Twice in past few months I have had the pleasure of participating in discussions about recent activities of The Actuarial Foundation (TAF) and its plans for the future. Having spent about an hour with the ACOPA Leadership Council (LC) and TAF Executive Director Jason Leppin in August, one might think another hour plus with Jason at a meeting of presidents and current and soon-to-be presidents-elect of ACOPA, SOA, CCA and CAS, would feel a little repetitive. Quite the opposite. TAF has impressed me since I first paid attention to what it actually does, and I am really impressed with the direction it is moving heading into the future.
TAF provides a number of scholarships to promising actuarial students, which is, of course, a good thing to do. But the programs that get me excited about TAF’s activities are the youth programs. TAF provides excellent classroom resources to help teachers show students math can be really useful – and fun. The TAF partners with Scholastic to produce these programs. You can review them on the website, and I encourage you to take the time to do so.
Financial literacy is the subject of efforts from many organizations, but TAF is carving a niche out in the area of youth financial literacy. Courses are available for both middle and high school age students. (For just $250 you can provide the “Building Your Future” financial literacy materials for one high school classroom.) This is good, exciting, important work. And ACOPA is part of it.
Reading what I have written here, I realize I have not managed to convey the excitement I felt in discussing TAF and where it is headed. I am proud that it’s an actuarial foundation that is becoming a leader in helping to teach young adults about the real world of personal finance. I am very pleased that ACOPA is one of the sponsoring organizations. And I am happy to individually contribute to its efforts as well. If you are not already, I encourage you to get familiar with the work of TAF. It’s good stuff. And it’s us.
BTW, Joe Nichols, past president of ACOPA and current ASPPA president, is on the TAF board of directors. If you want to know more from someone who is very involved with TAF, corner Joe next time you see him at a conference. He loves to talk about TAF.
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