Financial Literacy Resource Directory

Bank On
Bank On provides information for current and potential programs.

Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund
The fund’s mission is to leverage municipal engagement to improve the financial stability of low- and moderate-income households. The fund works with financial institutions to offer accounts consistent with national standards for bringing people outside the financial mainstream into banking and embedding financial empowerment into local government structure.

360 Degrees of Financial Literacy
The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants’ 360 Degrees of Financial Literacy helps people understand their personal finances through every stage of life.

America Saves
America Saves, sponsored by the Consumer Federation of America and the American Savings Education Counsel, consists of locally based campaigns that promote the value of building savings and reducing debt to Americans who have not saved adequately. America Saves involves local nonprofit, government, and business leaders in each campaign.

American Savings Education Council
The council, which sponsors this public education campaign, encourages savings through all stages of life.

Asset Coalition Toolkit for States
This website contains tools and resources that leverage information sharing among state coalitions in the asset-building field.

BBB Institute for Marketplace Trust
The institute is the educational foundation of the Council of Better Business Bureaus (BBB). The institute’s goal is to connect targeted consumer populations to the BBB’s services, promote consumer awareness and financial literacy, and advance business ethics in the marketplace.

Building Native Communities Financial Curriculum
The curriculum provides financial education, entrepreneurship, home buyer education, and credit counseling programs to Native communities.

National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s Cooperative Extension System
The Cooperative Extension System, in partnership with the institute, provides leadership to state, regional, and county-level educators who deliver basic consumer education; teaches personal financial management skills to youth, limited-resource families, and young families; and promotes comprehensive financial planning throughout the life cycle. The National Institute of Food and Agriculture is part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Financial Education Evaluation Toolkit
This toolkit, offered by the National Endowment for Financial Education, is an online resource that shows how to apply evaluation techniques to programs to document learner impact.

Financial Football
Visa and the National Football League teamed up to create a football-themed educational video game. The game uses the league’s structure and rules to teach money skills and to improve financial literacy.

Money Smart
Money Smart, sponsored by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, is a financial education program offering curriculums designed to help individuals outside the financial mainstream enhance their financial skills.

National Endowment for Financial Education
This foundation is dedicated to helping Americans acquire the information and gain the skills necessary to take control of their personal finances. The foundation accomplishes its mission primarily by partnering with other concerned organizations to provide financial education to the public, and particularly to underserved individuals whose financial education needs are not being addressed by others. The foundation has launched a National Financial Literacy Campaign that encourages Americans to start achieving their financial goals by accessing practical information on the Get Smart About Money website.

Native Financial Education Coalition (NFEC)
This is a coalition of local, regional, and national organizations and government agencies that have joined together to promote financial education in Native communities.

Navigating the Market: A Comparison of Spending on Financial Education and Financial Marketing
This study, commissioned by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, provides an overall indication of the relative amounts spent in the United States on financial education and on the marketing of certain types of financial products.

NeighborWorks’ Building a Financial Future
Through partnerships, NeighborWorks helps individuals and families develop sound personal financial management skills.

OCC Community Developments Fact Sheet: Financial Capability
This fact sheet describes the benefits and opportunities provided by financial capability activities, programs, and partnerships for national banks and federal savings associations.

OCC Community Developments Investments: Cultivating Community-Based Financial Literacy Initiatives
This issue of OCC Community Developments Investments highlights roles that banks can play in promoting financial stability through local partnership efforts. Its articles describe four programs that help banks and their community partners reach out to consumers to encourage better money management through savings and checking products.

Prosperity Now
The organization promotes asset-building and economic opportunity strategies, primarily in low-income and distressed communities, that bring together community practice, public policy, and private markets.

Society for Financial Education and Professional Development
The organization develops and presents financial literacy and professional development training for individuals and organizations. To help accomplish its mission, the organization works with financial and education institutions, governmental units, corporations, and foundations that support financial education and professional development programs.

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Investor Alerts and Bulletins
The agency’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy provides numerous news alerts and bulletins for individual investors.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau 
The bureau's core function is to provide a single point of accountability for enforcing federal consumer financial laws and protect consumers in the marketplace. Its website is available in numerous languages, including Spanish.

