For this week’s Business Spotlight, we’ll be featuring Don Hickman, Financial Coach and Owner of A Helping Hand Financial Coaching.

Initially launched in 2020,

A Helping Hand Financial Coaching is an organization that help individuals and couples turn their personal financial failures into success, nightmares into dreams and stress into peace.

As a financial coach, Don Hickman teaches and trains several necessary skills including:

• • successfully communicating as a couple
  • creating and following a monthly spending plan
  • getting out of suffocating personal debt
  • saving for emergencies and investing for retirement
  • saving for the kids’ education
  • buying and eventually paying off a house

Clients eliminate their financial stress and in doing so, they focus their money and attention on living their life’s purpose.

The defining moment for Don in starting A Helping Hand Financial Coaching was when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the economy in the spring of 2020. Hickman Group, LLC’s business consulting work had dried up because of the economic disaster that followed the pandemic. Don saw a community need and knew it was imperative to make his financial coaching services available to a wider audience.

“Folks were losing their income, small businesses were closing their doors, and there was an enormous amount of financial stress in our community,” says Don. “We registered A Helping Hand Financial Coaching under Hickman Group, and the rest is history.”

As a 24-year Air Force veteran retiring off Hill Air Force Base in 2012, Don and his wife, Stacey, have lived in 14 different locations throughout their military career. They decided that Ogden Valley and the greater Ogden area was the perfect place to settle down to start their family and eight years later, A Helping Hand Financial Coaching.

“We love helping people, and there are tens of thousands of people who could use our help here in Weber County alone,” says Don. “Every day we help individuals and couples overcome their personal struggles with financial stress.”

Several of Don’s client have completely paid off all their personal debt – they are using a monthly family spending and for the first time in their lives, they have money leftover at the end of the month. A couple under extreme financial stress once had over $240,000 of personal loans and with Don’s help, were able to negotiate with their creditors and eliminate almost $100,000 in personal debt for a settlement at just over $25,000. Another recently divorced client went from desperation to her best year ever as a small business owner.

“Coach Don is an absolute life saver. I had never budgeted before. My financial situation had collapsed several times and I chose not to do anything about it. I just felt it would get better on its own and of course, it never did. I finally wanted to change my situation after my second divorce. Don took me through the systematic process. I was so thrilled with the excitement and passion he had in helping others achieve success and truly succeed.“

– Michelle C., Single Mom & Small Business Owner

When asked what makes his organization unique, Don says, “We focus on a person’s behaviors and emotions related to their money, not just the mechanics and math of investment rates of return and credit scores,” and, “Experience matters, and we have it.” He has coached hundreds of individuals and couples over the years and is one of just a handful of Dave Ramsey certified Master Financial Coaches in northern Utah.

Don and Stacey started at the bottom and worked their way to the top – now having zero debt of any kind, money in the bank, and are living the life they planned to live years ago. When they aren’t working, they ski in the winter and enjoy their horses, fly fishing, camping, and gardening in the summer. Don also enjoys being active in the community as the Chair of the Board of Trustees of Ogden Valley Adaptive Sports and a past Chair of the Board of Ogden Nature Center.