brennan-king

[brennan-king]

Recap and Closure

As I begin writing this there are exactly 17 days, 7 hours, 9 minutes, and 52 seconds between me and the first day of my second-year at the University of Chicago. While I'm totally pumped to head back to school, it is a sort of bittersweet pumped-ness (pumped-ness...is that a thing?). I'll try to explain: The Sweet:

Great friends back at school

Awesome classes

Wrestling starts soon

The Bitter:

Less time for music

I'll miss my family and friends back home

The end of my internship with Moneythink

While some of these are a bit self-explanatory, I thought I'd touch on the last bit in this post; why I'm going to miss being a part of the Moneythink National team.

Since Moneythink incubates out of UChicago's Booth School of Business, I'm really not going to be too far away and I'll still be able to stay in close contact with the team. Even so, I've learned a tremendous amount and had some incredible experiences working for Moneythink this summer. I'm going to miss being a part of all that, but I'm looking forward to applying these lessons and experiences in other areas of my life and seeing where things will take me from here. I thought I'd focus this post around those experiences, lessons, and my general takeaways from my work this summer with Moneythink and the Show Me Campaign.  SLI Update: 

Before I get to that however I believe I owe you all an update! If you recall my last post, I left you right as we were in the midst of preparing for Moneythink's biggest event of the summer, our 2013 Summer Leadership Institute. If any of you were worried about our teams' health, morale, or dangerously high caffeine levels during the hurricane that was SLI preparation I'd like to put your concerns at ease. The event went tremendously well and left our organization prepared and inspired to carry out our mission to deliver financial education in the coming school year! I've included some photos and highlights below: 

Moneythinkers pose with the $25,000 grant awarded to Moneythink by State Farm. KA-CHING!!

  Speakers Joshua Sledge and Brad Wynn share their incredible experiences in the worlds of finance and education.

  National team leaders Ted, Joe, and Chirag outline Moneythink's plan of action for the months to come.

  Moneythink gettin' paper! SLI 2013 featured in the Chicago Tribune!

  Our incredible student chapter leaders from universities across the country all gathered in Chicago to plan, share experiences, and learn.

Thoughts on SLI:

Since Chirag and I were the operational heads behind SLI it was awesome to see the conference come together and really go above and beyond our expectations. While the week before SLI was probably one of the most nerve-wracking in my entire life, I'm really glad I was able to play such a large role in the process and it was an enormous confidence booster for me. Here is a graphical representation of this before and after effects:

These types of experiences are what I will probably miss most about working with Moneythink. When Chirag told me I would be playing a huge role in putting the conference together I initially thought he meant in the typical interny sense of I-tell-you-exactly-what-to-do-and-you-do-it. It took me a while to realize how serious he was about my co-heading the event. The immensity of the task ultimately set in when I realized a few things:

Our team was very small and there was a TON of work do be done. There was no way I would be just tackling small tasks and no time for someone to guide me every step of the way.

Roughly 70 college students would be arriving in Chicago on August 8th expecting food, housing, and a professionally run conference whether I was ready for them or not.

Coming to terms with the situation put me right about at the chart on the left. I began scouting event and housing venues like mad, calling, emailing, and visiting restaurants for food donations, drafting operational schedules, preparing conference materials, etc. etc. Some of these were tasks I would have not previously deemed myself capable of handling successfully (for instance, convincing restaurants to give me enough free food for the entire 3 day conference). Because I was just sort of thrust in to action however, I didn't have a chance to doubt myself. Whether I believed I could pull it off or not, the conference was going to happen.  Ultimately everything went absolutely stellar and our team was totally stoked with the end result. While I learned how to do a ton of new things throughout the process, it was ultimately the confidence I received from pulling it off that I found most valuable. While putting together the event might not seem like much to some, and there are surely people I know who could have made it happen with their eyes closed, I would have never entertained the idea that I was one of those people beforehand. I think experiences like this, the ones that thrust us out of our comfort zones, are extremely valuable and conducive to growth. Fortunately I've realized I don't have to stop having these experiences just because I'm no longer working with Moneythink. One of my goals for the coming school year is to put myself in these situations frequently and see what sort of doors open up. Other Lessons: While I consider confidence probably the most important thing I've gained from the internship there are so many other valuable do's and don'ts I've picked up along the way. I've included some of the ones  most important to me below.