Consumer.ftc.gov
This Federal Trade Commission website offers consumer information including videos and games, a blog, and streamlined articles that highlight actionable, practical tips on a wide range of consumer topics. The site is available Spanish.

Consumer.gov
This Federal Trade Commission website offers free resources for people to learn about credit, debt, identity theft, and avoiding scams, as well as budgeting, opening a bank account, shopping for prepaid cards, and managing money in general. The material may be ordered in bulk at bulkorder.ftc.gov, and the site is available in Spanish.

National Consumer Protection Week
The Federal Trade Commission, federal agencies, and nonprofit organizations have launched the National Consumer Protection Week (NCPW) webpage. The website highlights the importance of consumer education and the availability of free resources to help people protect their privacy, manage credit and debt, avoid identity theft, understand mortgages and other loans, and recognize frauds and scams.

OCC Consumer Advisory 2011-2: Avoiding ‘Card Skimming’ at ATMs and Other Money Machines (PDF)

OCC Consumer Advisory 2006-1: Gift Cards: OCC Provides Tips for Consumers (PDF)

AnnualCreditReport.com
This site gives consumers one free credit report form each of the national credit reporting companies.

Credit Reports and Credit Scores
The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System offers answers to common questions about credit reports and how errors in credit reports can be corrected.

Credit Smart
Freddie Mac’s curriculum is designed to help consumers build and maintain credit.

MyMoneyCheckUp
This National Foundation for Credit Counseling’s site helps users analyze their financial situations and provides customized feedback. The analysis helps individuals and families monitor and assess their financial lives and adjust their behavior to maximize their economic empowerment.
(En Español)

National Foundation for Credit Counseling
The foundation is the nation's largest and longest-serving nonprofit credit counseling organization. Its mission is to promote the national agenda for financially responsible behavior and build capacity for its members to deliver the highest-quality financial education and counseling services.

DisasterAssistance.gov
The Disaster Assistance Improvement Program’s website provide disaster survivors with information, support, services, and a means to access and apply for disaster assistance through joint data-sharing efforts between federal, tribal, state, local, and private sector partners. The program is part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Disaster Loan Assistance
The U.S. Small Business Administration, which sponsors this website, provides federal disaster loans to businesses, private nonprofits, homeowners, and renters.

Disaster Resource Center
This Agriculture Department website provides information about specific disasters and emergencies; how to prepare, recover, and help build long-term resilience; and assistance during disaster events.

Emergency Financial First Aid Kit (PDF)
This kit from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Operation Hope is designed to help strengthen financial preparedness for disasters and emergencies.

Ready.gov
Ready.gov is part of a national public service campaign to help people plan for disasters by collecting and securing financial documents to help begin the recovery process.

Volunteer and Donate
This Federal Emergency Management Agency website offers information about trusted 501(c)(3) charitable organizations that accept donations to help those in need of disaster relief assistance.

Advisory to Financial Institutions on Filing Suspicious Activity Reports Regarding Elder Financial Exploitation
This is advisory letter from the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network addresses how financial institutions can play a key role in addressing financial exploitation due to the nature of the client relationship. The advisory letter advises financial institutions to use the Suspicious Activity Report to report suspected financial elder abuse.

Elder Abuse Resource Roadmap
The U.S. Department of Justice’s road map is designed to help people who have experienced financial exploitation navigate decide where to go to report and resolve the incident.

Elder Justice: National Strategy Needed to Effectively Combat Elder Financial Exploitation
This study, issued by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, describes the challenges that states face in preventing and responding to elder financial exploitation. The study also describes the actions that some federal agencies have taken to help states address these challenges

Elder Justice: Stronger Federal Government Leadership Could Enhance National Response to Elder Abuse (PDF)
This study, issued by the Government Accounting Office, contains information on the extent of financial elder abuse, factors associated with the abuse and the impact on victims, characteristics and challenges of state Adult Protective Services entities responsible for addressing the abuse, and federal support and leadership in this area.

Investor Protection Trust Elder Investment Fraud and Financial Exploitation Protection Program
The program helps health care professionals recognize when their older patients may be vulnerable to or victims of financial abuse, particularly those patients with mild cognitive impairment. If fraud is suspected, health care professionals are encouraged to refer at-risk patients to state securities regulators or local adult protective services professionals, or refer the patients for further medical screening.

