Philly Women Lead the Way
We are building a hub in Philadelphia for women to expand their financial power, in community with each other.
IFB Circles are small, peer-led groups that help women step into their financial power by learning, sharing personal experiences, and supporting each other in becoming confident and values-aligned investors. Nearly 175 women have already completed our first 10 circles and joined our alumni community, and we’re signing up our eleventh and twelfth circles now!
Sign up to join our next circle, or add yourself to the list to be reminded about future ones!
How Circles Work
Each circle gathers 15 to 30 women for six in-person sessions over 6 – 10 weeks (depending on holidays). The curriculum, developed by Invest for Better, guides our work together. The learning experience includes periods of self-study and smaller accountability groups working for collaboration and deeper connection. We have an online space for our Circle where you’ll find the curriculum, which is a mix of reading and videos, and a board to chat with other circle members, plus a WhatsApp group for logistics and other day-of messaging.
About The Philly Hub
We welcome women of all ages and all resources who seek a safe space for sharing, connecting, and learning with each other. We are building a supportive community of women to learn from the IFB material and from each other.
Philadelphia is an IFB regional hub. That means joining a circle here feeds into a larger alumni community – a broad and varied network of women! We have monthly gatherings drawing women across circles, to explore how to incorporate values in public markets investments, discuss local investment opportunities, host Zoom “accountability” calls, and have social events. Download our one-pager.
Our community is aligned with ImpactPHL, which catalyzes forward-minded leaders and practitioners to align their financial asset investments with social, environmental, and economic solutions in our region and beyond.
IFB Philadelphia in the news:
Technical.ly: Invest for Better launches in Philly; bringing women together to build wealth
Philly Citizen: Citizen Recommends: Women Investing Better
Some practical outcomes past participants and leaders report:
- Developing an investment policy statement (IPS) to help me hone my values and share my goals when meeting with advisors
- Adding private equity investments with Portfolia,
- Adding local direct investments
- Becoming an angel investor
- Increasing the percentage of my portfolio’s alignment with my values from 12% to 28%,
- Tracking the alignment of my portfolio with my values!
- Opening a values-aligned bank account at a credit union
- Moving some of my bond allocation from publicly-traded bonds to local impact loans through Honeycomb
- Creating an inventory of what I have… which included finding some retirement savings I had lost track of.
Our Circle Schedule
Circles meet for six 2-hour sessions. Please see the signup form for scheduled dates of upcoming circles. Because we draw women from across the region, in-person sessions are typically hosted in Center City.
Circles work best when everyone attends, so if you have a conflict for more than one session, we recommend signing up for a different circle. (Just join the list, and we’ll contact you when we’re starting the next one!)
We hold at least 4 circles every year. We are also happy to partner with other organizations, especially if you have a location that can host 15-30 women. Reach out if you want to talk!
Marielena Octavio (Leading Sept; Led Spring 2026)
Marielena Octavio has over eight years of experience focused on the intersection of environmental and social issues and the development of creative policies and actions that shift capital towards a more sustainable, equitable, and just world. She earned her MBA from Duke where she managed a fund with $300,000 AUM investing in long-held public equities with an ESG lens. Prior to that, she worked as a program manager at an environmental nonprofit, leading and supporting projects on sustainable fisheries, ocean policy, deforestation, and climate action. Originally from Venezuela, she now lives in Philly where you can find her cooking for friends and her girlfriend, walking wherever there are flowers, and exploring the city’s underrated art museums.
Anjali Patel (Leading Sept 2026)
Raised in an entrepreneurial immigrant household where resourcefulness and reinvestment were a way of life, Anjali Patel grew up understanding that building wealth is inseparable from building community. That foundation led her through a career in tech and, more recently, into the public sector, where she could get closer to the people and places she cares about most. She is excited to join Invest for Better Philadelphia to support those who want the world of community investment to feel a little less intimidating and a lot more accessible.
