Godfrey, Joline 1950-

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GODFREY, Joline 1950-

PERSONAL:

Born April 16, 1950 in Lincoln, ME; daughter of Leland and Gail (York) Dudley; married David Pierce Godfrey, March 25, 1972 (divorced, 1977). Education: University of Maine, B.S., 1972; Boston University, M.S.W., 1977; postgraduate work at Brandeis University, 1983. Politics: Democrat. Hobbies and other interests: Hiking, baking pies.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Ojai, CA. Office—Independent Means Inc., 126 Powers Ave., Santa Barbara, CA 93103-3600. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Polaroid Corporation, Cambridge, MA, clinical social worker to entrepreneur, 1977-86; Odysseum, Inc., Boston, MA, founder and chairman, 1986-90; An Income of Her Own, founder and chair, 1992—; Independent Means, president and chief executive officer, 1997—. Loyola Marymount University Entrepreneur in Residence, 1997. Corporate Design Foundation, member of board.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Kellogg Fund fellow, 1989-92; Bentley College, honorary degree in business, 1995; Leavey Award, 1996; Beta Gamma Sigma Entrepreneurship Award for Excellence, and Entrepreneurship, 1996; Malone fellow, 1997; Los Angeles Women's Foundation Mentor-of-the-Year Award and Vocational Education Equity Award. both 1998; Financial Finesse Groundbreakers Award, 1999; named Advocate of the Year, Los Angeles Division of Small Business Association, 2001; named Ernst and Young Advocate of the Year, 2001.

WRITINGS:

(With Bradley Googins) Occupational Social Work, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1987.

Our Wildest Dreams: Women Making Money, Having Fun, Doing Good, HarperBusiness (New York, NY), 1992.

No More Frogs to Kiss: Ninety-nine Ways to Give Economic Power to Girls, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1995.

Twenty Secrets to Money and Independence: The DollarDiva's Guide to Life, St. Martin's Griffin (New York, NY), 2000.

Raising Financially Fit Kids, Ten Speed Press (Berkeley, CA), 2003.

SIDELIGHTS:

Joline Godfrey is known for her tireless support of the financial independence of young women, sometimes through controversial means. As president and CEO of Independent Means, she runs a program called DollarDivas that teaches girls how to handle and make money. In reviewing Godfrey's Twenty Secrets to Money and Independence: The DollarDiva's Guide to Life, a Publishers Weekly noted that the author "admonishes girls to fight crass materialism, yet also to aim to be wealthy enough to buy whatever they desire." This contradiction is what makes Godfrey's work controversial, however that controversy is tempered by the author's intention to eradicate sexism in entrepreneurialism and the workplace.

In an interview with George Gendron and Bo Burlingham for Inc., Godfrey claimed that women's businesses are built differently than men's businesses, and are often overlooked because their leaders have different values and financial models than those run by men. "I think women generally go about building a company differently from the way men do it," Godfrey explained. "And that may help explain why you don't see more growing companies owned by women.… You don't see them because … they don't look like growing companies." Godfrey attempts to increase the visibility of woman business owners via several self-help books that dispense financial advice geared to assist women.

Godfrey's Our Wildest Dreams: Women Making Money, Having Fun, Doing Good focuses on several women entrepreneurs who describe the hardships of joining a male-dominated class of managers and CEOs. Tom Peters claimed in Washington Monthly that, "Despite the obligatory annual articles in Fortune, and BusinessWeek, on 'women cracking the glass ceiling,' Godfrey is right about women's lingering invisibility in business." Peters recommended the book for both women and men looking to start a business because it delves into the male and female social mores of the business world.

No More Frogs to Kiss: Ninety-nine Ways to Give Economic Power to Girls is an attempt to make women's businesses visible and economically viable by laying the groundwork for sound financial decisionmaking among younger readers. The book has become the basis for Godfrey's nonprofit organization An Income of Her Own, founded in 1992, which teaches financial survival skills to teenage girls. Godfrey also started Independent Means in 1997, which is dedicated to the same principals, and she runs a financial education camp called DollarDivas. Godfrey has also received numerous awards for her support of both entrepreneurship and small-business development.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 1, 2000, Barbara Jacobs, review of The Twenty Secrets to Money Independence: The DollarDiva's Guide to Life, p. 43.

Inc., January, 1990, Bo Burlingham and George Gendron, "Letter to the Editor," p. 31.

Publishers Weekly, February 10, 1992, review of Our Wildest Dreams: Women Entrepreneurs Making Money, Having Fun, Doing Good, p. 67(2); July 31, 2000, review of The Twenty Secrets to Money Independence, p. 83.

Washington Monthly, November 1992, Tom Peters, review of Our Wildest Dreams, p. 54.