Managing Someone Else's Money: Help for Agents Under a Power of Attorney
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau developed this guide to help people understand what they can and cannot do in the role of an agent.

Money Smart for Older Adults
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau developed this instructor-led training to promotes awareness among older adults and their caregivers on how to prevent elder financial exploitation and to encourage advance planning and informed financial decision making.

National Adult Protective Services Association
The association's mission is to strengthen the capacity of adult protective services at the national, state, and local levels. Its mission also is to effectively and efficiently recognize, report, and respond to the needs of elders and adults with disabilities who are the victims of abuse, neglect, or exploitation and to prevent such abuse whenever possible.

OCC Bulletin 2013-21, ‘Privacy Laws and Reporting Financial Abuse of Older Adults: Interagency Guidance’
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Trade Commission, National Credit Union Administration, and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued this guidance to financial institutions to clarify the applicability of the privacy provisions of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act to reporting suspected financial exploitation of older adults.

Office for Older Americans
This office, which is under the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, offers financial capability resources.

Safe Banking for Seniors
This program, sponsored by the American Bankers Association’s Community Engagement Foundation, helps older customers and their financial caregivers understand and mitigate the risks of fraud and financial abuse.

Financial Literacy and Education Commission
The commission was established under Title V of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 to improve financial literacy and education of persons in the United States. The commission is cochaired by the Secretary of the Treasury and the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and comprises 21 federal agencies.

MyMoney.gov
This U.S. government website is dedicated to teaching Americans the basics about financial education. The website organizes financial education help from over 21 different federal entities that coordinate and collaborate with each other to strengthen financial capability and increase access to financial services for Americans. (En Español)

Resource Guide for Financial Institutions: Incorporating Financial Capability into Youth Employment Programs
This resource guide is for financial institutions interested in enhancing youth financial capability by partnering with youth employment programs. The guide maps how and why financial institutions can help young people achieve greater financial well-being and employment success.

Resource Guide for Youth Employment Programs: Incorporating Financial Capability and Partnering With Financial Institutions 
This resource guide is for youth employment programs interested in enhancing youth financial capability by partnering with financial institutions. The guide maps how and why youth employment programs can partner with financial institutions to help young people achieve greater financial well-being and employment success. This is a companion to the “Resource Guide for Financial Institutions: Incorporating Financial Capability Into Youth Employment Programs.”

U.S. National Strategy for Financial Literacy 2020
The Financial Literacy and Education Commission’s report details the federal government’s financial literacy priorities and underscores the federal government’s plan to collaborate with state, local, and tribal governments and the private sector to strengthen financial capability for all Americans.

Managing Money
This is a national financial literacy partnership of Consumer Action and Capital One and is the first program of its kind to combine free, multilingual financial education materials, curriculums, and teaching aids with regional meetings and roundtables to train community-based organization staff. The partnership seeks to reach consumers at all income levels and from all walks of life.

Hispanic Trends
Pew Research Center’s web page focuses improving understanding of the U.S. Hispanic population and to chronicle Hispanics’ growing impact on the United States. Because it is a nonpartisan organization, the center does not advocate for or take positions on policy issues.

Reverse Mortgage Spotlight
AARP’s consumer guide explains reverse mortgages.

Fannie Mae
This website provides pre- and post-purchase homeowner education and credit counseling.

Freddie Mac
This website provides credit, mortgage finance, and home-buying resources designed to assist prospective homebuyers and existing homeowners.

Buying a Home
The U.S. Housing and Urban Development website explains the basics of buying a home and what is expected of a buyer.

Housing Counseling 101
The National Foundation for Credit Counseling offers this podcast series to help homeowners avoid foreclosure. The series addresses myths about housing counseling and explains how to create an action plan and prepare for a counseling session; the benefits of housing counseling; and the housing counseling process.

Homeownership
NeighborWorks America offers a continuum of strategies to promote successful, sustainable homeownership for people of all income levels and backgrounds.

OCC Consumer Advisory 2009-1: OCC Consumer Tips for Avoiding Mortgage Modification Scams and Foreclosure Rescue Scams

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
The agency certifies and funds housing counseling agencies throughout the country that can provide advice on buying a home, renting, defaults, foreclosures, credit issues, and reverse mortgages.