Do...

Learn from everything. Golden rule.

Take calculated risks often. To clarify, by calculated I'm not trying to say take small/cautious risks. I mean look at the situation's potential outcomes practically and if the upside outweighs the downside than go for it.

Network. It's like a super power. Can save you tons of time too.

Be concise

Be honest with yourself

Be honest with others and productively confrontational. Hard to make progress without this.

Prioritize action. Better to act than to freeze.

Over-communicate. Infinitely preferable to the alternative.

Pay close attention to details

Take genuine interest in others. Genuine.

Look out for yourself. In the grand scheme of things no one else will.

Don't...

Take things personally

Get too comfortable

Waste time

Hold grudges

Burn bridges

In addition to trying to surprise myself constantly this school year I hope to test these guidelines as well and see how they hold up in reality. So far though, at least during my time with Moneythink, I've found them to be pretty reliable.

Final Reflections:

To be honest I wasn't so sure about spending my summer with Moneythink at first. After my first year of college there was nothing that sounded better than heading back to Oregon, picking up some 9-5 minimum wage summer job, and just catching up with friends and family. Additionally, the financial prospect of renting an apartment for the summer in order to complete an unpaid internship was pretty discouraging (as awesome as Moneythink's program is).

For all these doubts though I couldn't have been more pleased with the decision I made and the results it brought. I learned an immense amount, connected with individuals that I'll stay in contact with for years to come, and more than anything else I was able to help Moneythink make some serious progress on their mission to restore the economic health of the United States through financial education. Thank you:

While I'm incredibly thankful to the Moneythink team for all their help and guidance, it was really the Show Me Campaign that made all of this possible. This summer I was able to learn an enormous amount about myself and the world around me, all while helping a terrific organization do terrific things. There is not an enormous amount of resources in the non-profit space and I'm so glad there are organizations like the Show Me Campaign seeking to change that. It would have been a significant financial burden for me to rent an apartment in Chicago for the summer in order to take on an unpaid internship (while simultaneously forgoing the income a job back home would bring) and I likely wouldn't have been able to complete the internship without the stipend provided to me by the Show Me Campaign. Thank you so much for the opportunity, I've had a truly incredible summer as a fellow and will carry these experiences with me for the rest of my life.

Best,

Brennan King

P.S: I've had a lot of fun keeping a blog this summer and found the practice to be a great tool for personal reflection. I plan to continue the blog, on tumblr or another site, so keep your eyes open for an update here if you'd like to stay in touch! Don't Forget!

Like the Show Me Campaign! https://www.facebook.com/showmecampaign

Like Moneythink! https://www.facebook.com/moneythink

[brennan-king]

The Not-So Calm Before the Storm

Note: Before you jump into this post I'd just like to note that I'm on the quarter system at the University of Chicago. We start school fairly late so I still have quite a ways to go with Moneythink and the Show Me Campaign this summer. Stay tuned for additional blog posts!

In exactly one week a storm will be upon our small, but dedicated, Moneythink National Team. It will likely be the most difficult challenge we have faced this entire summer...and we couldn't be more excited!!

Wait, what?

You heard me. We. Are. STOKED. That's because this storm is not the typical blow-in-and-knock-your-house-down type. Instead its the bunch-of-student-leaders-get-together-and-do-something-awesome kind. From August 8th through August 11th we are hosting our second-annual Moneythink Summer Leadership Institute.

Summer-whatchamacallit??

The Moneythink Summer Leadership Institute is essentially a conference of all the Moneythink student chapter leaders from universities around the country. We bring them together for a weekend of bonding, education, and training to ensure that we are all on the same page mission-wise and able to offer a quality program in as consistent a manner as possible. 70 Moneythink mentors and chapter leaders from universities around the country will all be colliding in Chicago for what is sizing up to be an exciting and life-changing conference.

Moneythinkers at last years SLI

That being said our excitement is coupled with a healthy amount of...er...panic. With less than 7 days before these eager mc'beavers start showing up to learn everything there is to know about Moneythink, financial literacy, and how to spread it, we have A LOT to get done. Like...a lot, a lot.

