Coach mAIa - Ai Financial Coach

The problem we are addressing is the financial instability faced by unemployed and underemployed individuals, particularly in low-to-moderate income and rural communities across North Carolina and South Carolina. Employment challenges often go hand-in-hand with financial struggles, leaving individuals unable to effectively manage income, reduce debt, or plan for the future. In North Carolina, approximately 33% of households are considered financially insecure (Prosperity Now, 2023), and in South Carolina, 38% of families live paycheck to paycheck (SCALH, 2023). These financial challenges often perpetuate cycles of poverty and prevent long-term economic stability.

A major contributor to this issue is the lack of accessible financial literacy tools and resources. Many individuals enter adulthood unprepared to navigate budgets, credit, debt, and savings strategies, and by the time they seek help, they are already overwhelmed. Traditional financial coaching, often priced between $75–$300 per session, is inaccessible to those who need it most.

Coach mAIa provides a wraparound solution by offering AI-powered financial coaching that integrates personalized financial planning, budget management, and goal tracking. It delivers affordable, scalable, and data-driven support to help individuals stabilize their finances, leverage income, and break cycles of poverty—ultimately improving financial health and employment outcomes.

Coach mAIa is an AI-powered financial coaching app designed to empower individuals—especially those facing employment challenges—with the tools and guidance needed to take control of their finances. It serves as a personalized financial advisor, helping users create realistic budgets, analyze spending habits, reduce debt, and set clear financial goals based on their values and priorities.

The app starts with an intuitive onboarding process that gathers insights about short- and long-term goals, motivators, and values. From there, it integrates with bank accounts to assess income, expenses, net worth, and spending patterns, generating custom budgets and actionable plans. It also provides real-time advice through its AI-driven chat feature.

What sets Coach mAIa apart is its ability to analyze the impact of job changes, income shifts, and benefit packages, offering tailored guidance for users navigating career transitions. Whether users are preparing for new opportunities or recovering from employment challenges, the app delivers practical strategies to help them stay on track financially.

With features like bill reminders, goal trackers, and motivational prompts, Coach mAIa transforms difficult financial decisions into manageable steps. A demo video included in the pitch showcases the app’s concept and vision for full-scale development.

Coach mAIa serves individuals who are unemployed, underemployed, and those facing financial instability, particularly in low-to-moderate income and rural communities across the Carolinas. Many in this population lack access to affordable financial coaching and tools to effectively manage their money, leaving them vulnerable to paycheck-to-paycheck cycles, mounting debt, and limited savings.

This group is often underserved due to a lack of financial education in schools and communities, combined with barriers to professional financial advising which can cost $75 or more per hour—making it inaccessible for those with tight budgets. Coach mAIa addresses these gaps by providing an affordable, AI-driven financial coaching solution that delivers personalized budgeting plans, spending analysis, debt reduction strategies, and goal tracking.

The app’s features include real-time advice, income and expense tracking, and benefits package analysis, empowering users to confidently navigate job changes, plan for financial growth, and build wealth. By offering wraparound financial support at a nominal cost, Coach mAIa creates long-term impact, helping users achieve stability, sustainability, and financial independence. This solution ensures they can maximize earnings, make informed decisions, and break free from cycles of financial insecurity.

Our team is deeply connected to the communities we aim to serve, driven by lived experiences and direct engagement with individuals facing financial instability. The founder of this initiative has over 12 years of experience teaching financial literacy, reaching diverse communities across states and cities. Her passion was born from personal struggles as a single mother, navigating job changes, childcare challenges, and managing tight budgets. Her journey highlighted how mismanagement—not always a lack of income—often led to debt and financial stress, exposing a widespread issue rooted in limited financial education and tools.

Motivated by this, she pursued a degree in Banking and Finance, dedicated herself to teaching financial literacy workshops, and has impacted over thousands of individuals through workshops, webinars, books, resources and other tools. While preparing to build this concept, the team solicited feedback through surveys and open forum sessions with well over 100 participants/responders. These interactions based on the questions we asked, revealed a strong demand for an accessible, AI-driven financial tool to offer real-time coaching, budgeting support, and decision-making guidance.

Conversations with financial institutions, local universities, and workforce development agencies like NC Works further validated the need. Institutions expressed a possible future interest in licensing the platform to better support their clients and students, especially those navigating transitions like employment shifts, college, and reentry. This collective feedback has guided the vision for Coach mAIa, ensuring it’s user-focused, inclusive, and impactful, making financial empowerment more accessible for the most vulnerable and underserved populations.

We chose the Concept stage because Coach mAia is still in the early development phase, where we’re focused on refining the idea, gathering feedback, and building out the platform’s features. We’ve created a basic prototype to show how the app will work, but we’re still testing ideas and making adjustments to ensure it’s user-friendly and impactful.

