Rich, a Hampton University graduate, developed Credit Stacker, an app that teaches students about personal finance, credit management and entrepreneurship through games and simulation exercises. She’s won business competitions and has been featured in Forbes and mentioned by former first lady Michelle Obama’s organization, and her notoriety is continuing to rise despite challenges.
In 2015 in an interview with the business website 1776, Rich said she knew she wanted to start a company geared toward financial literacy to help youths when she was 6 years old. She launched The Wealth Factory Inc. in 2013, along with co-founder Courtney Keen, and created her brainchild, Credit Stacker, which she’d been working on since 2009.
“Our mission is to provide equal access to quality financial education all across the world,” Rich said in the interview. “We feel as though that anyone who has a dime in their pockets should also have financial literacy to go along with it.”
The D.C.-based firm has a financial literacy model that uses online gaming to develop skills that will help youths understand the financial gap between America’s haves and have-nots. She wrote the book The History of the Black Dollar, published in April, in which she explains this phenomenon.
One way Credit Stacker helps youths is by opening their minds to understanding credit reports and the scoring system using gaming and simulation. It has been enhanced to help teachers in classrooms customize students’ experiences.
The app is set up to receive funds from advertisers and contracts with organizations such as the Department of Health and Human Services and the D.C. Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking.