Impact Investing and Philanthropy - An Intersectional Lens: Insights from Julie Johnson McVeigh ’97

By Liz Armstrong

As part of the yearlong celebration of Leaders in All Walks – Fifty Years of Women at Bowdoin, Nancy Milam, director of gift planning at the College, spoke with Julie Johnson McVeigh ’97, a financial advisor at Fresh Pond Capital, a division of Reynders McVeigh, about women and money and not for investment advice.

Image of Julie Johnson McVeigh ’97 — Julie Johnson McVeigh ’97

According to recent reports from a number of sources including the Women's Philanthropy Institute and Fidelity Charitable, women are actively engaged in a variety of ways of giving back and have been a driving force behind giving decisions in many households. The data shows that they use their time, money and buying power to create positive social change. One area where women lag behind men is participation in investment strategies and tax-savvy approaches to giving.

A career in finance was the furthest thing from Julie Johnson McVeigh's mind when she graduated from Bowdoin. A women’s studies and Latin American studies double major, Julie was interested in social change, which led her to work with “PIRGs,” public interest research groups, as a community organizer with fundraising responsibilities. Facing burnout, she began working with a recruiter who identified a job in finance specializing in socially responsible investing. Remembering the mentorship of Associate Professor of Education Emerita Penny Martin, Julie realized that one’s career path is rarely linear. As her career has unfolded, she thinks of herself as a community organizer working with people interested in social change who want to understand their money and think differently about how to use it to benefit their own lives and bring forward the values they want to see represented in the world.

Check out these short videos to learn more about Julie’s work…