Receiving a mountain of cold hard cash might be a dream come true for most. But for others, it’s a crushing responsibility that comes with a lot of shame. Rich young inheritors are grappling with newfound wealth by banding together to give it away.
Money coaches have also entered the fold; part-financial advisor and part-therapist, these experts guide clients through their feelings and create a plan of action to redistribute their money meaningfully. Exposed to extreme wealth inequality, “eat the rich” sloganing, and billionaire hoarding, Gen Z and millennial inheritors are looking to money coaches to also lighten their emotional load.
Brilliant is one of many money coaches out there helping to redistribute the 1%’s wealth to meaningful causes. Her job may sound like a financial advisor on paper—but her work goes a lot deeper than bank accounts.
“There’s more support that’s needed logistically and emotionally,” she says. “Logistically, what it takes to give away $3 million is very different than what you need to give away $10,000. The stakes are higher, it’s a lot more labor to make those decisions, and at a certain point you need more in-depth support.”
“Wealthy people are often the villain, [but] at the same time that wealth is valorized or idealized,” they tell Fortune. “There becomes this internal battle.”
Money coaches tell Fortune that high net-worth people who want to redistribute can come in all shapes and sizes. But a few patterns emerge: their clients tend to skew progressive, young, female, and queer. Lum says marginalized groups may have had life experiences that compel them to act for the betterment of others.
“Because this is really sensitive, vulnerable work, it takes a really open heart to decide to swim upstream. The choices that my clients are making are the hard choices,” they say. “The easy choice is to hoard, retain the money, and just let it do nothing.”
Lum has also noticed that Gen Zers are more anxious about stepping into wealth than other generations, saying young people are exposed to intense wealth disparity on social media. They don’t want to be lumped in with power-hungry billionaires.
“For my younger clients, I tend to have to support them more in thinking about themselves. A lot of them are just like, ‘Get it off, get it away,’” Lum says. “And for some older clients, I’ve experienced more coaxing to open the hand.”
But the actions of a few don’t represent the majority; instead of erecting libraries and building schools, many billionaires are hoarding their wealth in droves. And this isn’t lost on many Americans struggling to get by, rationing money for groceries and rent.
Brilliant says demand for her coaching rises in times of geopolitical distress; when Donald Trump was first elected as U.S. president, she got four times as many coaching requests than she had in the past. The COVID-19 pandemic—when people were quarantined at home and sucked into social media—was another driving force.
“We saw an even bigger gap in the wealth disparity around that time. And there was just a lot more media [content] as well about how much money the 1% was profiting every year. All of that impacts people,” Brilliant explains.
“There’s collectively a lot more class rage, which I think is really healthy, ultimately.”
