At 4:30 p.m. on Jan 17, new members of the Charitable Investments Club checked into a Zoom meeting and were introduced to the club’s history, purposes and basic procedures that come with membership. Club officers presented the topics in a slideshow, which was followed with Zoom thumbs up icons as reactions.

“Our club promotes communicative skills and collaborative decision making,” CHS junior club member Faheem Tippu said. “Teamwork is really vital. When I joined the club, I had the opportunity to [learn teamwork].”

The Charitable Investments Club (CIC) started in January 2020 as a small group founded by CHS junior Kavin Sampath with the intent of teaching members fundamentals in investing along with the risks associated with it. Last summer, juniors Sampath, Aksh Tyagi, Prabhav Kumbum, Jai Konnuru, Rohan Nalla and Rohan Pritmani dipped into the practicals of investing by putting money into a shared account, making an 11% realized gain in a few months. They used this to donate 204 pounds of peanut butter to the North Texas Food Bank in September.

“A common stereotype about the stock market is that people who invest are in it for themselves,” Sampath said. “For us, donating the profits is the goal. We’re trying to go against [the stereotype] because you can also be helping the community and helping other people. It doesn’t always have to be a selfish thing.”

Confident in their club’s goal of pursuing charitable causes and bringing about financial awareness in students, the CIC planned to expand. They structured the club by planning phases for prospective members. In a training phase lasting roughly four weeks, students build their understanding of the types of investing and mechanics of the stock market.

There is also a fundraising phase where the club focuses on accumulating capital from donations and a cumulative investing phase where current markets are analyzed and invested in to generate profits that are donated to the community.

The CIC is not a Coppell ISD or Coppell High School affiliated club but is focused on staying local with its recruitments and donations.

“Our main purpose is to invest in the stock market, and use the profit that we get for charity,” Sampath said. “Teaching the members investments is a beginning step we have to take in order to get to our goal eventually. Yet, we love the fact that we’re teaching students financial fundamentals which are really important in life later on.”

At the end of last year, the initial six members and the club’s board of officers obtained nonprofit status for the CIC. This gave the club the authority to collect donations, tax-exempt status and potential to invest more capital to donate to causes.

The CIC’s donations are currently focused on food banks because of their growing importance during the COVID-19 pandemic. This status also qualifies them to provide volunteer hours and set a minimum number of service hours for members.

CHS CTE teacher Brian Simpson unofficially advises the club with his experience in business and marketing.

“Because of the way [the club] was set up, it needed to be an off-campus club,” Simpson said. “That didn’t derail them at all. [Creating a nonprofit] is hard to do, and it’s amazing they’ve accomplished all that they did. They are self-sufficient, and though they ask for my opinions on certain steps, they’ve ultimately been running their own group.”

The club had three teams, fundraising, marketing and analyst teams, with different roles. In recent months, the club has collected donations and funds for investments, researched potential donors while the marketing team develops the CIC’s social media through posters and videos posted to their Instagram and Twitter accounts.

“We have a Google form for applicants with questions about their interest in the club [to select members],” CHS junior member Anshul Shah said. “That keeps the club serious and focused, and it’s good to have that because it creates an environment of trust with people you know. Though I’m on the analyst team, I talk to other club members and learn a lot from them.”

The club accepted its first batch of members in October, and has just accepted its second group. It consists of 29 members now and plans to expand in the future after having stabilized into a steady process in the club. Right now, they are setting up a bank account with Chase and creating a promotional website.

They plan to continue the club in college and work toward expanding it to more schools in the DFW area.

“We are just beginning, so we’ll see how it goes from here on,” Sampath said. “As of right now, things are going smoothly, we’re getting to know each other and everybody is working together really well. We are all really proud of the club and are looking forward to seeing where it goes in the future.”

The CIC can be contacted at [email protected].

Follow Nanditha Nagavishnu (@nanditha__n) and @CHSCampusNews on Twitter.