Nasdaq and Mentoring USA Expand Financial Literacy Partnership

Financial education for young people will receive a boost from the NASDAQ’s second three-year grant to Mentoring USA, a national provider of one-to-one mentoring initiatives focused on enabling youth to realize their potential.  The funding is earmarked for the expansion of the organization’s financial literacy curriculum to teach important financial concepts to young people between the ages of seven and twenty-one.

One the key metrics measuring the success of Mentoring USA in the area of financial education and mentorship is the fact that one hundred percent of the youth served by the program have advanced to the next grade level in each of the most recent years.  In addition, over seventy percent of those participating in the organization’s initiatives exhibited higher levels of attendance.

For many years, the NASDAQ OMX Educational Foundation has been supporting financial literacy programs like those being rolled out by Mentoring USA.  The Foundation was launched twenty years ago with a mission to foster opportunities that deliver innovative educational programs, including in the area of financial literacy.  Mentoring USA is one of more than thirty-five organizations to receive funding from the Foundation during 2013.

Major support of financial literacy by global stock exchanges has been growing steadily during recent years. In addition to the efforts by NASDAQ to enhance financial literacy programming across a large geographical footprint, the NYSE Euronext also continues to provide significant funding and support for financial literacy.  Among other activities, every April NYSE Euronext publicly highlights financial capability through a series of high profile events and bell ringings to promulgate the importance of financial literacy as a key driver of financial empowerment and well-being for individuals and families.

The Mentoring USA support from NASDAQ is just the latest of many recent financial literacy grants by a global stock exchange to support financial education and financial literacy enthusiasts widely expect such funding to continue in the months and years ahead.