Beverly Garces Buella (Leading Oct 2026)
Beverly Garces Buella is a real estate entrepreneur who builds projects and opportunities with a strategic, values-driven approach. She also advises clients on real estate and business growth, with experience in capital raising, project leadership, and mentoring. Beverly is based in the Philadelphia suburbs and has a passion for helping women build confidence, wealth, and impact through investing.
Carrie Norton (Leading Oct 2026)
Carrie, the Founder & CEO of Green Business BASE CAMP, She is a systems entrepreneur, consultant, executive coach and investor with a track record for helping entrepreneurs, organizations and investors embed sustainability into their DNA and grow responsibly. As a leader in the entrepreneurial field, Carrie is committed to reclaiming, redefining and redesigning entrepreneurial success in service of well-being, equity and inclusion for founders, investors and organizations in the private and public sectors. Carrie currently serves as a founding member of Finpublica’s Board of Directors. She is especially committed to advancing women’s leadership and success at all levels, and to actively collaborating to manifest a regenerative future.
Margaret Berger Bradley (Leading Sept; led 5 circles 2023-2026)
Margaret has worked in community investment in Philadelphia in some form for 25 years as both an investor and as an investable opportunity. For many years, she was with the Reinvestment Fund, a community development financial institution, and with Ben Franklin Technology Partners, the region’s most active seed and early stage investor for the past 8 years.
But she’s here as herself – a Philadelphia resident trying to figure how impact investing can matter for households like hers. She’s a Board member of ImpactPHL and thinks a lot about how capital moves. And craves community in doing so.
Leah Rusenko (April 2026 & Fall 2025)
Leah Rusenko is the Program Manager for Social Determinants of Health at Reinvestment Fund. She works with the national Invest Health and regional Building Healthier, More Equitable Communities (BHEC) program initiatives. She brings a decade of experience in community health, development, and philanthropy in both local and international arenas.
Nakeyshia Kendall Williams (Led April 2026)
Nakeyshia Kendall Williams is Founder and CEO of MindCatcher, she has coached 5,000+ educators and helped transform learning environments for 85,000+ youth across 11 cities. She spent over a decade in investment banking and private equity at Citigroup and Lehman Brothers, and has since raised $1.2M+ in philanthropic and impact capital in partnership with high-profile funders. She holds an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a BA from Columbia University.
Currently focused on acquiring and scaling behavioral health businesses in the Mid-Atlantic region, she brings a community-embedded lens to every investment decision. Outside of work, you can find her on road trips and at backyard barbecues with her husband.
Helen Horstmann-Allen (April 2026, Fall 2024, Winter 2025)
Helen is a radical optimist and the acting ED of The Merchants Fund. Her volunteer advocacy helping women get elected sparked her interest in women, money, and power. At Invest for Better Philadelphia, she has led 3 (going on four!) circles, and loves extending the invitation to Philadelphia women to step into their power as investors. Helen currently serves on the board at Represent PA and WOMENS WAY.
Yael Futer (Led Spring & Fall 2025)
Yael is passionate about normalizing women talking about money with the same excitement as finding pockets in a dress—while building community, igniting joy, and embracing their financial power.
Mary Jones (Led Spring 2026)
Mary is the Director of Legislation and Policy for Councilmember Jamie Gauthier on Philadelphia’s City Council in the 3rd Council District. She is passionate about environmental justice and its connection to sustainable policy practices and securing safe and affordable housing for all.
Previously, she oversaw zoning, land use and legislative matters in the 5th Council District for former Council President Darrell Clarke. Before entering city government, Mary was a legal aid attorney at the Legal Clinic for the Disabled providing legal assistance in a variety of areas including landlord/tenant law and SSI benefits for low-income patients with disabilities.
