Minority financial literacy program going national

The Wall Street Wizards, the financial literacy program founded four years ago for minority students in the San Francisco Bay Area, is gearing up to go national.

Last fall, the Wizards began offering classes in New York City, led by volunteer Gregory Hobbs, a former buy-side financial analyst in San Francisco for Citigroup Asset Management of Stamford, Conn., who is now chief operating officer of The Aftersport Group Inc. of Indianapolis.

Fourteen black and Hispanic students have been meeting every month on Saturday mornings at Eagle Academy in The Bronx and, like their counterparts in Oakland, Calif. (Investment News, May 26), learn about the financial markets, investing and personal finance, read The Wall Street Journal, undertake class projects and go on field trips, such as a recent tour of the New York Stock Exchange.

“They’re learning about finance as a potential career and for their own personal use, as well as acquiring a better understanding of how business works,” said Mr. Hobbs, who is based in Montclair, N.J.

EXPANSION PLANS

In September, he hopes to add an advanced curriculum and an additional dozen students to the program. On the West Coast, Wall Street Wizards founder William Thomason, managing partner for Oakland-based Taurum Capital Partners, is laying out plans to expand the program to Silicon Valley in September.

In particular, Mr. Thomason wants to hold the Wizards’ monthly Saturday classes on Sand Hill Road, the fabled address of choice for Silicon Valley’s venture capital firms.

“I want the kids to be in that environment,” he said. “It would be a cultural experience on both sides. In Palo Alto, you have Stanford University and Silicon Valley. Across the bridge in East Palo Alto, you have neighborhoods that are ridden with crime and poverty.”

After Silicon Valley, Mr. Thomason wants to establish Wall Street Wizards programs in big cities across the country starting with Washington. Other cities he’s targeting include Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, St. Louis, Charlotte, N.C., New Orleans and his hometown, Detroit.

Currently, the program is applying for 501(c)(3) non-profit legal status and using the New York-based Twenty-First Century Foundation as its fiscal agent. The program also receives funding from foundations sponsored by such financial powerhouses as Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. and Citigroup Inc., both of New York, and Charlotte-based Wachovia Corp., Mr. Thomason said.

But Mr. Thomason said he was frustrated by the non-profit funding process, and is searching for potential alternatives to fund an expanded Wizards program.

“I don’t want to spend the rest of my life writing grants,” he said.

One option he said he’s considering is buying a company that can generate $2 million to $3 million in sales and use some of the revenue to fund the Wizards.