To give you a taste, here are a few things on our to-do list for the next seven days:

Finalize food donations and catering arrangements to feed a small army of college students for three days

Finalize hostel contracts

Finalize the schedule of events for the conference

Finalize details for all our ballin' guest speakers

Gift baskets for all our attendees

Website updates

Finish our new curriculum

Prepare a million-bajillion workshops for our mentors

Make sure we have all materials we'll need on hand

Print tons of Moneythink swag

You're still reading this list? Wow, I'm impressed!

Launch an online store

Launch a crowd funding campaign

TONS OF OTHER STUFF

Basically we won't be sleeping for the next 168 hours

But you know what? It's totally cool, cause we have coffee and we're awesome. Except for Chirag. He's awesome but too much caffeine goes against his "Healthiest Man in the World" code (See introductory post for details on this). 

Chirag also happens to be the operational lead on SLI. He has been showing me the ropes on proper event planning.

Late nights at Booth! Expecting a few more of these before SLI happens

What I'm trying to say is that as stressful as things are right now, we're not concerned because we all recognize that we have the opportunity to do something absolutely amazing here. This conference provides a chance to connect with our mentors, the very core of our organization, in a way we rarely get the chance to during the school year. Bringing these incredible individuals together in one place represents such a unique opportunity for us to all get out of our comfort zones, exchange ideas, and challenge each other in a way that will ultimately promote growth on a personal and organizational level.

Additionally, while long-distance communication has become exponentially less of a problem over the years, there are still certain things that we just wouldn't be able to communicate to our Moneythinkers without them being here in person. Having our organization come together in a physical setting provides us with the chance to inspire and ignite each other...to firmly instill the sense that, together, our actions and passion can have a very positive and very tangible effect on the world around us.  Have you ever tried conveying something like that in an email? I don't want to say it's impossible but it's pretty close to it. Heck, I have trouble simply letting my mom know I'm still alive at college over email (sorry Mom, working on it). That's why our Summer Leadership Institute is so important. It gives us a chance to come together, share an experience, and get seriously passionate about the direction we're headed as an organization and as individuals.

Not Done Yet

As cool as this all sounds in theory, we have a TON of work to do before this vision can become a reality! This is only our second SLI ever and it's going to be almost 3 times as large as our first so there is still a tremendous amount to be done before next Thursday. I'll be sure to update you guys with a comprehensive post right after the event but until then I gotta get back to the mountain of to-do's that Chirag and I have to...um..do. About 144 hours to go as I'm finishing this post!!! 

Until next time!

Brennan

Don't forget to:

Like the show me campaign on Facebook! I've been having an absolutely incredible summer and it wouldn't have been possible without the tremendous amount of help they have given me! I'll be posting more with them this summer so be sure to stay tuned!! https://www.facebook.com/showmecampaign

And Moneythink! https://www.facebook.com/moneythink

[brennan-king]

BRACE FOR IMPACT!!!

Whoa there! No need to panic! It's just me here and the only impact you should be bracing for is the preliminary impact data we just finished analyzing over here at Moneythink. There's still a lot to be done with it but I've found the process so far to be pretty rewarding and thought I might fill you guys in!

What am I talking about exactly?

Well, as you might recall from my introductory post, Moneythink is an educational non-profit that seeks to empower and inspire youths by offering financial literacy and entrepreneurship courses in high schools around the United States. Due to the nature of this work the quality of our curriculum is hugely important to us.

In fact, it's so important to us that our curriculum is absolutely perfect!

...is what I would tell you if I was a) a liar and b) a pessimist because:

a) It's pretty darn good but still hasn't reached the level we want it at.

b) Thing's can always get better!

We are constantly trying to assess the strengths and weaknesses of our curriculum and frequently making adjustments we feel will take our organization to the next level.

One of the ways we do this is by administering pre- and post-course surveys for both our students and mentors. The results of these tests help us to form a solid idea of the things we are doing well and the things that we could be doing better.

To give a few examples, here are some things that are going well:

2X improvement in student financial literacy test scores by end of the program.

99% of mentors felt their communication skills improved.

31% increase in household discussions of money management.

65% of students felt substantially more prepared for financial independence by the end of the program.

93% of Moneythink mentors expressed interest in continuing to mentor students after college.

30% increase in amount of students who reported actively planning for their financial futures.