Right now, we’re focused on validating the concept by talking to potential users, collecting feedback, and making sure the design meets their needs. This stage allows us to build a strong foundation so the platform can grow into a scalable tool that improves financial literacy and stability for underserved communities.

Coach mAIa is different because it’s more than just a budgeting app—it’s a personal financial coach designed to meet users where they are and guide them step-by-step. While many platforms like Mint focus heavily on tracking spending and account integration, our approach digs deeper by getting into the user’s mindset to understand their values, goals, and habits. This allows us to provide personalized advice and actionable strategies that push users in the right direction, not just surface-level data.

The most innovative part of Coach mAIa is its ability to combine AI-driven insights with financial coaching techniques, making it feel less like a generic tool and more like a trusted advisor. The AI will be trained to adapt to users’ unique situations based on their onboarding responses, learning from their behaviors to deliver customized, encouraging, and relatable feedback.

This approach could inspire others in the financial space to rethink traditional budgeting tools and focus more on personalization and education, especially for underserved communities. It also has the potential to bridge the gap for individuals who can’t afford financial coaching, providing a tool that workforce development agencies can promote to those who are unemployed, underemployed, or in transition.

By offering real-time support and insights, Coach mAIa can reduce financial stress, increase confidence, and help users retain jobs while successfully managing life transitions. Ultimately, it’s a tool that doesn’t just track money—it empowers people to make better financial decisions and build a future with stability and purpose.

Impact Goals for Coach mAIa

1. Breaking the Cycle of Poverty Through Financial Education (SDG 1 – No Poverty)
Goal: Help 5,000 users gain control over their finances within 18 months by teaching budgeting, saving, and debt reduction strategies.
Why It Matters: 64% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, and 43% can’t cover a $1,000 emergency (Bankrate). Many face financial instability due to lack of education. Coach mAIa provides tools to break the cycle, empowering users to build healthier money habits.
How We’ll Measure It: Track savings increases, reduced debt, and completed financial goals through app data.

2. Building Sustainable Employment and Economic Growth (SDG 8 – Decent Work and Economic Growth)
Goal: Equip 1,000 users—especially in underserved areas—with financial plans to support job stability, promotions, and business opportunities within 24 months.
Why It Matters: Financial stress impacts job retention and career growth. Coach mAIa helps users maximize income, prepare for raises, and navigate transitions with confidence.
How We’ll Measure It: Monitor employment milestones, savings plans, and credit score improvements.

3. Supporting Better Health Through Financial Stability (SDG 3 – Good Health and Well-Being)
Goal: Teach at least 1,000 families to budget for healthcare, emergencies, and reduce money-related stress.
Why It Matters: Financial stress affects mental health and well-being. Coach mAIa promotes proactive planning for emergencies and medical expenses, improving overall health outcomes.
How We’ll Measure It: Survey users on stress reduction and emergency savings growth.

Why This Matters:
Coach mAIa is more than a budgeting app—it’s a personal financial coach offering affordable and accessible guidance anytime. It empowers users to make better financial decisions, improve stability, and achieve long-term success.

Research indicates that financial coaching significantly enhances individuals' money management skills. A review by Collins and O’Rourke (2012) highlights that financial coaching, distinct from traditional education, emphasizes goal setting, action plans, and accountability, leading to improved financial behaviors and increased confidence. The Application of Coaching Techniques to Financial Issues - J. Michael Collins

Understanding clients' behavioral patterns is crucial for effective coaching. By analyzing these patterns, coaches can offer personalized advice that resonates with individuals' unique financial situations and habits, facilitating more meaningful progress toward financial goals. 
Exploring Individual and Group Financial Coaching for Building Financial Capability - Ana C. Silva

Integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into financial coaching offers scalable, personalized support. AI-driven platforms can analyze user data to provide tailored financial advice, making financial education more accessible and customized. A study by Kanaparthi (2024) discusses how AI-based personalization in digital finance builds trust and enhances user engagement, leading to better financial outcomes. AI-based Personalization and Trust in Digital Finance - Vijaya Kanaparthi

Combining these elements, an AI-powered financial coaching app that analyzes individual behaviors can deliver personalized guidance, improving financial literacy and management. This approach leverages the strengths of financial coaching, behavioral analysis, and AI technology to provide effective, accessible financial education.

We have a dedicated team supporting this project, including a (12)-member board and advisory team led by our Founder and Board President, who provides vision and oversight for development. We’re partnering with a leading technology firm with over (200) team members specializing in AI-driven solutions and innovative software development. Their expertise has already helped us create beginner visual prototypes to visualize the app’s potential - used in the pitch video. Additionally, (2) interns/volunteers are gathering target audience feedback to help us make sure the app is practical and user-focused.

