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Global Shapers Los AngelesGSLAFinancial Wellness

Global Shapers LA · Summer 2026

Financial confidenceshouldn't depend on your zip code.

Workshops, coaching, and neighborhood programming so more Angelenos can make money decisions with clarity, not fear.

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The problem

Most of us were never taught how money works. The score shows it.

0%

The average American scores just 48% on a basic financial literacy test. That is not a personal failing. It is a gap in access: to language, practice, and a first teacher who thought you were worth teaching.

Source: Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center

A late fee, a medical bill, a choice made under pressure: the gap shows up in ordinary weeks, not just crises.

0%

of U.S. adults would struggle to cover a $400 emergency expense.

Federal Reserve, SHED

1 in 10

Los Angeles adults carry medical debt that follows them home.

Undue Medical Debt / LA County

0%

of P-Fin Index questions were answered correctly by Gen Z, on average.

TIAA Institute-GFLEC P-Fin Index

What we're doing

Practical money skills, taught like a neighbor, not a bank.

The GSLA Financial Wellness Initiative is the Summer 2026 cohort project of Global Shapers Los Angeles. We are not printing another pamphlet. We are showing up with sessions people can use the same week.

01

Workshops that feel like a kitchen table

Evening and weekend sessions on budgeting, credit, medical bills, and first-time saving. Small rooms. Plain language. Time to ask the question you have been carrying.

02

Community programming, in the neighborhood

Pop-up clinics in libraries, rec centers, and partner spaces, not downtown hotel ballrooms. Materials in English and Spanish. Childcare when we can staff it.

03

Peer coaching from people who live here

Office hours with young professionals from the hub: a resume of real jobs, not a lecture. One hour can untangle a collections letter or a first credit card.

Built on work that already moved numbers

This hub already partnered with Undue Medical Debt, VScale, and FaZe Mansion to erase $174,530 in medical debt for Los Angeles families. Financial wellness is the next chapter: not only wiping a balance, but giving people the skills to stay steadier afterward.

Global Shapers Los Angeles

The hub

Young leaders, local problems, a global bench.

Global Shapers Los Angeles is a city hub of the Global Shapers Community, a network of people under 30 born out of the World Economic Forum. There are more than 10,000 members across 450 hubs. We work here: housing, health, debt, and now the money skills that sit underneath all three.

We commit to learning from the people who live the problem, designing work that can be repeated, and staying with each other when the project gets hard. This campaign is one of those projects.

Visit globalshapers.la