The Society of Grownups Wants Millennials to Invest Wisely
Young adults, freshly unleashed upon the world, are rarely the target market for the financial industry, which trades on things like retirement and long-term security. But millennials, for lack of a better term, might take things to a whole other level. Survey after survey shows that this is a group that plainly does not trust the industry, possibly because it came of age during a national economic calamity.
Other data indicate that today’s 20-somethings are, however, a group that cares about personal finance. According to a recently released survey from Bentley University, they overwhelmingly say health-care benefits are enough to sway them to one job over another. And while they might not be putting away for later on, they are worried about things like their retirement nest eggs. They just don’t know how to build them.
Where some might see this as a problem, insurance giant MassMutual sees it as an opportunity—and one it moved to capitalize on this year. In October, after plastering ads on the Green Line, it opened something called The Society of Grownups.
The Society of Grownups is a subsidiary of MassMutual, specifically aimed at that younger demographic. Global design firm IDEO helped develop the idea, but doesn’t have an ownership stake.
Here’s the gist: The company operates out of a 2,000-square-foot space (it used to be a pizza place) in Brookline’s Washington Square. The space is modern, reminiscent of a smaller version of the coworking spaces populated by startups and freelancers. It has a small coffee and tea bar, and a communal table next to a selection of magazines (it calls this area the library).
And it has space for its two primary offerings: financial planning sessions, in which people can meet with a financial planner, and one-off classes and discussions on all the things a young adult might need to know but doesn’t. It also brings in the occasional guest speaker, and holds what it calls “supper clubs’’—basically, a discussion on a given topic held over a meal. The classes and discussions bend toward topics of personal finance—how to buy a home, handle student debt, and get into investing, for instance. But there are other lessons, too, ranging from parenting to cooking to travel (all of which have a financial side). The curriculum is meant to represent a primer on, as the name suggests, being a grownup. Events range in price from $10 to $40, with the supper clubs the most expensive. A 20-minute financial check-up with a planner costs $20, and a 90-minute financial-planning appointment costs $100.
And aside from the coffee or tea you can buy at the Brookline space, that’s just about it: advice and information. The Society of Grownups offers the classes and sessions on an à la carte basis, so no membership is involved. And it doesn’t sell any financial products—not even MassMutual’s.
That last part, the people behind the Society of Grownups say, is key. In order to gain the trust of members of a generation that is scared and/or distrustful of the financial industry, the last thing it wants to do is make its customers feel like they’re on a timeshare visit. MassMutual thinks that trying to leverage informational sessions into a sales opportunity for a hulking parent company would stand to blow up in its face. Nor is the goal, said Society of Grownups director Nondini Naqui, to hook future MassMutual customers.
“We’re agnostic to MassMutual,’’ she said. The Society of Grownups is its own company, say both Naqui and Gareth Ross, MassMutual’s senior vice president of data science and target markets and the guy behind the new program. It’s looking to turn its own profit selling its own services to its own demographic, they say.
“Young adults, millennials, are a large, different, and very attractive market,’’ said Ross. “We felt we should build ways to connect with them … We want to get them embedded in the world. The goal is straight and narrow: accessible, bite-size information. We want to engender trust with this generation.’’
MassMutual has declined to say how much it has put into getting the Society of Grownups off the ground, but given the large-scale advertising campaign on the T, the redesign of the Brookline space, the nearly two years that went into planning it, and the staffing efforts to this point, it seems significant.
The Society of Grownups is upfront about MassMutual’s involvement, with its name on its door in Brookline—“A MassMutual Learning Initiative,’’ it says. “We knew, ‘Who’s behind it?’ was a question we would face,’’ said Ross. “We also wanted people to know there’s something stable behind it.’’
Naqui, the director, said courses and conversations seemed like the best way to reach the age group. Classes are small, and sell out at 12 attendees. They’re led by Society of Grownups financial planners, who are employees of the company, but they are intended to be discussion-based, designed to get attendees asking questions about the given topic. “Where are you going to learn from?’’ Naqui said. “You learn from one another.’’
I sat in on a recent class on the basics of homebuying, and it more or less followed that routine. The leader of the class, a CFP named Karen Carr, provided a handout and had a PowerPoint prepared for the 90-minute course, but a few topics of discussion sprang up from audience questions and conversations.
Afterward, one attendee—30-year-old Cambridge resident Kyle Cedrone, who is considering going into the market—said he found the class helpful and the setting comfortable. “You can relate to the other people in the room,’’ he said. “You find people in the same situation.’’ Cedrone said that atmosphere gave the class an advantage over simply Googling for home-buying information.
The decision to open in Washington Square was based on demographics, Naqui said. Between Brookline, Brighton, and Allston, there are plenty of young adults in the area. Naqui said Cambridge, Somerville, and other parts of Greater Boston may have also worked.
As for whether it plans to expand, either in the Boston area or elsewhere in the country, Naqui said that remains to be seen. “We obviously have dreams of taking this forward,’’ she said. “There’s a huge need for this type of place.’’ But that’s going to depend on how things go at the flagship. So far, it’s too soon to say. People seem to respond well to the offerings, Naqui said. Some classes have sold out. Most haven’t.
The Society of Grownups has 13 employees right now—a few financial planners and class leaders, community managers who make sure things are running smoothly, and some engineers and web developers. The website is a big part of the Society’s plans, Naqui said, with intentions to offer financial planning software and content. How will the online services complement the classes and planning sessions at the physical location? That’s the sort of question, with the Society still just a few weeks old, that will depend on how things develop and how customers respond.
“We’re in an experimental phase,’’ Naqui said.
Which is, of course, a well-traveled route to adulthood.
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