Who’s Holding the Ladder? Kristin Miller, Director of Marketing

What’s up, Community Ladders’ members and friends?! Kristin here, the team’s Director of Marketing. I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce the real me and offer you a sneak peak inside my work here and my hopes and dreams as a member of our all-star squad…

By way of introduction, I am a marketing nerd with a background in fashion/retail marketing, strategic communications, and now cause marketing, the best of them all. In my current role at Share Our Strength, I work to build marketing programs with corporations, which help to generate critical funds and public awareness for the issue of childhood hunger in America. I am also a born and bred North Carolinian, a true blue Dukie, a runner and aspiring yogi, and a lover of good food.

You already know what lured me to Community Ladders, but what am I doing here? In short, I’m noodling…well…YOU. I am thinking about how we as a start-up organization reach out to you, communicate with you, portray ourselves to you, and maybe even get recommended by you. My primary challenge is finding a way to share with you—and with the world—that which I know to be true about Community Ladders (because I’ve seen it, felt it, and lived it, as a team member and as a real member receiving financial advising services):

• To the very core, Community Ladders is about integrity, people, and the pursuit of excellence in serving the individuals in the community. Just sit in a team meeting with our staff (now almost 20 people!), and you can feel the collective energy organizing around this mission. We’re really serious about this stuff.
• Because it is about customization to the individual, the Community Ladders approach to financial advising is valuable to members of all sorts, shapes, and (wallet) sizes. I’ll admit, there were a couple of eyesores in my own finances that I was embarrassed to look at myself, let alone share with Bill. But from our first meeting I could see that he wanted us to team up to address my unique needs in a way that was comfortable to me and that I understood.
• We’re fun! We have fun together and that fun is an important driver of the culture we strive to create in our broader community (that means you!).

Finally, I think I promised to reveal my hopes and dreams for Community Ladders.

Indeed, I am sticking around because I am excited to see this gig changing people’s lives, over time. I believe it has the power to do that, and you, dear reader, have a role in the journey.

You’ve already taken the first step: signing up (or perhaps in some cases, visiting our site for long enough to read this blog post). By making this investment in yourself and your financial future, you’ve recognized the importance of financial responsibility and agreed to, quite likely, step a bit outside of your comfort zone to pursue it. How does it feel? And how is it working out?

It is on this note that I close with a request: talk about it. Spread the word about the value of learning to manage your finances. Talk about why it can be scary at first and how to clear that hurdle. Talk about the impact, if any, of your work with Community Ladders after a couple of months. We are social beings and we take our cues from each other. Thus, this is how a movement towards real, empowered financial health in our communities may be born.