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Housing Counselors
This agency sponsors housing counseling agencies throughout the United States that can provide advice on buying a home, renting, defaults, foreclosures, and credit issues.

Association of Military Banks of America
This not-for-profit association supports banks operating on military installations, banks not located on military installations but serving military customers, and military banking facilities designated by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Office of Servicemember Affairs
This office, which is under the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, provides information for servicemembers

Military Consumer
Military Consumer is a joint initiative that provides free resources to active duty and retired servicemembers, military families, veterans and civilians in the military community. Partners include the Federal Trade Commission, U.S. Department of Defense, and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Military OneSource
This U.S. Department of Defense program provides comprehensive information on every aspect of military life at no cost to active duty, Guard, and Reserve Component members and their families.

SaveandInvest.org
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Foundation helps military families and all investors make informed financial decisions.

Read the most recent Financial Literacy Update.

Advisory Letter 2001-1, Financial Literacy (PDF)
This advisory highlights the range of financial literacy activities that banks have undertaken that have been effective in enhancing consumer financial skills and extending the reach of banks’ products and services to underserved or unbanked markets.

Community Developments Fact Sheet: Bank Savings Incentive Programs 
This fact sheet offers information on initiatives that encourage consumers to start or to increase savings by using bank deposit accounts.

Community Developments Insights: School-Based Bank Savings Programs: Bringing Financial Education to Students
This report discusses how school-based bank savings programs operate.

HelpWithMyBank.gov
The OCC’s HelpWithMyBank.gov provides answers to about 250 commonly asked banking questions. While targeted at national bank customers, the site answers many questions common to all banking consumers; provides useful information about contacting regulators of state banks, thrifts, and other financial institutions; and includes an online complaint form for bank customers wishing to register their concerns to the OCC. The site is also available in Spanish.

OCC Bulletin 2015-16, Youth Savings Programs: Guidance to Encourage Financial Institutions' Youth Savings Programs and Address Related Frequently Asked Questions (Updated November 9, 2017) 
The interagency guidance answers common questions, including those related to Customer Identification Program requirements, that may arise as banks, savings associations, and credit unions collaborate with schools and other community stakeholders to facilitate youth savings and financial education programs.

OCC Community Developments Fact Sheet : Financial Capability
This fact sheet describes the benefits and opportunities provided by financial capability activities, programs, and partnerships for national banks and federal savings associations.

OCC Community Developments Investments : Cultivating Community-Based Financial Literacy Initiatives
This issue of OCC Community Developments Investments highlights roles that banks can play in promoting financial stability through local partnership efforts. Its articles describe four programs that help banks and their community partners reach out to consumers to encourage better money management through savings and checking products.

Opinion Letter (PDF)
The opinion letter, dated November 20, 1992, is from the Office of Thrift Supervision regarding the creation of a school partnership program by a federal savings association.

AARP's Retirement Calculator
This financial tool provides users with a snapshot of what their financial future might look like. Users can use the tool to develop a retirement plan for a dual-income family and calculate and include social security benefits in their retirement income.

Employee Benefits Security Administration
The agency, which is part of the U.S. Department of Labor, educates and assists workers, retirees, and their families covered by private retirement plans, health plans, and other welfare benefit plans.

Planning Your Social Security Claiming Age
This tool from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is designed to help consumers make informed decisions about when to claim their social security benefits.

Retirement Saving Toolkit
The U.S. Department of Labor, in cooperation with the U.S. Social Security Administration and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, offer this online Retirement Toolkit to help workers identify key issues related to retirement planning and understand important decisions related to employment-based plans, social security, and Medicare.

Association for Enterprise Opportunity
This association supports organizations committed to microenterprise development and maintains a clearinghouse of microenterprise development programs

Money Smart for Small Business
This is an instructor-led small business curriculum created by the U.S. Small Business Administration and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The curriculum is designed to provide introductory training for new and aspiring entrepreneurs. The 13 modules provide essential information on running a small business from a financial standpoint.

SCORE
This nonprofit association is dedicated to encouraging the formation, growth, and success of small businesses through counseling and mentor programs.

Small Business Development Centers Program
The U.S. Small Business Administration administers this program to provide management assistance to current and prospective small business owners.

Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Grant Program
The program offers free tax help to low- to moderate-income people who need help preparing their tax returns. Volunteers sponsored by various organizations receive training to help prepare basic tax returns in communities across the country. The program is an Internal Revenue Service initiative.