SHAKILA MUHAMMAD (LED WINTER & FALL 2025)
Shakila Muhammad is a creative developer and project manager from Philadelphia. After earning her BA in Art History from Bryn Mawr College and MBA in Finance from Drexel University, she spent 10 years as a retail construction project manager, before moving abroad to teach English. In 2018, she returned to the US to begin a career in technology and is currently working as a software developer for an investment management company. In her free time, Shakila enjoys making things from scratch, writing Yelp reviews, and planning her next travel expedition.
Leona Thomas (Led Fall 2025)
Leona Thomas is a senior executive with over 30 years in business transformation building and reshaping organizations.
Early in her career, she had several opportunities to lead innovation and technology driven initiatives for leading financial services organizations including SEI Investments, State Street Trust, and Vanguard. These experiences were an opportunity to learn about investing, including investment strategies beyond public stocks and bonds, while also sparking an interest in economic empowerment and social impact investing.
Vanessa Lowe (Led Fall 2024)
Vanessa Lowe spent 21 years in federal service supporting access to capital for underserved communities. Since retiring in 2021, she’s been an Invest for Better member, circle leader, and avid cheerleader. She’s led two IFB circles for Women of Color and serves on the IFB Steering Committee. Vanessa shares what she learns in the wider circles including in her work as a trustee for the Merchants Fund and investment committee member for the Unitarian Universalist Common Endowment Fund. She hosts Vanessa’s Money Hour talk show and podcast on G-Town Radio, and leads VLL Consulting and Financial Education.
Beth Diffley (Led Summer 2025)
Beth Diffley is a committed listener and life-long learner who strives to be both practical and aspirational. A knowledgeable, positive, and solutions-oriented leader, Beth collaborates and learns from others, exercises rigorous and informed judgment, and maintains a sense of humor.
Beth is a lawyer with over two decades of experience advising companies and their boards on corporate and securities matters and transactions, including public company governance and reporting compliance, ESG issues, capital raising transactions, shareholder proposals and activism, executive compensation, and management and director succession matters. Before law school, she worked in audit for a Big 4 accounting firm.
JOIN US
History has shown us what happens when women step into their collective power — from voting rights to pay equity, powerful things happen when we come together. That’s why Invest for Better believes in working together as a community of women to align our financial goals with our vision for a better world.
Click below to join an upcoming Circle (or to get invited to a future Circle if the timing doesn’t work for you):
Circle Structure
When you participate in an IFB Circle, you are in great company. Over 2,500 individuals have participated in our courses and the Circle experience to date – and we are just getting started! Our Circles include:
Testimonials
Outcomes
By the end of the Core Curriculum, participants will have:
About the Course
This Core Curriculum is Invest for Better’s foundational course and tends to be the series most women chose to begin their values-aligned learning journey. Based on Janine Firpo’s book, Activate Your Money: Invest to Grow Your Wealth and Build a Better World, the course starts with conversations that break the taboos around money, helps you understand your current portfolio, and introduces you to values-aligned investment options. At the end of the course, you will be ready to move from knowledge to action.
Course Content
The Core Curriculum was designed to build women’s confidence as investors, demonstrate the power of their investment assets, and show them how to activate those resources to enable a more just and sustainable world for all. Structured to guide participants through a series of steps, the self-study and meetings build on each other. Recognizing the busy lives we all lead, the course creators strove to minimize the pre-work and to make each meeting interactive, engaging, and informative. Prior participants have commented on the critical difference this course has had on their attitude about, and relationship with, their money.
What it Means to Join Invest for Better
Whether or not you join a Circle right now, we would love to have you join Invest for Better as a member. We have yearly memberships that include course discounts, access to our resources, and a welcome into our community of members in the US and beyond.
Invest for Better is on a mission to help women put their money to work for a better world through values-aligned investing. History has shown us what happens when women step into their collective power — from voting rights to pay equity, powerful things happen when we come together.
We believe the next revolution is financial. Women are set to control the majority of wealth in the United States by 2030 — and yet, many of us don’t know how to align our financial goals with our vision for a better world. Invest for Better equips women to step into their financial power through: