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Jump$tart Coalition to Honor PwC for Innovation in Financial Literacy

The Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy will bestow its newest award recognizing innovation in financial literacy on PwC for its comprehensive and strategic approach to advancing financial literacy within the context of adapting to a changing world.

The award will be presented at Jump$tart’s Annual Awards Dinner, which recognizes accomplishments of individuals and organizations that are working to create a financially literate future. The event takes place April 5 at the Renaissance Washington, D.C., Downtown Hotel and is a central event during the Jump$tart’s Financial Literacy Month (#FLM2017) celebrations.

Terri McClements from PwC will be on hand to accept the award, which was created in 2016 as special recognition for Experian’s creative efforts to reach the next generation of consumers. This year, the award has been formalized and will become part of the coalition’s Annual Awards Dinner moving forward.

“While the Jump$tart Coalition and its partners have always focused on improving the financial literacy of our nation’s youth, we recognize that their world is changing rapidly, which means, to achieve our vision, we must keep up,” said Jump$tart Coalition CEO and President Laura Levine. “PwC’s collective effort has set a great example—and set the bar high—for innovative new ways to reach young people in ways that matter to them.”

One of the highlights of PwC’s outreach includes its work with Dee-1, a popular hip-hop artist and former middle-school math teacher – together they tackle the issue of student debt. Dee-1 paid off his student loans when he signed a record deal and has since been touring the country to perform his inspirational music. He has traveled around the United States with PwC to speak to high school and college students on the importance of understanding financial concepts, such as paying for college and choosing a meaningful career that leads to financial security.

“Finding innovative ways to engage students in conversations about money is an important part of helping them learn,” said McClements, Market Managing Partner for Washington Metro. “I saw how dramatically a little creativity can change the experience for students when PwC toured local schools with teacher-turned-rapper Dee-1. I’m proud of our drive and ability to constantly evolve in order to bring life skills to our communities.”

PwC’s work to expand financial literacy in 2016 went beyond impacting students; they also sponsor Knowledge@Wharton High School Seminars, which brings hundreds of educators together from across the US for an intensive learning experience, co-taught by Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania professors and PwC leaders, in Philadelphia, Chicago and San Francisco. Additionally, the firm launched a student loan paydown benefit for associate or senior associate level staff members. Designed to help reduce student loan principal and interest obligations by as much as $10,000 per employee, the benefit has the potential to shorten loan payoff periods by up to three years.

Complementing PwC’s commitment to improving financial literacy, the PwC Charitable Foundation launched the EYF™ Digital Lab – a dynamic, open-source, interactive digital financial education curriculum to increase the access of students, parents and guardians, and teachers to financial education materials.

About Jump$tart
The Jump$tart Coalition is a Washington, DC-based nonprofit organization that seeks to improve the personal financial literacy of students in pre-kindergarten through college. Jump$tart’s nearly 150 national partners and 51 affiliated state coalitions work individually and collectively to educate and prepare our nation’s youth for life-long financial success. Jump$tart is the original promoter of April as Financial Literacy Month and publisher of the National Standards in K-12 Personal Finance Education. For more information about the Jump$tart Coalition, go to jumpstart.org or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.