Banks, associations find creative ways to boost financial literacy

The U.S. has the largest economy in the world but only 57 percent of Americans are considered financially literate, according to the National Financial Educators Council..The situation has not gone unnoticed by policymakers, as 39 states now require students to take a dedicated course in personal finance in order to graduate, according to a survey published this year by the Council for Economic Education.One of the broadest financial literacy efforts in the country is the Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy, a nonprofit founded in the 1990s which provides support for personal finance teachers in K-12 settings. “We strongly believe in financial education in the classroom,” said Laura Levine, Jump$tart Coalition president and CEO. “Just like any other topic, you’ve got to have a fairly good number of instructional hours provided by someone who knows how to teach. ... We are standing behind teachers as a profession to say they are our best chance of educating everyone.” Initially compiling instructional materials from numerous sources and making them available to educators, the coalition later introduced the National Educator Conference.The conference provides the opportunity for teachers across the country in all grade levels and backgrounds to be exposed to many resources. “Teachers, just by the nature of being conduits of learning, are explorers; they like to think about how to get there in different ways,” Levine said. “So NEC tries to give them exposure to a lot of different types of stuff and lets teachers figure out what works best in their environment.”NEC partners include the Conference of State Bank Supervisors, American Bankers Association Foundation, Board of Governors for the Federal Reserve System, and many others. The only cost educators need to cover is transportation to the conference.The national coalition has state and local affiliates such as the Montana Financial Education Coalition (MFEC). And MFEC offers scholarships for travel to NEC.Jennell Huff is assistant vice president for Community Reinvestment Act and community outreach coordinator at Bank of the Rockies, a role that includes leading financial literacy initiatives and fraud education. “The bank adopts a cradle-to-grave approach,” she said. So it made sense for Mike Grove, president of the $230 million bank based in Helena, Mont., to introduce Huff to MFEC years ago. Today, she is the MFEC’s president.The coalition helps promote NEC to educators in Montana. For educators who use the travel stipend, MFEC asks them to report back on the conference through either a written report, a virtual report at the coalition’s December meeting, or participation in MFEC’s bi-annual in-state conference for fin lit educators.Huff was recognized in 2025 with the ABA Foundation’s George Bailey Distinguished Service Award “for her exceptional leadership in elder fraud prevention, financial education, and community empowerment across Montana,” and MFEC was named the Jump$tart State Coalition of the Year for 2026.Lemonade stands and school sponsorshipsIn addition to backing the frontline financial literacy educators, community banks also provide resources to support at-home and in-the-workplace financial literacy. For the last six years, United Bankers’ Bank of Richfield, Minn., has partnered with Banzai, which provides three tracks for boosting financial literacy.The first is the Direct Program, a comprehensive effort that offers a bank-branded financial literacy website that contains courses, articles, more than 30 financial calculators, and access to financial coaches. The courses cover a variety of ages. For example, Banzai Junior’s Lemonade Tycoon is for students aged 8 to 12. The one-hour interactive course walks students through various facets of running a lemonade stand and covers topics like “wants versus needs,” saving, loans, and discretionary income.The second is school sponsorships. A bank selects a school it wants to work with, and Banzai works with the school to get the program set up. “The schools receive access to the educational courses along with printed workbooks and other resources,” explained Tyson Doke, vice president and marketing manager at the $1.04 billion bank. “By the bank’s sponsoring the school, the program is 100 percent free for the teachers.” And, he added, all curriculum meets national and state standards. Banks can be as involved in the implementation as they want, and some offer incentives. “I’ve heard of banks that, if a student completes a module, they can print a certificate of completion and turn it into the bank for an incentive like $10 to deposit, or a prize,” Doke said. “Or a family applying for a home equity line of credit, if they complete a specific module or read all those articles, it will be worth a reduction in closing costs.”The third avenue for financial literacy is business sponsorships known as Banzai at Work. “Banks can sponsor their current or prospective business customers, and Banzai will provide employees of the sponsored business with access to the resources in the Direct Program” on just-in-time resources like car loans or HELOCs, Doke said. “It’s a way for the businesses to provide financial literacy as a benefit to their employees and for banks to connect with current or potentially new customers.”The Road Crew in St. PaulOf course, many banks still want to have that in-person connection, and St. Paul-based Sunrise Banks teamed up with Twin Cities Road Crew (TCRC) to do upbeat financial presentations to reach low-to-moderate-income youth, said Grace Schiffman, marketing manager at the $2.7 billion bank.Some may remember Radio Disney, a network of stations across the country that featured Disney hits and had a heavy emphasis on listener engagement. When that network switched to a nearly all-internet format in 2014, Radio Disney employees Ben Thul and Felicia Schaefer pivoted and created TCRC to use the power of experiential marketing to inform or provide “edutainment.”TCRC’s mission is two-fold, Thul said. The first is to encourage partners to be philanthropic. “We do try to give back to the community with events and school assemblies with pro-social messages like financial literacy or healthy eating,” he said. The second is to provide opportunities for gainful employment for young artists. TCRC is “the best side hustle out there for folks who are trying to make it in the acting world or music or dance.”TCRC does their performances in school assemblies of at least 150 students in gyms or auditoriums. Typically there are two hosts, a DJ, and then two to three additional break-dancers or road crew to implement the interactive, TCRC-created content.In 2026, TCRC did Sunrise Bank-backed financial literacy assemblies with the theme Level Up Your Money Game with music, audience participation, and customized educational games like Wants Versus Needs or Shopping Smart for more than 125 teachers and 2,780 students in 10 presentations.“Teachers have noted that the assemblies directly reinforce economic concepts students are already learning in the classroom while presenting them in a highly engaging format,” Schiffman said. To provide additional support after the assemblies, Sunrise offers financial wellness activity bags for students, teacher resource materials, and financial education that schools can share with families through various communication formats to “encourage financial conversations at home,” Schiffman said. “Sunrise Banks also sponsored KIDS INC, a project that pairs TCRC with a local school to design a three-week program on business ownership. Through this experience, students created a business, made items for their company, participated in a sales course, and then sold their items at an event,” Schiffman said.Quiet on the set!For older students who are self-starters, the American Bankers Association Foundation offers a nationwide video-creation contest sponsored by local banks for youth ages 13-18 where teens teach teens. The idea behind Lights Camera Save! is to create a 30-second video on a financial literacy topic. Each participating bank can choose one winning video submitted to them to enter to the national contest. Then those videos go head-to-head in voting on the American Bankers Association’s Instagram page to determine the national $10,000 prize winner. As of press time, 27 banks had registered for the 2026-27 contest which will open in October. They include Collinsville Building and Loan Association in Illinois, Southern Michigan Bank and Trust in Coldwater and West Shore Bank in Ludington, Mich., Northview Bank in Finlayson, Minn., Stockman Bank of Montana in Miles City, and the North Dakota Bankers Association.