By Dr. James M. Dahle, WCI Founder
Here at The White Coat Investor, we have three outreach programs. They all serve a dual purpose. The first is to promote financial literacy and wellness among doctors and their trainees. The second is to give back to the community that has given us so much. These programs include:
- The White Coat Investor Scholarship
- The White Coat Investor Financial Educator Award, and
- The White Coat Investor Champions Program.
We've been doing the Scholarship since 2015 and the Financial Educator Award since 2019. However, the Champions program is actually our biggest outreach program, even though we just started it earlier in 2021.
What Is the WCI Champions Program?
The WCI Champions program is simply a huge book giveaway. The proposition is simple. We figure that the information we provide here at The White Coat Investor is most useful when you receive it early in your career. How early is early? Why not your first year of school? So I wrote a book called The White Coat Investor's Guide for Students: How Medical and Dental Students Can Secure Their Financial Future and published it early in 2021. Then, we attempted to give it away to every first-year medical and dental student in the country during the 2020-2021 year. You can read more about what is in the book here.
I say “attempted,” because we were not entirely successful. You see, money does not grow on trees so we needed a relatively efficient distribution method. We decided to simply ask for a volunteer from every first-year medical school class to receive the books and pass them out to their classmates. That way we could simply ship a box or two of books per school, rather than individually shipping books to 25,000 people across the country.
These volunteers were known as WCI Champions. Not only did they get their own copy of the book, but they got to feel good about providing a resource that would likely be worth millions of dollars to each of their classmates over the course of the next few decades. And a T-shirt. If they sent us a picture of their classmates with their books, we sent them a nice Yeti WCI tumbler, too.
Despite all that bribery, we only reached about three-quarters of the first-year students in the country. Many classes did not have a single volunteer. At least one school refused to allow any of their students to pass out the books. We were still pleased to help as many as we did. We ended up distributing 23,848 books at 176 different schools.
At sticker price and with shipping, that was a giveaway worth about $750,000 dollars. More importantly, if just 10% of those students read the books and it changes their financial habits, that might be worth $2 million apiece over the course of their careers. That would be a total of $4.8 billion. Seems like a pretty good return on investment to me.
Look at all these great folks who received a copy of the book through this program:
Comments from the Champions include:
“Thank you again for this opportunity. Distributing books was a great way to meet classmates I hadn’t yet interacted with due to COVID restrictions. Everyone was very excited to receive a copy of the book and even more excited to apply the wisdom, knowledge, and lessons learned therein.”
“Thank you so much for the books. My classmates are really grateful to have received this amazing resource.”
“Thanks for the opportunity! It was a lot of fun.”
“Thank you again for sending these! We’re excited to crack them open and start learning.”
We're looking forward to helping a lot more people this fall, but we're going to need your help.
Introducing the 2021-2022 WCI Champions Program
All those first-year students are now second-year students, and there is a whole new crop of first years. So we're going to do it again and try to reach even more students. The deal is exactly the same as before. If you are a FIRST YEAR MD, DO, or dental student in good academic standing during the 2021-2022 year and you are willing to pass out a book to every member of your class, volunteer by filling out this Google form.
It's mostly a coalition of the willing, but there were a few schools last time where more than one person applied and we had to choose. If you are chosen, you get a WCI Lifetime T-shirt. If you take a picture of you and your classmates with the books, you also get the $50 Yeti Tumbler. (By the way, if anyone wants to buy any of this stuff, we sell it in the WCI Store.)
We hope to distribute even more copies of the book this time than we did earlier this year.
The final day we will be accepting applications is March 15, 2022 so be sure to get your applications in on time.
Volunteer to Get Free Stuff and Provide Millions of Dollars of Value to Your Classmates!
What do you think? Is it a good idea to help first-year medical dental students become more financially literate? Do you know a first year that you can talk into being a WCI Champion? Are we bonkers for doing this? Comment below!
I wonder why the book could not be on some secure digital format rather than a physical book. The process could be this same. Great idea to help.
Digital formats are surprisingly hard to secure, but mainly I think it’s more likely that students will keep, read, and refer back to a physical copy.
I just want to know what school wouldn’t let your books be distributed and why
Last year I applied to be a rep for my school and was not selected and was told that someone else from my class received the privilege. However, after reaching out to my class, it appears that no one was selected. If it’s possible I would still be willing to distribute to my class—who are now M2s. Thanks for all you do—I especially enjoy the podcast success stories when I’m taking a study break.
Email [email protected] and we’ll see what we can do.
This would be a wonderful resource for PA students too! I am a first year PA student and like the majority of my classmates, I expect to accumulate six figures in debt before graduation. Would you ever consider including PA class champions in this program? Thanks for all that you do!
I agree it can be very useful for PA students, even if they’re not the precise audience it was written for (medical and dental students).
Remember the book is available on Kindle for $9.99. It’s not exactly our premium product. Even a PA student can afford that no problem.
But until we figure out how to get the majority of the med/dental schools classes to actually want the book enough to find a single person to volunteer to pass it out, we’re probably not expanding to PAs, NPs, pharmacists etc.
Hi –
My name is Kaitlyn Miller and I’m a rising M1 coming August 2022. I listened to your podcast recently about the WCI Champion program and was super interested in becoming a representative for the University of Kentucky College of Medicine. I saw the post stating the deadline was in March but wanted to confirm there are no exceptions? I am EAGER to spread the word and educate my peers through your platform. I have personally been following you for about two years now and have read all your books. Without your help I would be drowning trying to navigate the ends and outs of finance in general. I think my class would be eternally grateful for the opportunity if it isn’t too late. In the event I’m out of luck I will circle back next year. Please don’t hesitate to contact me via email.
Kaitlyn Miller
The deadline was for last year’s M1s. We’ll open it up again for your class this Fall (we think.) Your deadline will be next March.
I am a first year medical student at the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine. I am interested in becoming the WCI Champion for my school, and am wondering if the program will be occurring again this year. I saw on another post that the application would open in the fall, but have not been able to find the application.
Thank you,
Connor
Yes. Coming up soon. Watch the blog.