dfree® Financial Freedom Movement Expands Focus to Attract Entrepreneurs, Millenials & Women

Franklin Township, New Jersey – Having successfully enlisted hundreds of churches and faith-based organizations and thousands of individuals in the dfree® financial freedom movement, dfree® Founder DeForest B. Soaries, Jr. announced today that a key goal for 2017 is to bring more entrepreneurs, millennials and women to the movement.

“America’s consumer debt is $3.4 trillion and the average American household balance-carries $16,048 in debt,” Soaries said. “People are suffering. The groups we’ve identified are some of the most in need of financial advice and transformational lifestyle changes.”

About 25 percent of Americans say they’ve considered starting a business but didn’t due to barriers such as lack of personal savings.[1] When it comes to young adults, only 24 percent of millennials demonstrated basic financial knowledge.[2] Millennials are financially fragile with 53 percent carrying over a credit card balance in the last 12 months and 50 percent believing they couldn’t come up with $2,000 for an unexpected need within the next month. 2 And 92 percent of women report they want to learn more about financial planning.[3]

Soaries will discuss dfree® when he joins many in the new target audiences on the red carpet of BET’s Centric network event Super Bowl Gospel Celebration 2017 airing Sunday Feb. 5, 2017. This event is the first of many designed “to meet people where they are” so that dfree® becomes even more accessible and actionable.

“I am focused like a laser on helping people from every background, particularly African Americans, pay our bills as we go, get away from those high-cost credit cards, pay our bills on time, avoid using late fees as an excuse to pay our bills late, and then to live within our means,” Soaries recently said, in a dfree® video message, of his passion to help others realize financial freedom and economic justice. He noted that, under the Trump administration, people can expect less help from government and therefore need to turn to viable alternatives and strategies.

“The civil rights movement lost a lot of steam but didn’t end with Martin Luther King’s death,” Soaries said. “King’s dream included specific economic empowerment steps that the dfree® financial freedom movement is now helping people achieve.”

After Soaries’ own church started participating in dfree®, during the height of the 2008 recession, church giving increased by more than $1 million. Through books, conferences, training, support and motivation, dfree® helps individuals focus on the root causes of their financial woes and take practical measures to build better financial habits. While the annual dfree® conference has attracted more than 2,000 people each year, the movement intends to reach new audiences through regional conferences, the first of which is scheduled for March 3 and 4, 2017 at Mount Calvary Baptist Church in Fairfield, California. The conference, sponsored in lead by Prudential, includes lunch and features a power-packed line up of speakers including Soaries, The Money Coach Lynnette Khalfani-Cox and Pastor Claybon Lea, Jr. Grammy Award Winning Gospel Artist & Producer Fred Hammond performs Friday night. The $15 registration for the Say Yes to the Next Level conference is open: http://bit.ly/2jM0E5y.

About dfree®: Founded in 2005, the dfree® financial freedom movement is a transformational, lifestyle movement that promotes financial freedom through values-based principles and practical approaches to financial management. dfree® addresses the cultural, psychological and spiritual influences on financial wellness. In the tradition of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., dfree® also is a movement to help achieve economic justice in America. Rev. Dr. King once said, “We must never let it be said that we spend more for the evanescent and ephemeral than for the eternal values of freedom and justice.” dfree® emphasizes controlling money matters so that individuals have the freedom to focus on more purposeful pursuits. Let’s Move Forward Together.

dfree® was featured by CNN in a 90­minute documentary, “Almighty Debt,” an installment of the “Black in America” series, hosted by Soledad O’Brien. The dfree® strategy is being used by hundreds of churches, organizations and individuals worldwide. For more information about dfree® visit mydfree.org, text “dfree” to 22828 to join the mailing list or follow any of the following: #dfree #mydfree #dfreeNextLevel #LMFTdfree.

About Soaries: dfree® Founder Rev. Dr. DeForest B. “Buster” Soaries Jr. is known as an active agent for change and is a widely-requested speaker. He is the Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens in Somerset, New Jersey and former New Jersey Secretary of State. His pastoral ministry focuses on spiritual growth, educational excellence, economic empowerment and faith-based community development. Soaries, author of Say Yes to No Debt: 12 Steps to Financial Freedom, has issued a Billion Dollar Challenge as a national initiative and free resource to help individuals and families collectively pay down $1 billion in consumer debt.

[1] Gallup Enreprenuership poll, February 2015

[2] Millennials & Financial Literacy GFLEC/PwC survey, January 2016

[3] 2015 Fidelity Investments Money Fit Women Study, 2015