Economic Inclusion
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation provides information, based on census data, on the U.S. households that are unbanked or underbanked, their demographic characteristics, and their reasons for being unbanked and underbanked.

Financial Health Network
The network’s mission is to transform the U.S. financial services marketplace to help underbanked consumers achieve financial prosperity.

American Bankers Association
The association provides bankers with the tools to help young people gain the skills they need to become financially astute. The tools cover saving, budgeting, and credit and are designed for students from kindergarten through college.

Building Your Future
The nonprofit Actuarial Foundation offers “Building Your Future,” a financial literacy curriculum resource for high school teachers.

Council for Economic Education
This council provides personal finance and economics education through classroom curriculums and online. For example, its Financial Fitness for Life curriculum presents key concepts in economics and personal finance, using a variety of real life examples appropriate to particular age groups.

Earn to Learn
This college savings-scholarship program is for college-bound students in Arizona.

Financial Aid Toolkit for Counselors
This website that consolidates Federal Student Aid resources into a searchable online database intended for use by organizations and individuals who interact with, support, or counsel students and families on making financial preparations for post-secondary education. Federal Student Aid is office under the U.S. Department of Education.

Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy
This organization maintains a clearinghouse of resources that seek to promote financial literacy.

Junior Achievement
This organization brings volunteers into the classroom to make economic concepts relevant for students in kindergarten through 12th grade. Junior Achievement offers financial literacy programs at every grade level in the classroom and after school.

LifeSmarts
This program, sponsored by the National Consumers League, enlists the support of local partners to help teens become wise consumers. The game-show style competition is for students in sixth grade through high school. The program complements the curriculum used in many middle schools and high schools and can be used as a rewarding and fun activity for classes, groups, clubs, and community organizations.

Money Math: Lessons for Life
This curriculum supplement is for seventh through ninth grade students. The lessons address math concepts using real-world financial scenarios. The curriculum supplement was created by a diverse partnership of private companies, nonprofit organizations, and the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Money Smart for Young People
This is a curriculum from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation features four free curriculums that are designed to promote financial understanding in young people.

National Academy Foundation
The foundation sponsors the Academy of Finance, a school-to-career curriculum operating in 40 states and 300 high schools, serving over 20,000 students. The OCC partners with schools or school districts in 28 locations across the country to support academies of finance. Banks serve as advisory board members to local affiliates and employ hundreds of students every summer through the academy’s internship program.

OCC Bulletin 2015-16, Youth Savings Programs: Guidance to Encourage Financial Institutions' Youth Savings Programs and Address Related Frequently Asked Questions (Updated November 9, 2017)
The interagency guidance answers common questions, including those related to Customer Identification Program requirements, that may arise as banks, savings associations, and credit unions collaborate with schools and other community stakeholders to facilitate youth savings and financial education programs

OCC Community Developments Insights: School-Based Bank Savings Programs: Bringing Financial Education to Students
This report discusses how school-based bank savings programs operate.

Resource Guide for Financial Institutions: Incorporating Financial Capability Into Youth Employment Programs (PDF)
This Financial Literacy and Education Commission fact sheet is aimed at financial institutions interested in enhancing youth financial capability by partnering with youth employment programs. The fact sheet highlights how financial institutions can engage in and the importance of helping young people achieve greater financial well-being and employment success.

Resource Guide for Youth Employment Programs: Incorporating Financial Capability and Partnering With Financial Institutions (PDF)
This Financial Literacy and Education Commission fact sheet is aimed at youth employment programs interested in enhancing youth financial capability by partnering with financial institutions. The fact sheet highlights how youth employment programs can partner with and the importance of financial institutions helping young people achieve greater financial well-being and employment success.

Stock Market Game
The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association Foundation sponsors this online simulation of the global capital markets designed for students in fourth grade through high school. The game introduces student to economics, investing, and personnel finance.

Studentaid.gov
This website from the U.S. Department of Education’s office of Federal Student Aid provides information on obtaining money for higher education, including preparing for college, types of aid, qualifying for aid, applying for aid, and managing student loans.

Working With Students and Young Consumers
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau offers information to those working to help students, young adults, and their families manage their money, build credit, save or pay for college, and repay student debt.