Knowing the financial landscape is an art that many Jamaicans are seeking to fully understand. But looking in from the outside can seem a bit frightening for some.

This is where husband and wife duo Jermaine and Renate McDonald come in. The couple is on a mission to assist individuals learn and understand traditional and modern financing through their company Learn Grow Invest.

Learn Grow Invest is an investment community founded on Biblical principles and built on Deuteronomy 8:18 which says: “Remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the ability to produce wealth.”

Jermaine McDonald began his investment journey in 2016 and has since been committed to learning and sharing his knowledge with others about investing, personal finance and overall stewardship of money.

Learn Grow Invest is both a community and a company. The faith-based financial education and literacy community started in 2017 with seven persons in a WhatsApp group.

This WhatsApp group would grow significantly over the years, in 2020 it became an online community that supported thousands of people all across the Caribbean.

“Our inspiration was to provide a safe space for persons to learn about investing and money management. We think the best learning happens in communities,” Mr McDonald told Our Today.

As a community, Learn Grow Invest provides free investment classes, free presentations to schools/churches and an outreach arm where they have been able to provide over $2 million in donations to various charitable initiatives voted on by community members.

Throughout the years the community has also been a largely self-funded community with key partners who saw value in its efforts contributing along the way.

“We continue to seek partners who will enable us to fulfil our mandate of providing the basic financial literacy and education to all,” Mr McDonald noted.

To bridge the gap that existed in the market for services to individuals and companies. Learn Grow Invest Limited was incorporated on May 4, 2022.

“Since the company’s inception we have worked with publicly listed companies to provide services to supplement their investor relations arm.”

A notable project done recently was the hosting of an Earnings Call for Dolla Financials Services Q3 2022 Quarterly Report.

The call was streamed live on the company’s YouTube platform for investors, analysts and media to hear from the company.

Why is it important to invest?

Investing is to grow one’s money over time. The expectation of a positive return in the form of income or price appreciation with statistical significance, is the core premise of investing.

According to Jermaine McDonald, investing is a biblical principle given to us over 2,000 years ago, yet so many don’t really understand its power. Investing is one of the best ways to produce personal and generational wealth. Without investing our money loses value over time due to inflation.

“Many Jamaicans continue to struggle with debt and poor financial decisions. When you consider the knowledge required to understand money, debt, and investing our current systems of education are unfortunately lacking,” he continued.

Currently, the company provide content via their YouTube channel to help persons learn how to invest.

Grow your Wealth Conference

The Grow Your Wealth conference is an opportunity for the average person to learn about investing, money management, debt management and entrepreneurship.

“We wanted to remove all the barriers of access to such critical information, so we made the conference completely free to attend,” Mr McDonald said.

The conference will have some of the best minds in the financial education and business space from across the United States and Jamaica, sharing their insights over two informative days.

The event boasts an all-star line-up including Kalilah Reynolds, Brian Feroldi, Keisha Bailey, Simon Johnson, Julian Morrison, Gillian Jackson and a host of other financial educators and investment coaches.

“This is our first staging, and we are hoping to test our theory that this is really needed by Jamaicans and the diaspora. We hope to see thousands turn up and our event being known as one of the best of its kind to ever be done in this part of the world. We sought the best in the field of financial education because we want to provide the most value possible to our audience,” Mr Robinson said.

The inaugural conference will be held December 2nd and 3rd online starting at 12 pm on Friday December 2 and 10 am on Saturday December 3, 2022.

If you’d like to be a part of the conference, all you have to do is register now at  www.learngrowinvestconference.com and you’ll be sent a link on the day of the event to attend live.

With the New Year fast approaching, it will be the best investment you can make to get you ready to master your finances for 2023.