Where Opportunity and Community Grow Together
Every child under 18 can open a 530A investment account starting July 4. Cultivar trains young people to help the families they grew up with open one and start building. Neighbor to neighbor.
About Us
Cultivar is not a financial literacy program. Information alone does not change behavior. Identity does.
The federal government launched the 530A, an investment account any child under 18 can open. Most families will never hear about it in time, or won't believe it was built for them. Cultivar closes that gap, person to person.
We train college-age Activators in the Proximate Educator Model, young people working in the communities they grew up in. Families move through our Learn, Build, Grow curriculum, and the destination is real: an account opened, a child who starts as an owner.
Every family we reach walks away knowing the account exists, knowing how to open it, and believing it was built for them.
The model is simple. Young people reach the families they already know. Identity shifts first. The account follows.
Activators, trained young people running small in-person activations in their own communities, starting in Austin and Albuquerque
A 20-lesson Learn, Build, Grow curriculum for ages 13 to 18, ending in the Cultivar Certification
Two apps: Frank and Evelyn for kids, and the Cultivar Student App for teens
530A enrollment as the destination for every family, with a clear path for kids who don't qualify for the federal seed
Financial information alone does not change behavior. Identity does. Decades of evaluation back this up, so Cultivar leads with identity shifts, not lessons.
Behavior follows identity, and identity is cued by context. When a young person sees themselves as an investor, saving stops feeling like sacrifice and starts feeling like self-expression.
The 530A, also called a Trump Account, is a federal investment account any child under 18 with a Social Security number can open. Children born 2025 through 2028 receive a $1,000 federal seed. Every eligible child can open one and start contributing.
Families carry knowledge, networks, and aspiration already. Our job is to activate what's there, not import something from outside.
Policy creates access. Cultivar creates participation.
Arellana Barela Levenson
Founder and CEO, Cultivar Communities
Arellana Barela Levenson founded Cultivar because she saw the same gap everywhere she worked: families who were ready, but never reached. She began her career as a bank CFO, where she saw how financial systems often overlook the realities of everyday family life. Her work later expanded into community-based economic mobility initiatives, where she saw how trust, identity, and culture shape the way families engage with financial tools.
She studied financial inclusion and policy at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and spent 20 years across banking and economic mobility work. That work made one thing clear: information was never the missing piece. Trust and identity were.
As a mom raising five kids, she brings a grounded understanding of how money conversations actually happen at home. Her leadership reflects the combination of professional discipline and lived experience that families recognize and trust.
Arellana is a 2026 Presidential Leadership Scholar.
Cultivar is building a national network of Activators: young people trained in the Proximate Educator Model who run activations in their own communities, connect families to the 530A, and guide them through a curriculum built to change how kids see themselves around money.
We are piloting now in Austin and Albuquerque. We are building toward every community in the country.
Cultivar exists to help families turn opportunity into lasting progress. We sit at the kitchen table with you.
