Moneythink Accepts Its Chicago Innovation Up-and-Comer Award
October 29, 2012
“SMS Assist, LLC were one of ten winners of the 11th annual Chicago Innovation Award for their creation of Real Time Vendor Management.”
1871, Belly, Food Genius among ‘Up and Comer’ honorees
October 23, 2012
“The companies that received “Up-and-Comer” awards at the 11th annual Chicago Innovation Awards last night range from software firms that already have hundreds of thousands of users to hard-science companies still hoping to move their technology from the laboratory to the marketplace.”
New Civic Accelerator Galvanizes Social Entrepreneurship & Impact Investing
October 17, 2012
“Startup incubators and accelerator programs appear to be the latest rage! You may have heard about one of the programs supporting entrepreneurs in a major city near you like TechStars, Y-Combinator, or MassChallenge (a personal favorite). Yet with all the hype and buzz about social entrepreneurship, few of these programs are entirely dedicated to scaling social impact and helping social ventures succeed.”
10 Winners At The Social Innovation Summit
June 4, 2012
“The $25,000 from Chase provides us with the seed funding needed to help measure how much our high school students are learning from our program, and how their financial habits are changing for the better after it. It will also allow us to expand our impact to more high schools and universities.”
College Students Focus Start-Ups on Their Peers
May 31, 2012
“We started asking, ‘Are any of the schools in the local areas doing anything to teach financial concepts? No,’” Gonder says. “‘Well, why don’t we leverage and mobilize all the students on our college campus who are already passionate about these concepts [and] send them into local urban high school classrooms?’”
Moneythink leads movement for financial literacy
May 21, 2012
Hales Franciscan is a partner of Moneythink, a UChicago-based non-profit that College students founded to teach financial literacy and entrepreneurship. The group places College mentors in South Side classrooms, offering free, weekly instruction.
Dangerous Combination: Student Debt is High and Financial Literacy is Low
April 26, 2012
Ted Gonder, co-founder of MoneyThink, a nonprofit financial education program for high school students, said he worried about the economic risks of ignoring the problem.
“Do we really want to see a repeat of what happened with the most recent recession?” he asked. “There were a lot of players involved in what happened, and one of those players was the consumer — consumers making uneducated, disenfranchised, unempowered financial decisions.”
White House Campus Champion Teaches Young Americans Financial Literacy, Entrepreneurship
April 13, 2012
A senior at the University of Chicago, Gonder has already worked with a dozen startups, spoken at the United Nations, the New York Stock Exchange, and the U.S. Senate Building, and helped lead multiple student movements.
But his most recent initiative is the award-winning Moneythink, for which Gonder was recently recognized as one of five White House Campus Champions of Change during a ceremony with President Obama. The program teaches young Americans about financial literacy through a unique mentorship arrangement.
USC Marshall Student Lauded at White House
April 11, 2012
“USC Marshall School of Business Chirag Sagar was honored at the White House on March 15 for his work on a pressing national issue – how to combat financial illiteracy by empowering high school juniors and seniors with the knowledge to understand personal finance.”
Celebrating The #WHchamps: Get To Know The Winners & How To Get Involved
March 16, 2012
Moneythink sets out to empower local urban high school students to build a better future through peer-mentoring in financial literacy and entrepreneurship education. In under three years, Moneythink has scaled to 17 urban campus communities nationwide, mentoring over 1,700 urban high school students by training over 300 college students to deliver 10-week courses in financial literacy and entrepreneurship education.
Abandoning Mediocrity and Seizing Opportunity
March 15, 2012
I’m honored to have Moneythink recognized as one of the five Champions of Change in the White House Campus Challenge. It’s surreal: three years ago, when Moneythink was just an idea, we dreamed of taking our passion—financial education through peer mentorship—to a national stage. We didn’t realize just how much more relevant our mission would become in those short three years.
University of Chicago student to be honored at the White House
March 13, 2012
On Thursday, March 15th, the White House will honor Ted Gonder from the University of Chicago as one of five young leaders being recognized as Champions of Change for outstanding leadership on their campus.
People Are Awesome: Chicago College Students Help High Schoolers Manage Their Money
June 13, 2012
Gonder and his friends banded together to create Moneythink, an initiative to put undergraduate financial mentors into urban high schools to chip away at the debt cycle—less as teachers with traditional curricula than as mentors with real world, relatable lessons they figured would resonate with their audience—think pop culture and professional sports.
GOOD Maker Winner: Mentorship Program Helps High School Students Keep Money in the Bank
March 2, 2012
It is disheartening, but perhaps unsurprising, that few American public schools in the are able to spare the funds to offer courses in financial literacy. Only 13 states require high school students to take a class in personal finance management before graduation, which does little to curb the staggering bankruptcy statistics among young adults. But Moneythink, winner of the Get Financially Fit Challenge on GOOD Maker, is looking to change that.
Moneythink on the verge of winning national competition
March 2, 2012
The University of Mississippi Moneythink chapter is votes away from becoming one of the winners of the Campus Champion of Change Challenge, a contest created by the White House.
Campus Champions Of Change: President Obama, MtvU Nominate Top 15 Students
March 2, 2012
When it comes to rewarding those who are combatting the nation’s most pressing issues, President Barack Obama is looking to the freshest of faces — college students.
After partnering with mtvU, a 24-hour college network for students, the White House announced the Campus Champions of Change contest last fall, which called for applications from students who are tackling some major problems, including hunger, empowering low-income kids and homelessness.
Moneythink
October 18, 2011
Moneythink teaches high school students financial literacy — how to manage money, a bank account and become entrepreneurs. It’s not been developed by a bank or money fund, but by five University of Chicago students as a non-profit with peer mentors who teach a ten-week curriculum. Five other colleges have started the program.
New CI group preaches money smarts
October 10, 2011
Many low-income students know all too well that money talks, but a new Community Impact program aims to teach students that money thinks too.
Meet the New Generation of Entrepreneurs
October 10, 2011
Starting a business is a challenge for anyone. But starting one when you’re a 19-year-old college student? That’s even harder. Yet that’s exactly what Ted Gonder did. Gonder, now 21 and a senior majoring in geography at the University of Chicago, is the co-founder and executive director of Moneythink, a nonprofit that trains college students to teach financial literacy and entrepreneurship in local urban high schools.
‘There’s a Lot of Pits to Fall Into, and It’s Easy to Overspend Your Money’
September 25, 2011
The University of Chicago is known for its economics faculty, which promotes the notion of a free-market economy and has been criticized as encouraging decisions that led to the current recession. Not far from the campus, the effects of the depressed economy are visible on Chicago’s South Side, with empty lots, foreclosed buildings, and high-interest lenders nearby.
Students teach finance to local high school students
April 6, 2011
Learning how to manage personal finances might not be on the minds of most high school students, but a group of USC students has started a volunteer organization on campus to teach local high schoolers how to do just that.
College students tackle financial illiteracy
April 6, 2010
In a dreary classroom overlooking a blighted block on the South Side, I watched three University of Chicago students teach seniors at Hales Franciscan High School the finer points of money management. I came expecting tips on budgeting and instead found that elusive place called “common ground.
UF students help local high schoolers understand finance
February 24, 2010
When Mayanna Hemenway heard that two UF students were visiting to teach her high school financial planning class, she said she pictured herself staring blankly, her mind numbed by material she didn’t care about.