 Here are some things that aren't going so well:

1% decrease in students with savings accounts.

7% decrease in students planning to go to college.

33% of students reported feeling less certain about their future.

So how do you go from surveys to this and what happens next?

Good questions, and ones I know the answers to quite well! In fact I know the first half of this process a lot better than I'd like to. When I say that I'm referring to these bad boys:

Moneythink may be a non-profit but we're still rolling in fat stacks...of financial literacy and entrepreneurial post-program surveys that is.

While most of our pre- and post-surveys can be administered online these days thanks to the wonders of the world wide web, there are still a significant amount of schools we work with that do not have the resources to provide enough computers for their students to use. In cases such as these we rely on paper tests. That's where I came in this spring. One of my tasks during the school year was the consolidation of these physical surveys into Microsoft Excel so that we could process them with the rest of the already digital surveys.

Right now you might be thinking "Gee, entering all those surveys in sounds awfully boring." In a lot of ways, YOU'D BE RIGHT.

Data entry was, in all honesty, less interesting than the other things I was working on in the Spring such as operational strategy or curriculum analysis. At the same time however, it was tremendously awesome in a lot of ways:

a) By going through all of these surveys one answer at a time I was able to develop an intuition for and pretty deep understanding of how students and mentors felt about our program. This means that now, in the summer, I am getting to work on all sorts of awesome stuff for which this knowledge is prerequisite, such as curriculum development or actual data analysis.

b) I now know more Excel hot keys than I ever would have thought existed.

c) I got to listen to A TON of awesome electronic mixes and podcasts while I was working on this. I can't do school work to music so this project made for a nice break now and then.

and

d) Regardless of how tedious the process was, this stuff is just absolutely critical to our success. The feedback from our classrooms (resource strapped ones in particular,) is crucial if we are to make the improvements necessary to realize our vision of eradicating financial illiteracy in the U.S by 2030.

This process enables us to do all the cool stuff that comes next.

By "cool stuff" I mean the part where we are done processing the data and it starts to become actually useful. This is where I get to start working with awesome people like..

Diego Gonzalez-Medina Our awesome data analysis wizard. I'm assisting Diego as he does his thing in programs like Stata and have been learning quite a bit a long the way!

and...

Joe Duran

I introduced Joe in my last post but a true champion like Joe calls for reintroduction. Joe is the genius behind our constantly improving programs and I've been working with him on updating the curriculum and improving our organizations operational execution.

While we're still in the process of breaking all this down the preliminary stats I listed earlier do provide some interesting insights. 

Take-Away's from Pros:

It's awesome to see that we are hitting some key areas well and the program seems to be having the overall intended effect! Students leave with higher literacy and a better understanding of how to manage their personal finances. Additionally the 31% increase in discussions of money management in households is promising as well as it indicates students seem eager to discuss what they have learned and will spread the knowledge they have acquired to others around them. It's also encouraging to see the substantial impact we are having on our undergraduate mentors. While these students will not always be Moneythink mentors, the results indicate an interest in furthering our cause regardless of where life takes them after college. 

Take-Away's from Cons:

As exciting as the pros are in any situation, it often seems that the cons are just as important to pay attention to, if not more so. These are the areas in which we have the opportunity to improve, to become something spectacular. The more negative results of our surveys are particularly interesting when one considers the positive stats that accompany them. The program on average doubles students financial literacy scores but at the same time the amount of students with savings accounts remains relatively unchanged. The majority of students feel much more prepared to handle financial independence but at the same time 33% of students feel less certain about their future than they did before. Relevant to this also, 7% less say they plan on going to college. Why these stats are concerning to me is that they seem to indicate our program is solidly functional in one aspect, teaching financial life skills, but deficient in what I believe to be far more important, the inspiration of young minds. I think that's too bad and something we really need to push and strive for in the future. While students are technically becoming more financially literate, these skills must be accompanied by an inspiration and a sense of opportunity if they are to have a meaningful and lasting impact on students lives. For instance, the lack of students opening savings accounts is discouraging. On paper, they all seem to know its important. In reality, something is missing, students are not taking this skill and applying it outside the classroom. In some ways I think the program may be overwhelming students rather than inspiring them (as reflected perhaps in the decline of students planning to go to college). I have no doubts however that our team will be able to address these issues and create a curriculum that is both tremendously inspiring and still enormously informative. I think the result will be something truly awesome and I can't wait to see it!

