About Us
Kindros is a public benefit corporation dedicated to creating lasting social and economic value by increasing financial knowledge, access, and wellbeing.
The name Kindros is a combination of kindred (as in kindred spirits…like a family or a community) and logos (the Greek word for logic or reason).
Kindros is pronounced "kin-drōse"
Human Intelligence
Kindros believes in the power of human intelligence, and things unique to humans like empathy, logic, curiosity, passion, experience, wisdom, fellowship, creativity, and craftsmanship.
That's why Kindros is powered by human beings. Every word of our content is written and edited by people we know and trust. All of our graphics and animations are sketched and refined again and again by people who care deeply about their work. Our learning platform is designed, built, tested and managed by people with years of experience. Everything we do is based on the personal ideas, needs, and feedback from people actually using Kindros.
At Kindros, we believe in the power of people.
Our Promise
We promise to provide people with a safe place to learn how to make good financial decisions and take control of their financial lives.
Our Values
Every thing we do is guided by our core values of trust, simplicity, and impact.
Trust
We provide unbiased content and tools to help people make good financial decisions. We do not sell financial products, advertisements, or user data.
Simplicity
Our content, tools, and platform are simple to use and understand. Kindros is committed to making financial knowledge accessible to all.
Impact
We focus on making a lifelong impact on individuals, families, and communities by improving people's financial knowledge and wellbeing.
Public Benefit Corporation
Kindros is a public benefit corporation focused on creating lasting social and economic value, while building a sustainable organization.
A public benefit corporation is a unique type of organization that by design, is focused on providing a social or public good while operating in a sustainable manner.
The non-profit B-Labs provides the following comparison of traditional companies and public benefit companies:
"Directors of traditional for-profit companies must maximize the financial returns to shareholders. This single focus is called shareholder primacy. This inflexible legal framework does not accommodate for-profit entities whose mission and impact is central to their business model.
Public benefit corporation status allows corporations to opt-out of shareholder primacy and opt-into stakeholder governance. With stakeholder governance, a company is required to take into consideration anyone that is materially affected by that company’s decision-making, like workers, customers, local communities, wider society and the environment.
A benefit corporation is a traditional corporation with modified obligations, committing it to higher standards of purpose, accountability and transparency"
United Nations
Sustainable Development Goals
The U.N. SDGs are "a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity."
There are 17 U.N. global goals and Kindros is working on 4 of them. We provide quality education, improve gender equality, and help reduce inequalities through our financial education program. And our technology platform provides organizations with cloud-based infrastructure that enables low-cost online education.
Our Team
Kindros is run by talented individuals committed to our mission of helping people achieve financial independence and wellbeing.
Our team includes people who work full time, part-time, and free lance. And we have a growing community of advisors, college interns, mentors, volunteers, researchers, teachers, and administrators. We believe our flexible and open approach to building Kindros creates the most trusted, accessible, and resilient organization.
A Note from Our Founder
The basic idea for Kindros, providing people with a source of trusted financial knowledge, emerged from my experience as a first-generation college student and subsequent journey through my professional career. But it’s my family background that truly made me appreciate the importance of representation.
My dad emigrated from a mountain village in Albania as a child and met my mom in Worcester, Massachusetts when they were in their 20s. While neither of my parents had the chance to get a college degree, together they developed a strong commitment to making good financial choices. However, at times my parents found it hard to put their goals into action. They didn’t always know what questions to ask, the terminology was confusing, there were too many choices, fees were hard to understand, and the paperwork was a burden. And since they didn’t have much money, they couldn’t afford an advisor.
In short, my parents didn't know who to trust. Over the years, I became a sort of shepherd to guide my parents, siblings, and extended family on their own financial paths. Seeing first-hand the challenge of finding a safe place to learn how to manage your personal finances, led to the creation of Kindros. Since day one, we've been committed to providing unbiased financial knowledge, and representing the people who put their trust in us.
Kindros will continue to evolve based directly on the ideas generated by the Kindros community. We’ve incorporated tons of great feedback from hundreds of students, teachers, community leaders, family, friends, and financial experts.
As a result of everyone’s input, Kindros is a much better platform. Sometimes even a simple question, a casual observation, or even critical feedback leads to a big leap forward, so please keep your ideas coming.
Thanks everyone for all your help and support...we are just getting started!
Stephen Martiros
Founder of Kindros