Through its flagship investor education program, The Stock Market Game™, the SIFMA Foundation has engaged 18 million students in grades 4-12 from diverse backgrounds in learning about the benefits of saving and investing, capital formation, and the financial markets.
The SIFMA Foundation provides acclaimed financial education programs that increase individuals’ understanding of and access to the benefits of the global marketplace. Its programs prepare young people academically and experientially for college and careers. From their education objectives, to their first home, to retirement, students who have participated in the Foundation’s programs are equipped to plan, save, and finance their life goals and dreams. The Foundation’s educational resources immerse young people (and their teachers) in the global economy as problem solvers and decision makers and connect them to business, government, nonprofit, and education leaders.
The eager adoption of our Stock Market Game program in schools across the country helped us understand the needs of teachers and their students. To help teachers impart essential math skills we developed the “Math Behind the Market” activity book that contextualized the math students learned in textbooks to the real-world management of an investment portfolio. To assist English language art (ELA) teachers, we launched our InvestWrite® national essay challenge. Our invitational Capitol Hill Challenge™ national portfolio competition was created to engage members of Congress in the remarkable personal finance teaching being provided by their district’s teachers and administrators. Our newest program, Invest It Forward®, is a financial industry volunteer initiative that connects financial industry volunteers with local classrooms in their communities to provide students with much needed experiential lessons in saving and investing as well as college and career insights.
WHAT WE OFFER
- The Stock Market Game™ Program
For many grade 4-12 students The Stock Market Game is the first time they have been given the responsibility of managing money and making decisions about how that money is used. As evidenced in a FINRA-funded study, for many teachers The Stock Market Game is an effective tool for increasing their students’ financial literacy and math proficiency. Students in The Stock Market Game are tasked with building a successful investment portfolio by investing a hypothetical $100,000 in stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. As they do this, they practice critical thinking, research, and subject skills (including ELA and math). Students also develop an understanding of saving, investing, and the fundamentals of how the capital markets work and why. Through innovations like our mobile app, teachers have “flipped” their classrooms, using The Stock Market Game as a blended learning program to engage more than 600,000 students across all 50 states and around the world in learning about the financial markets, the U.S. economic system, and personal finance. See how well it works for yourself by registering for an enrichment session or a summer Stock Market Game session. For more information visit https://www.stockmarketgame.org/. - InvestWrite®
The InvestWrite national essay competition is an opportunity for Stock Market Game students to practice their academic skills and apply their newly acquired financial knowledge to proposing solutions to common economic and financial challenges. InvestWrite is an effective summative and writing assessment tool for teachers. There are three competitive divisions organized by grade level in InvestWrite. This spring students were introduced to the term “ESG (environmental, social, and governance) investing” and asked to evaluate companies that deliver both social and financial returns to their investors. They conducted research, evaluated data, and shared their thoughts in engaging essays that were judged by thousands of financial industry professionals and educators. Since it debuted, more than 225,000 students have sought the InvestWrite prize. For more information visit https://www.investwrite.org/. - Capitol Hill Challenge™
The Capitol Hill Challenge is a national invitation-only portfolio competition that matches Stock Market Game schools with their members of Congress. Just like in their local Stock Market Game, teams invest a hypothetical $100,000 in stocks, bonds, and mutual funds with the goal of building a successful investment portfolio. They are challenged to actively manage their portfolio over the course of 14 weeks, balancing and rebalancing their investments for maximum performance. The top-performing high school and middle school teams earn a trip to Washington, D.C., to meet their members of Congress, tour financial landmarks, and learn first-hand about financial policymaking. Since its inception in 2004, more than 125,000 students across the country have participated in the Capitol Hill Challenge. This year’s Capitol Hill Challenge is presented by the Charles Schwab Foundation. For additional information visit https://www.stockmarketgame.org/capitol-hill-challenge.html - Invest It Forward™
Since it began, more than 125,000 industry professionals have volunteered to “Invest It Forward” by sharing their professional experiences with Stock Market Game students across the country. The SIFMA Foundation’s Invest It Forward program connects financial industry professionals with Stock Market Game teachers to bring the curriculum to life through their firsthand experiences in the financial industry. Lessons and activities specifically created for Invest It Forward and developed in partnership with the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis ensure productive and engaging discussions between financial industry volunteers and Stock Market Game students. Invest It Forward is an industry-wide initiative encompassing hundreds of financial firms that are committed to giving young people a solid understanding of the capital markets and the tools to achieve their dreams. For more information visit https://investitforward.sifma.org/
WHAT WE NEED
Please join us in our mission to foster an understanding of the financial markets for individuals of all backgrounds.