Closure for now

While we are still working on the analysis of additional surveys I believe these preliminary insights have provided some awesome information that will help us improve tremendously as an organization. This whole project has given me a new-found and enormous respect for the amount of work that goes into analytics and the tremendous value this kind of information provides. I hope you've found the process interesting as well and will check back in weeks to come for updates on our progress!

All the best,

Brennan

[brennan-king]

Quick Request!

3 quick things you should do before you close this page! Under a minute I promise!

1) Follow this tumblr so I can keep you guys up to speed on my summer with Moneythink!!

2) Follow the Show Me Campaign tumblr (http://showmefellows.tumblr.com) so you can keep up to speed on the activities of the other awesome fellows!!

3) Like the Moneythink (https://www.facebook.com/moneythink) and Show Me Campaign (https://www.facebook.com/showmecampaign) Facebook pages! Absolutely awesome stuff!!

[brennan-king]

Allow Me to Introduce Myself...

My name is Brennan and there are a few things you probably should know about me:

I'm 19 years old.

I just finished my first year studying economics at the University of Chicago.

I'm originally from Corvallis, OR.

There are also some other things you might actually want  to know about me:

I really, really love music, particularly electronic (listening to some EDC sets as I write this!).

I like to mountain bike, snowboard, and I wrestle for the University of Chicago.

I'm trying to learn as much as I can about entrepreneurship.

This summer I'm interning at Moneythink, an absolutely awesome educational non-profit based in Chicago, IL.

I'm going to make an assumption... of the items mentioned above you are probably most familiar with music. I'm going to hazard a second guess and say that you also probably have at least a decent understanding of mountain biking, snowboarding, wrestling, and entrepreneurship. You probably don't, however, know what Moneythink is. So why don't I start there?

At the heart of things Moneythink is a solution, a way to address one of the major deficiencies in the U.S education system. Currently there are only 13 states that require students to take a personal finance course to graduate. Meanwhile, for a variety of reasons, the number of young adults declaring bankruptcy has increased 96% over the past 10 years. In times of increasingly complex financial systems and rising college tuition costs it seems negligent to leave high school students in the U.S so poorly prepared for the future.

That's where our work at Moneythink comes in. Moneythink is an educational non-profit aiming to make financial capability a social norm in the United States by 2030. To realize this vision Moneythink places top college students in high schools around the nation to lead 10-week courses in financial literacy and entrepreneurship. They college mentors help students develop critical life skills such as money management, leadership, and goal setting, equipping them with the tools they need and inspiring them to build their own future. We believe that as these students build a better future for themselves they will in turn be able to build a better future for those around them.

Step 1: Find awesome students that know about finance and entrepreneurship.

Step 2: Put them in classes with awesome students that don't.

Step 3: Watch the magic happen!

Sounds simple enough right? WRONG!

An organization like Moneythink is only as capable as the talented individuals it is made of. The Moneythink national team operates out of the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business and I am super stoked to be working with them this summer for several reasons:

A) The work atmosphere is incredible. I am constantly learning new things and you never know what's going to happen. Just the other day for instance Sebastian Marshall, an incredibly talented entrepreneur, writer, and blogger (www.Sebastianmarshall.com), came into our office and gave some other interns and myself what I think was probably the equivalent of a college course in sales in about 2 hours. Just WOW.

B) The team is enormously talented, a blast to work with, and passionate about the Moneythink mission! It's hard to keep up sometimes but their energy is inspiring and I try to stay on my A-game 24/7.

C) The building is absolutely INCREDIBLE (and more importantly air-conditioned!).

So you're probably wondering who these amazing people are, right? Well to be honest, an enormous effort like Moneythink takes an enormous amount of incredible people! That's code for "there's no way I can introduce you to all the awesome volunteers, chapter leaders, and advisors that make Moneythink what it is". What I can do however is introduce you to the team at Moneythink HQ that I'm working with this summer:

Ted Gonder: Co-Founder and Executive Director of Moneythink. Ted is a graduate of the University of Chicago, has successfully launched multiple non-profit organizations such as Project Cooldown and Moneythink, and is the most motivated and energetic individual I have met in my entire life (you'd understand if you saw his google calendar!).

