LA Regional COVID Fund Grant Recipient Highlight: Dr. Dominique Reese, Financial Coach

In order to truly help someone, you have to know where they’re coming from. 

That is one of the many truths Dominique Reese commits to on the daily – both in her work as a financial coach and in her service-oriented outlook on life.

Dominique is the author of Master My Money, and the founder of Reese Financial Services, a coaching and consulting company that works with Angelenos to manage money, empower entrepreneurship, and build wealth within historically divested communities. A majority of her work centers the experiences of women, people of color, Veterans, and formerly incarcerated folks in order to promote financial literacy through education and counseling in a judgement free environment.

She is also a grant recipient of the LA Regional COVID-19 Recovery Fund, which LISC LA has managed in partnership with the City and County of Los Angeles to distribute over $99 million in grants to over 7,000 small businesses and organizations. 

Through her work as a financial coach, Dominique exemplifies what is at the heart of the LA COVID Fund – a local approach to equitable recovery and future prosperity for the communities that have been most impacted during the last year.

On a personal level, Dominique knows what people are going through during this time, and she uses that knowledge to inform her approach. After being laid off as a financial advisor at Merrill Lynch during the 2008 recession, Dominique started her own business teaching non-profits and entrepreneurs about financial literacy, and eventually began working at a financial start-up. Within a year, the start-up was defunded, and she was laid off again. 

"I wound up hitting financial rock bottom, which is interesting because I was a financial professional. I share that because people think that professionals and experts don’t go through things, and we do – we’re not immune," she said. "That’s a part of my story that is important to share, because it helps me relate to my clients. It’s different to coach a client when you’ve been through what the client has gone through."

Today, Dominique works to support low and middle income individuals in their journey to investment and financial wellbeing. During her time as a financial advisor for Merrill Lynch, she recognized the immense barriers to access for people who were interested in investment, but lacked existing assets. Those with existing capital have access to financial advisors, and people in crisis can access debt counselors, she said. Dominique wanted to serve the people in between those income brackets, in order to preempt financial crises and empower strategic investments at an affordable rate, without the condition of existing assets. 

"I began to take interest in and fulfillment from working with everyday, hard working Americans who wanted education about money and who have goals and dreams just like my millionaire clients did," she said. "That disparity and inequity made me want to serve the underdog, and I come from the underdog background myself."

Dominique working with a client through her company, Reese Financial Services.

Financial coaching is a relatively new profession, but coaches like Dominique are critical in the process of creating financial resiliency. By meeting people where they are without judgment, she is building the foundations for increased financial literacy and wealth accumulation, so that people can earn, invest, and thrive long after the pandemic is over. 

With the support from the LA Regional COVID Fund, Dominique was able to consistently pay a new assistant and purchase the domain name for her website, which allowed her to increase her marketing and visibility for clientele in the community.

"That was a direct correlation between what the grant did and how it created a return for me and my business," she said. 

With the support of the Fund and a year of experience coaching during the pandemic, Dominique is continuing to expand her impact in the lives and finances of people and small businesses across Los Angeles, one client at a time.

LISC LA is proud to support Dominique’s commitment to advancing financial equity and empowering access to financial coaching. This grant is not just an investment in her entrepreneurship – it is also an investment in the community she works to serve every day. 

"Coaching is based on the client, and we are trained to ask questions, because we don’t assume we know what’s best," she said. "When you ask people what they need, they’re going to tell you. So the answers lie right in the market that we want to serve."