Teachers
- Register your students in one of our enrichment sessions. You can register your students anytime during this session. To get started visit https://www.stockmarketgame.org/
- If your students are already in our Stock Market Game, submit a request for a financial professional to visit your classroom or connect with one online via video chat or email. Additional information is available at https://investitforward.sifma.org/
- Share our information with your colleagues and your students’ parents. Ask them to consider registering their summer school class or company’s interns in our summer sessions. Click “View Programs in My Area” for your local Stock Market Game program: http://registration.smgww.org
- Share your stories with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or Twitter. We want to know how you use the program in your classroom and the impact it has had on your students. You can find us on social media by searching for “@sifmafoundation.” Search “SIFMA Foundation” to find us on LinkedIn.
Financial Professionals
- If you participated in our Stock Market Game or another one of our programs while you were in grades 4-12, please share your story with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or Twitter. We welcome learning about your experiences. You can find us on social media by searching for @sifmafoundation. Search “SIFMA Foundation” to find us on LinkedIn. You also can email Vincent Young at vyoung@sifma.org
- Register to be an Invest It Forward volunteer and share your industry knowledge with our eager students. Sign up at https://investitforward.sifma.org/
- Share our information with your colleagues, family, or friends with school-age children. Consider registering your summer interns for our summer sessions. Click “View Programs in My Area” for your local Stock Market Game program: http://registration.smgww.org
Funders
- There are branded opportunities to support financial education with measured outcomes. Be promoted as a supporter of the SIFMA Foundation and its youth financial education programs in various marketing materials, SIFMA Foundation websites, and at nationwide SIFMA Conferences attended by thousands of financial professionals and cross-sector leaders, where information about the SIFMA Foundation and its supporters is distributed. Contact Jenn Moore for details at jmoore@sifma.org
- National and state level sponsorships are available, including support of low- and moderate-income communities, girls, minorities and other under-represented populations. The SIFMA Foundation reaches 600,000 students annually across the county in all 50 states, enabling your support to make a difference in the communities where your employees live and work. For details contact Jenn Moore at jmoore@sifma.org
- Quickly scale up your employee engagement program with skills-based volunteer activities. Through our Invest It Forward program, we offer tens of thousands of volunteer opportunities annually on a sliding scale of engagement, ranging from hands-on classroom instruction to speaking at award ceremonies to virtual essay grading. To get started visit https://investitforward.sifma.org/
WHAT’S NEW
- Are you a Stock Market Game Alumni?
Did you participate in our Stock Market Game in school? Did you bubble-in trades on a scan sheet every week and hand them into your teacher? Maybe you looked up companies in a newspaper and wrote the name of the company and the numbers of shares you wanted to buy or sell on a worksheet your teacher gave you? Did your team win The Stock Market Game or the Capitol Hill Challenge? Did you submit a first, second, or third place InvestWrite essay? If you can answer “Yes” to any of these questions please get in touch with us via one of our social media assets or email Vincent Young at vyoung@sifma.org to share your story with us. - Register for an Enrichment or Summer Stock Market Game Session
It’s never too late to provide your students with lessons in personal finance and investing. Complete your students’ academic year by registering them in one of our enrichment sessions or prevent summer learning slide by registering for our summer Stock Market Game. The Stock Market Game is an interdisciplinary activity where students can see all the math and ELA content they are learning being used in real-world activities. To register today visit https://www.stockmarketgame.org/ - Invest It Forward
If you are a teacher with a class already participating in The Stock Market Game, request a financial industry volunteer to come speak with them. Classes who have invited one of our volunteers to speak with them can attest to the impact of first-hand accounts about college, career, and the material they’ve been studying as they play The Stock Market Game. To request your volunteer visit https://investitforward.sifma.org/
CLEARINGHOUSE RESOURCES
CONNECT WITH US
Share your Stock Market Game, InvestWrite, Invest It Forward, or Capitol Hill Challenge experiences with us. Look for “@sifmafoundation” on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Search LinkedIn for “SIFMA Foundation” to like our Showcase page.
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/sifmaFoundation/
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/sifmafoundation/
Twitter – https://twitter.com/sifmafoundation
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/11766960/
Be sure to tag @sifmafoundation and use our program hashtags: #stockmarketgame, #investwrite, #capitolhillchallenge, #investitforward so we can like and comment on your posts.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Vincent Young
212-313-1296
vyoung@sifma.org