Chirag Sagar: Managing director of Moneythink. Chirag is a graduate of USC, has coordinated several large scale events such as our first Summer Leadership Institute, and lead us to victory in several key grant competitions. He is also the strongest and healthiest man in the world.

Joe Duran: Program Director of Moneythink. Joe is a graduate of Miami University, the mastermind behind the constantly improving Moneythink curriculum, and Moneythink's financial guru. He is also the nicest guy on the planet. Probably off of the planet also now that I think of it. Joe is pretty freakin' nice!

Azita Sayadi: Azita is a business development intern and a rising senior, and president of the Moneythink chapter at UCLA. She is also the resident social media genius and helped us win a key grant competition earlier this year by getting Moneythink featured on some huge Facebook pages. Her unshakable optimism keeps us all in high spirits!

Lori Ossip: Lori is a journalistic intern, a rising third year, and on the Executive Board of the Moneythink chapter at the University of Chicago. This summer she is working with Azita to collect and compile stories from Moneythinkers all over the country which will then be used to inspire future Moneythink mentors, mentees, and supporters. She is also an incredibly talented opera singer and heads her own theater company back in Toronto, Canada (http://easystreetproductions.ca)!

Parth Dalal: Parth is a development intern and a rising sophomore at Northwestern University. He is a networking pro and leads the charge in connecting with potential donors and corporate sponsors. He is also a pretty hilarious guy and his observations are commonly followed by the rest of us dying of laughter (especially Chirag!). Forecast for Monday's commentary includes humorously cynical analysis of this blog post with a side of joking critiques of my grammar.

Myles Kahn: Myles will be starting at the University of Michigan this fall and hopes to be accepted into the prestigious Ross School of Business.  While he could only be with Moneythink for two weeks this summer Myles accomplished a lot, drafting an excellent recruiting and marketing guide for chapters and reaching out to potential corporate sponsors. Definitely a capable and ambitious dude with a bright future!

Brennan King (Me): Then there's me! I've already told you a bit about myself but I thought I'd extrapolate. I'm an operations intern with Moneythink and a rising second year at the University of Chicago. This summer I'll be working on the consolidation and analysis of student pre- and post-program surveys, the results of which we'll be using to make necessary adjustments to the Moneythink curriculum. I also do some media stuff in in Photoshop and work with all the other interns to make sure events come together, sponsorships are secured, and things generally run smoothly.

My interest in Moneythink stems mainly from a firm belief in the value of their mission as well as a love for the Moneythink mindset. I feel that the events of recent years have caused individuals to lose faith in increasingly complex financial systems and that Moneythink provides an essential service; the financial education necessary to navigate such systems. Additionally, I like that while Moneythink is a charitable organization it is one that offers people the tools to help themselves rather than simply providing a hand-out. I think such a model is more able to have a lasting impact and ensure the future success of the individuals it engages. Lastly, as I've previously mentioned, I really love the working atmosphere at Moneythink. The whole team is incredibly motivated, confident, and passionate about their work, constantly driving themselves and each other to be the absolute best they can be. As I am interested in pursuing a career in entrepreneurship myself I find this environment incredibly inspiring and a great one in which to learn.

As I continue my journey with the Moneythink team this summer I'll be updating this tumblr on a regular basis (I'm hoping to be posting content on a weekly basis at the very least) so stay tuned!! Before I go though I'd like to thank John Legend and the Show Me Campaign (http://showmefellows.tumblr.com/) immensely for making this experience a possibility for me. I'm so grateful to have this opportunity to pursue such meaningful and important work and I wouldn't be able to do it without the help you have given me.

Lastly there are a few quick things I need you to do before you close this page:

Please, under a minute I promise!

1) Follow this tumblr so I can keep you guys up to speed on my summer with Moneythink!!

2) Follow the Show Me Campaign tumblr (http://showmefellows.tumblr.com) so you can keep up to speed on the activities of the other awesome fellows!!

3) Like the Moneythink (https://www.facebook.com/moneythink) and Show Me Campaign (https://www.facebook.com/showmecampaign) Facebook pages! Absolutely awesome stuff!!

Till next time, 

Brennan