ABA Foundation Launches 2025 Financial Education Campaigns Amid 100th Anniversary Celebration

WASHINGTON -

The American Bankers Association Foundation today launched its 2025 financial education campaigns, encouraging banks across the country and their more than two million employees to participate in these substantial industry efforts. Today's launch comes as the ABA Foundation celebrates a pivotal milestone this year - its 100th anniversary helping bankers provide financial education to improve the well-being of their customers and communities.

This continues the ABA Foundation's three-year, industry-wide commitment to reach five million Americans with financial education programs and services. Since 2023, the Foundation made significant cumulative progress with nearly 40,000 bank volunteers from 1,115 banks reaching 1.7 million people.

The ABA Foundation offers four national initiatives designed to equip banker volunteers with tools to share essential financial knowledge. This year, the Foundation will roll out new resources and revamped content for several of its programs to help bankers continue to cultivate connections with customers of all ages, deepen partnerships with community organizations, and build a more inclusive economic future. All of the Foundation programs are completely free to both ABA member and non-member banks alike and include:

• Teach Children to Save
• Get Smart About Credit
• Safe Banking for Seniors
• Lights, Camera, Save! video contest

"As we enter the Foundation's second century, we are deepening our commitment to building thriving, resilient and equitable communities," said Lindsay Torrico, executive director, ABA Foundation. "Our financial education programs build on our strong legacy and position banks to make lasting community change in the next 100 years."

Teach Children to Save

The ABA Foundation's signature youth-focused initiative, Teach Children to Save, now in its 28th year, is a national campaign that provides tools and resources within 18 lessons to educate K-8 students about money and real-world financial concepts through classroom presentations, engaging activities, social media and other outreach efforts.

In anticipation of financial literacy month in April, look for all materials to be updated by the ABA Foundation to include the latest Jump$tart Coalition standards and offer an improved program website.

While Teach Children to Save Day will be celebrated on April 24, bankers are encouraged to promote financial education throughout the year.

Get Smart About Credit

Get Smart About Credit is a national program that helps bankers equip teens and young adults with an understanding of budgeting, credit scores, identity theft and paying for college, in addition to encouraging the exploration of careers in banking. The ABA Foundation also continues to roll out new content focused around preparing for 'financial firsts,' with more coming later this year. Keep an eye out for new additions to the program with a special focus on fraud prevention materials. While the campaign is celebrated annually on the third Thursday of October, bankers are encouraged to lead presentations and spread awareness throughout the year.

Safe Banking for Seniors

In addition to its youth financial education initiatives, the ABA Foundation also offers the Safe Banking for Seniors program. Safe Banking for Seniors, led by banker volunteers nationwide, helps older customers, their families and caregivers understand and mitigate the risks of fraud and financial exploitation. New this year is an update to the Safe Banking for Seniors Communications Toolkit to offer resources to help bankers share information about how to prevent cryptocurrency investment scams. There are also new materials surrounding money mule scams.

In February, five new animated videos will be available to help bankers educate their customers on how to avoid scams, including online purchase and timeshare scams, and how to prevent check fraud.

Curricula for Teach Children to Save, Get Smart About Credit and Safe Banking for Seniors are available in both English and Spanish.

Lights, Camera, Save!

Lights, Camera, Save! is a national video contest that encourages teens to create a video up to 30 seconds long that demonstrates the importance of using money wisely. The national grand prize winners of the 2024 -2025 contest are set to be announced Feb. 24 and are eligible to win up to $5,000. The next entry period will begin in October 2025 and the contest is open to teen filmmakers of all experience levels.

Bankers can register for ABA Foundation programs and receive turnkey resources, real-time customer support, and ready-to-use promotional and communication materials. Again, there is no cost for banks that register to participate in any of the Foundation programs. Bankers interested in learning more about the Foundation programs are invited to join a free informational webinar, "The Next 100 Years of Community Transformation: Trends, Predictions & Strategies" on Jan. 30. This will be the first of a series of community engagement webinars.

The ABA Foundation also offers a free web connection tool, FinEdLink, that can match community groups, faith-based ministries, senior centers, schools and other organizations with local bank volunteers willing to share financial education lessons. Groups interested in having a banker make a presentation can simply submit a free request at aba.com/FinEdLink to be paired with a local volunteer.

This year, the ABA Foundation's financial education programming is generously sponsored Bank of America, Citi, Federal Home Loan Banks, FICO, JPMorgan Chase, Pathward, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo.

Interested banks can register at aba.com/FinEd or call 1-800-BANKERS for more information.

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About the American Bankers Association

The American Bankers Association is the voice of the nation's $24.2 trillion banking industry, which is composed of small, regional and large banks that together employ approximately 2.1 million people, safeguard $19.1 trillion in deposits and extend $12.6 trillion in loans.

About the ABA Foundation

Through its leadership, partnerships, and national programs, ABA's Community Engagement Foundation (dba ABA Foundation), a 501(c)3, helps bankers provide financial education to individuals at every age, elevate issues around affordable housing and community development, and achieve corporate social responsibility objectives to improve the well-being of their customers and their communities.

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