‘Closing the Gap’ with Black fintech creator Tanya Van Court
Tanya Van Court is the founder and engineer behind Goalsetter, an app founded in 2016 designed to teach historically disadvantaged people how to secure their financial freedom. It is one of the first Black-woman-owned fintech and financial education apps in Apple’s app store.
“I had this notion that if I didn’t do this, who would,” Van Court said. “I had all these experiences and I felt this was my path.”
Goalsetter is a mobile banking, debit card and investment app focused on educating black and brown children and their families, college-bound young adults and women through fun games and quizzes. It uses pop culture references like GIFs, memes and celebrity partnerships to make learning about generational and personal wealth more entertaining.
Van Court is originally from Oakland, California. Her mother was a primary school teacher and single mother of six children. She said her mother was incredibly generous with her students.
“She took several children home with her at weekends. My oldest sister said, ‘Mom, we’ve got enough,'” Van Court joked. “It was really her way of filling gaps and building bridges for the people in our community and the kids at her school who she knew needed her the most.”
Unfortunately, Van Court’s mother died of a brain aneurysm when Van Court was only six years old. Her mother’s sister took her and her siblings in to raise, a decision that taught Van Court an important life lesson about sacrifice. During the summer, the aunt made the children write black history reports and attend science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) camps.
After receiving two engineering degrees from Stanford University, Van Court said she had a big job in Silicon Valley doing stock options that she understood very little about. She said the company initially did well and she had shares worth millions, only to lose most of it when the tech bubble burst in the 2000s. “No one had ever taught me that,” Van Court said. “The African American Community [has] were mostly left out of those dialogues, so it just wasn’t dinner conversation in our family.”
Shortly after the financial crash, Van Court moved to Brooklyn. From there, she built a career in Cablevision management, ESPN, Nickelodeon and Discovery Education. During that time, she was determined to teach her young daughter, Gabrielle, about money in a way she had not been taught. Gabrielle eventually inspired her to strike out on her own and create a platform in the financial sector centered around children of color. “If I could bring my baby into this ecosystem, then I could bring the babies into it,” she said. “That was really my driving force.”
Goalsetter has partnered with several organizations with a common goal of getting 1 million black and brown children to start saving. They are committed to changing the narrative and bridging the wealth gap in black and brown communities.
For more information, check out Goalsetter in the App Store or go to the website:
Ariama C. Long is a member of the Report for America corps and writes about politics for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep writing stories like this; Please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.
