We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Israel and Sunem Tovar. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Israel and Sunem below.

Israel and Sunem, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

As low-income immigrants who grew up in Tijuana, Los Angeles, and Nashville, we lived in really poor housing conditions and our parents lived to simply survive—our dad worked long hours in different low-paying, challenging, blue collar jobs. At one point, he was supporting a family of eight in Los Angeles with a salary of only $17,500/year. Our mom, on the other hand, was charged with leading a household in a very challenging context.

Needless to say, we did not grow up with any financial security or literacy. What we did gain from observing our parents’ financial struggles and growing up extremely low-income, however, was a deep determination to escape poverty.

After escaping poverty and amassing over $330,000 in wealth, we are now determined to help others like us build strong financial foundations and improve their relationships with money.

Sunem’s Story

Being the only Latina in her Master in Finance program led Sunem to become increasingly frustrated with how inaccessible wealth building is for communities of color, especially for women and femmes of color. Sunem has been able to channel this frustration by building wealth herself as a woman of color and by also educating her family on how to build wealth. Helping Israel build wealth, in particular, was especially powerful because he did so with a teacher salary.

Now, she’s committed to helping other women and teachers of color build wealth because she believes that women of color deserve to be healthy, wealthy, and thriving. Period.

Israel’s Story

Within the first two months into the school year of his first year of teaching, Israel had quit. As a result, he stopped teaching 125 precious and brilliant Black and brown students who may never have an openly queer, brown teacher again. In addition to ceasing being Mr. Tovar, Israel had also lost his only stable source of income. As a first-generation college graduate, being pushed out of the classroom had put him in a precarious economic position.

Being in this challenging financial situation, coupled with the cruel realization that he lacked financial literacy and any form of real wealth, pushed him to develop a firm commitment to building wealth and achieving financial independence. It was in this financial journey that he learned how important it is for teachers of color to have financial security in a system that is actively pushing us out of the profession.

Due to this lived experience, Israel is committed to helping teachers like him become financially independent so they never have to be in this precarious economic situation, can have more options, and can more fiercely advocate for our students and communities.

Israel and Sunem are on a mission to bring financial security, peace, and wealth to as many teachers and women of color as possible.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?

Israel was a classroom teacher who built a six-figure net worth on a teacher salary by the age 26. Sunem paid off $42,000 in debt and built a $200,000+ net worth in less than 5 years.

As an award-winning educator and a personal finance expert, we help teachers and women of color reach financial security. Because when teachers of color secure the bag, they are stronger and more powerful.

We leverage our lived experience and an anti-racist, culturally responsive lens to provide 1:1 customized, money coaching to teachers and women of color.

In our coaching they do the following…

-Participate in three tailored coaching sessions.

-Receive a Get Your Money Right workbook to support their learning

-Gain 3 months of unlimited support & radical accountability

-Attend one coaching call per month

In addition to this 1:1 money coaching, we also offer anti-racist, culturally responsive financial literacy training to nonprofits, universities, schools, and school districts.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

The most effective strategy in growing our clientele thus far has been to build community with other content creators (e.g. doing IG Lives, podcast interviews).

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Being featured and published in major publications such as Business Insider, Entrepreneur, and Edutopia.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.dreamteacherproject.com/

• Instagram: @dreamteacherproject

• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-dream-teacher-project/

• Twitter: @DreamTeacherPRJ