Of all the days for Financial Literacy Month to start, it had to be April Fools’ Day. Honestly? We planned it this way. (We didn’t; but we’re choosing to believe we did.)
Here’s the thing about being a Fool that most people get wrong. The original court jester wasn’t just the butt of the joke. The Fool was often the only person in the entire kingdom brave enough to walk up to the king and tell him the truth to his face. While everyone else smiled and nodded, the Fool said what needed to be said and somehow kept their head.
That is the energy we are going for.
Currently, two in three Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. This is not because they are reckless or irresponsible; it is because the system that was supposed to teach them about money simply did not. Schools skipped it, parents who never had wealth could not pass down knowledge they did not have, and the financial industry spent decades using technical jargon to sound “smart.”
We have been working on that problem for a while now. Our goal is to ensure every person walks away feeling Smarter, Happier, and Richer. Here is where things stand:
We built a tool for the students nobody built one for
Ask a high schooler what a Roth IRA is. Actually, don’t; it is not their fault they do not know. Nobody told them.
The Freedometer is our answer to that. It is an interactive investing education tool built specifically for students who have never had anyone sit down and explain how the stock market works in plain English. No jargon, no assumptions, and no condescension[cite: 18, 19]. Just real simulations and real scenarios that make investing actually click.
This fall, it is heading into high school classrooms. Right now, the first modules are live and we are still building the thing. Which means if you try it today and tell us what you think, you are literally shaping what students get when they open it up in September. We genuinely want to know what works.
(Works best on desktop or tablet; mobile coming soon)
We found some nonprofits doing remarkable work and we’re all in
The ImpactFool Fund works like this: we find early-stage nonprofits doing genuinely important work to help people build financial freedom, and we back them properly. Each one gets $300,000 over three years, plus a real human from our team working alongside their leadership. This is about actual, sleeves-rolled-up support.
Two organizations are in the portfolio right now and we are genuinely proud of both of them:
- NeighborShare shows up for people when everything else has run out. One broken appliance, one unexpected bill, or one missed shift can tip a family into crisis. NeighborShare is there for that moment.
- Tzedek DC gives legal help and financial education to people dealing with debt. Going up against debt collectors without a lawyer is one of the most expensive things a person can do. Tzedek DC makes sure people do not have to walk into that fight alone.
Two more nonprofits are joining this summer. We cannot introduce them yet, but we really want to.
So yes, today is April Fools’ Day. It is also the start of Financial Literacy Month. We are going to spend a good chunk of it doing what we set out to do: asking uncomfortable questions, backing the organizations doing the real work, and building tools for the students that everyone else forgot to build them for.
The king has been nodding along for too long. We will see you out there.
Want to follow along this month?
The Freedometer goes into classrooms this fall, and two more IF Fund nonprofits join this summer. Subscribe and we will keep you in the loop as it all unfolds.
