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MassMutual strives to help Americans secure their financial future and protect the ones they love. At the MassMutual Foundation, it is our mission to extend that promise to communities for whom financial well-being and resilience are endemically out of reach.
According to the Federal Reserve Bank, as of 2021, more than one third of adults in the United States indicated they could not cover an unexpected financial emergency costing $400 with cash or an equivalent. We believe that statistic need not be the norm, so we are actively working with local community members and national partners to remove the obstacles that impede one’s ability to overcome this financial uncertainty.
We pursue our work in many ways, addressing fundamental challenges that often preclude residents of these communities from establishing a sense of financial security by helping make connections to basic services, promoting efforts that create employment and income opportunities, and supporting and sustaining critical networks that can help lead community members to greater opportunity.
Through this work we have come to see the importance of financial literacy at an early age; it’s foundational to building financial well-being and a better life well into adulthood.
That’s why, as part of our mission, the MassMutual Foundation has made a 10-year and more than $50 million investment in FutureSmart — a free online educational experience that helps young people build the financial acumen they’ll need to succeed and thrive in life.
We have validated the efficacy of the program through a research study conducted by the University of Massachusetts’ Donahue Institute, and we are currently in the midst of a second longitudinal study to examine the long-term impact of the program.
FutureSmart is in schools throughout every state in the country — as well as in Puerto Rico — and since its inception, more four million students have completed the program which is free and available in English and Spanish. FutureSmart represents one of the most expansive and effective financial education programs for students in the United States.
We support this important work because it works … we know this from the research and because of the stories we hear from teachers and students like our hero Isaac here …
However, it’s not enough to simply “set it and forget it” when it comes to building a successful financial education platform. Working with our incredibly talented partners at EVERFI, we continue to expand the FutureSmart platform with tailor-made content aimed at enhancing the experience and its impact on the user.
In 2021, we incorporated new portals within our platform to engage educators and families, respectively. By doing so, we effectively have “wrapped” FutureSmart students in a 360-degree experience: Providing teachers and parents with content they can leverage for their own edification and to enhance the student’s learning experience in and out of the classroom.
This year, we launched three new modules to the platform entitled “SmartEconomics,” a program for middle schoolers that helps them understand the workings of our economy and the factors that affect it, their role within the economy, and the underpinnings of trade.
The information is presented in a narrative setting that places the student in the economy and encourages him/her to make real-life decisions based upon the facts and lessons learned throughout the experience. SmartEconomics is also free to schools everywhere and available in English and Spanish.
As a proud member of the Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy, we salute all who contribute to this important learning endeavor for students everywhere and hope others will join us.
Financial literacy matters for the students, their families, their community, and their future … a future where it is our hope that every American will be able to handle an unexpected $400 expense without missing a beat.
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