The founder of Money Box Academy began considering this solution in early 2023, inspired by the rise of AI technology and the need to make financial coaching scalable and accessible—especially for underserved communities. After coaching clients and seeing growing demand for financial literacy, she refined the concept and, following the launch of the nonprofit, began assembling a team of professionals to bring the vision to life. With nearly two years of strategizing and market research, the focus is now on turning this concept into a fully functional tool to meet the needs of those who need it most.

At Money Box Academy, diversity, equity, and inclusion aren’t just goals—we live them in everything we do. Our board and advisory team is made up of women, men, minorities, entrepreneurs, educators, and financial professionals who bring a wide range of experiences and perspectives to the table. Many of us have faced the same financial challenges we’re working to solve, so we deeply understand the communities we serve.

We’re intentional about creating opportunities for voices that are often overlooked, making sure our team reflects the people we’re helping. We focus on mentorship, collaboration, and open conversations, so everyone feels heard, valued, and supported.

We’re also always looking to grow and evolve, whether that means adding new voices to the team or finding better ways to serve our community. Our goal is to keep building a team that’s as diverse and powerful as the people we aim to empower, ensuring we stay rooted in real-world experiences and solutions that work.

Money Box Academy is currently a service-based organization with a vision to expand its impact through the development of an AI-powered financial coaching app. Our business model focuses on providing value to underserved and underemployed individuals by equipping them with personalized financial tools to help them manage their money confidently and effectively.

We plan to start with institutional partnerships (B2B), such as schools, workforce development agencies, and financial institutions, offering white-labeling and licensing options to generate consistent revenue while serving their clients. Over time, we’ll expand to a direct-to-consumer (B2C) subscription model, making the app affordable and accessible through app stores for Apple, Android, and other platforms.

This app addresses a real need for convenience and accessibility in financial education and planning, particularly for those facing income instability and financial challenges. Organizations benefit by offering a tool that reduces the need for one-on-one sessions, providing clients with on-the-go support.

Revenue generated through subscriptions will support enhancements, security upgrades, and ongoing software updates to ensure the platform grows with its users. Our goal is to make this app the go-to resource for money management, especially in low-to-moderate income and rural communities, empowering users to build stability and wealth.

Our plan for financial sustainability is built on a multi-stream revenue model that includes grants, service contracts, partnerships, and subscription-based income from the app. While Money Box Academy Inc. officially launched in late 2024, our board members and advisory team bring years of experience in financial education, entrepreneurship, and nonprofit management, allowing us to hit the ground running and quickly secure meaningful partnerships.

We have already secured contracts with entrepreneurial hubs to support business owners transitioning from employment to entrepreneurship, as well as with local schools and high schools to teach financial literacy programs. Additionally, NC Works is contracting us as financial instructors to provide wraparound services for job seekers, including justice-involved individuals, to help them manage their finances during employment transitions.

We are also partnering with local city and county governments to deliver financial workshops focused on building healthy money habits for citizens. These early contracts highlight the demand and need for our programs, demonstrating our ability to generate revenue through service agreements while positioning ourselves for growth and scalability.

To fund the app development, we are pursuing grants like NC Idea and pitch-related investment funding, and our board and advisory members have committed to personally investing in the mission. Based on market research and development estimates, we project $175,000 in initial costs for the app’s full development, testing, launch, and marketing. With the community support, strategic partnerships, and marketing plans we are building, we believe we will successfully sustain and scale the app.

As we grow, the app’s subscription-based model will generate recurring revenue while white-labeling and licensing options will allow larger institutions to adopt and offer the platform, creating additional revenue streams to support ongoing development, security upgrades, and enhancements.

We are applying to the Truist Foundation Inspire Awards because we believe this program has the power to transform not only our organization but, more importantly, the lives of the individuals we serve. The training, resources, and expert guidance offered through this program are exactly what we need to take our concept from vision to full development. With access to consultants and subject matter experts, we can refine our model, strengthen our infrastructure, and position this solution to make a lasting impact.

This opportunity is not about Money Box Academy—it’s about the people who are struggling under the weight of inflation, job market shifts, and the lack of financial literacy. These individuals need tools, resources, and solutions to help them navigate their finances and build a better future. With the support of Truist Foundation and MIT, we can move faster and respond more aggressively to these challenges, providing the guidance and stability so many are desperately seeking.

This program is more than funding—it’s a chance to build something truly transformative, to amplify voices that are often unheard, and to create generational change. With Truist’s support, we can develop a solution that doesn’t just address financial struggles but redefines how underserved communities approach stability, money, and growth.