Hey everyone, this week we're welcoming back Harlan Landes from The Plutus Foundation! If you missed Harlan's last visit here, make sure to check out our previous podcast together, recorded live at FinCon. But today, we're here to talk about The Plutus Foundation. Tune in to the podcast to learn how they're helping people get better with their finances, and how you can help too!

What We’re Chatting About This Week
The Plutus Awards started out as the FinCon industry awards among the finance blogging community. It's kind of like the Academy Awards of finance blogging. Just to toot my own horn for a moment, I was nominated twice for The Plutus Award for Best Freelancer/Contributor of the year!
The Plutus Foundation has grown into a great non-profit that does a lot of projects and fundings around the country. Harlan has been writing about personal finance and financial literacy for over a decade and started The Plutus Foundation just a few years ago.
Many years ago, Harlan worked for a non-profit 80 hours a week and wasn't even getting paid enough to afford rent and his bills. After losing his housing, his job, and his girlfriend, he needed to figure out a way to get back on track. In the process, he started a personal finance blog called Consumerism Commentary to talk about his money issues. He used the blog to share financial knowledge and to track his own net worth to hold himself accountable. Helping people with their money issues is now the focus of his Plutus Foundation.
The Plutus Foundation
The Plutus Foundation is a way to reach out to finance bloggers and podcasters who have projects that they want to work on. If a blogger wants to go into their community and work with people to spread the word on financial literacy, we try to help them out.
Our first grant went to Eva Baker, who has a website called Teens Got Cents. She is passionate about helping other teens learn about personal finance and works closely with students in her program as they progress. Getting started early with financial education is so important, and that's why The Plutus Foundation is supporting Eva in her efforts.
Another project The Plutus Foundation supports is Amanda Grossman's Mt. Everest Money Simulation, which is a great interactive way to teach budgeting and money management. We also sponsor events like Heroes At Home, which is an event for military members to help them learn how to manage their money, pay off debt, and build savings.
How You Can Help The Plutus Foundation
If you'd like to contribute, The Plutus Foundation has a campaign they're running until the end of the year. They have plenty of grants and programs in store, including Plutus Voices which will be unrolling in 2019. We'll be hearing from voices we don't normally hear from in personal finance, and cover topics we don't normally talk about. They need your support in order to make those things happen, and they are hoping to raise $10,000 by the end of the year. The Plutus Foundation's direct beneficiaries are finance bloggers and podcasters, so your contributions will help them spread financial literacy even further.
To donate, head to The Plutus Foundation to learn more about Giving ...