pc: Vivien Chen, 2023
Where I come from.
My name is rita zhang and I approach financial empowerment by honoring those that come before me. As a daughter of immigrants and first in my family to go to college, I am passionate about giving back to my communities. I’ve focused my life and career on the intersections of racial, gender, and class justice. Giving my energy to social justice work was always easy and felt more important than my personal finances.
Fast forward to my 30s. I recognize now that before, I simply didn’t know how to deal with my money or where to start. Growing up, my family didn’t speak about finances - getting by was good enough. Nonetheless, money is always at play in daily life. I have now come to embrace that having an agenda for all people to be free - meaning that everyone, regardless of identity, can have access to basic rights and a joyful life - must also include a lens on economic justice, financial independence, and financial wellness.
I created Community Roots Financials (CRF) so that as people of color, we can destigmatize talking about money and the stressors of money. CRF is a community-rooted and centered space for us to begin or continue healing our relationship with money and working together to generate the ideas and actions we need toward our collective liberation.
Lastly, I am a certified Financial Fitness Coach®, an Accredited Financial Counselor® , and a certified Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) tax preparer. If my story resonates with you and/or your organization’s purpose, reach out to me and let’s see if we’re a fit for each other!
My guiding values.
Social justice: I weave in a social justice lens from my work as an educator, activist, and facilitator to help you contextualize your money experiences within larger systems of power, privilege, and oppression.
Loving kindness: I provide encouraging, gentle, and compassionate energy to coach you through your journey. Money is not easy to talk about and you can expect to be held in a judgment-free space as you do the deep work to have the relationship you want with money and achieve your financial goals.
Community: Collective power and liberation is important to me and a core aspect of how I do my work. I will support you in grounding our work in the greater community - whether that be your family, your friends, and/or larger social groups that are important to you.