She said she didn’t understand it and she wasn’t comfortable going to meetings about it.

Richmond encouraged her to invest 10 percent of her income in GE stock. In seven years, she accumulated $100,000 and retired early.

After doing an analysis, he realized his mother could have had $1 million if she had invested 10 percent of her income when she started the job, he said.

“We want to go back and teach this in our community,” said Richmond, who first started teaching wealth creation classes nearly 20 years ago in his hometown in Fort Wayne, Ind.

Just teaching the basics of investing would help some people, said Richmond’s wife, Pamela.

“If you work for a company that matches your retirement investment at 5 percent, why not invest into it?” she asked. “It’s because people don’t know.”

Richmond said Merrill Lynch’s ideal client when he worked there in the 1990s was a person who had at least $100,000 to invest. Since most people in the inner city didn’t have that amount, the company never targeted them with information. But even basic knowledge is better than knowing nothing, and it puts people in a better position for wealth creation, he said.

Contact staff writer Yolanda Putman at yputman@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6431.