17. What did you do before joining the Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy?

1. I started at the NASD/NASDAQ in 1994, until I became the director of the NASDAQ Educational Foundation, which I directed from January 2000 until April of this year.

   The NASDAQ Educational Foundation is a Jump$tart partner and I represented NASDAQ at Jump$tart events, so I was very familiar with Jump$tart before I got here. Additionally, the NASDAQ Educational Foundation's mission is financial markets literacy—an important component of financial literacy—and many of Jump$tart's non-profit partners were also recipients of NASDAQ grants, so I already knew most of the leaders involved. I spent the first half of my career in credit unions—another important constituency—and so Jump$tart has provided me this marvelous opportunity to utilize my mix of experience in personal finance, stock markets, education and communication.

17. Why did you join Jump$tart?

1. Despite having spent most of my career working in or associated with the financial services industries, I am not a financial expert by any stretch of the imagination. I like to consider myself not an expert, but a leading advocate for financial literacy. Working previously in communications and more recently in education, I like to think that I helped make financial materials and information available and accessible to "average" consumers, including educators and students. Now, at Jump$tart, I hope I can help educators—who, like me, may not be financial whizzes—understand that they still can and should play a role in preparing the next generations to handle their own personal finances.

   Jump$tart has already done an amazing job of raising the importance of personal financial literacy to the forefront of the American consciousness. I'd like to continue that and, further, make sure we are also providing meaningful assistance to parents, educators, youth workers and others who are working directly with children and young adults to improve their financial literacy.

17. What can our members do to help you this year, and in the future?

1. AFSA members already do a tremendous job of supporting Jump$tart's mission—individually or as part of the coalition—by helping to educate consumers and future consumers about financial products and services. Even the ones that don't have a formal educational program still provide valuable information about their respective areas of finance. We would love to have more of the financial community become involved with Jump$tart at the state and/or national levels. Their involvement in the coalition would give us the best chance of working toward and meeting our mutual educational goals.

   Jump$tart operates on a very limited budget with a very small staff. Almost all of our state coalitions operate entirely with volunteers. That said, there is still a certain amount of funding needed to accomplish our mission and we look to the private sector for funding. The financial services industry has always done an amazing job of supporting important causes and I hope your members will consider contributing to our financial literacy efforts.

17. What are your goals for Jump$tart, both short-term and long-term? What are the benchmarks you will use to judge your achievements?

1. One of the most important goals I've set for myself is to make sure that Jump$tart is, and can remain, viable as a non-profit business. That means establishing and following a plan to ensure a consistent stream of income, adequate reserves, and strategy for using our limited resources wisely. I think that sometimes directors of non-profit entities are reluctant to put fundraising ahead of the more altruistic objectives of the organization... and I can identify with that. However, we're of little use to anyone if we have to close our doors due to lack of funding; so I think that it's prudent to have a good business plan.

   Beyond that, I want to be sure that Jump$tart is contributing in a meaningful say toward furthering financial education—not just cheering it on from the sidelines. One of the ways I think we can do this is through our online clearinghouse. I've been speaking at a lot of teacher conferences and I always meet teachers who truly want to incorporate personal finance into their classes, but didn't know where to find the materials that could help them. I think we can promote use of the clearinghouse to be an even better resource to teachers than it already is now.

   My dream is for the clearinghouse to become the financial literacy equivalent of the "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval." We already screen the materials that we list in our clearinghouse to determine that they are current and accurate, free of a sales angle, and adhere to national teaching standards, as well as Jump$tart's standards. I would love for teachers to rely on the clearinghouse as the determination of the quality of those materials. In any case, I'm making improvements to, and marketing of, the clearinghouse a top priority.

   These are a few of the things I've identified early on as among my priorities. That certainly can change and I'm sure I'll add to the list. Meanwhile, I believe strongly that all of Jump$tart's activities—from raising awareness to conducting teacher training at the state level—are important elements of the financial literacy movement. The measurement, I think, will be our own survey. Using the survey results, we need to make sure that students' comprehension of personal finance continues to improve.

Laura Levine can be reached at llevine@jumpstart.org.