The Actuarial Foundation’s Educate.Connect.Change. Campaign
We’re excited to launch a special fundraising campaign commemorating The Actuarial Foundation’s 25th Anniversary. The Educate.Connect.Change. Campaign showcases the Foundation’s primary focus to educate in math and financial literacy, to connect students with actuaries and to prompt positive change in the lives of students. Educate.Connect.Change. kicked off officially at the end of October 2019. A five-year pledge period will follow, allowing for Educate.Connect.Change. to bookend the Foundation’s 25th and 30th anniversaries.
The Foundation’s Largest Personal Gift
The Actuarial Foundation recently announced its largest, single personal gift in the organization’s 25-year history. Robert Deutsch, FCAS, ASA, MAAA, informed the Foundation of his planned gift of $1 million. This transformational gift will allow The Actuarial Foundation to continue its tradition of providing lifelong math education and financial literacy to middle and high school students through its programs and scholarships.
Actuarial Mentors Needed!
The Actuarial Diversity Scholarship mentoring program links actuarial diversity scholarship recipients with actuaries who serve as mentors. The overall goal is to help these students acquire the knowledge needed to meet their goals of becoming actuaries. As one actuary mentor said, “If anything, it’s rewarding to learn about someone else. It’s also important to take pride in the profession and be a part of helping the next generation.”
If you would like to help college students on their paths to becoming actuaries, please sign up using the form at
soa.wufoo.com/forms/kq6citr1wn9oov/.
Building Your Future Financial Literacy Curriculum
Studies have shown that individuals who had taken a financial management class in high school had a better understanding of money management and saved more money. To meet this critical need and fulfill the Foundation’s vision of an educated public in pursuit of a secure financial future, we partnered with Young Minds Inspired, a leading provider of educational outreach programs to revamp the Building Your Future program. The revamp is intended to broaden the use of the Building Your Future program among teens and young adults while appealing to a more modern and tech-savvy audience. The revamped program was slated to launch at the end of August. Visit ymiclassroom.com/lesson-plans/byf/ to learn more about this vital program.
Hardest Math Problem Student Contest
The Actuarial Foundation’s Expect the Unexpected With Math® series, developed with Scholastic, is well-known for its distinct, interactive math resources. The Hardest Math Problem Student Contest is a middle school math competition designed to help students practice critical thinking supported by accurate computation. In its inaugural year, over 6,000 students participated in the contest. Congratulations to the winners of the 2018-2019 Hardest Math Problem Student Contest! We are gearing up for the second annual Hardest Math Problem student contest to start later this fall. See the following link for this year’s winners: actuarialfoundation.org/2019-hardest-math-problem-winners/.
Math Motivators
Winner of the 2018 American Society of Association Executives’ Power of A Summit Award, the Math Motivators tutoring program continues to expand and is now operating in 10 cities. We’ve increased the number of volunteer tutors from 200 to almost 1,000. We’ve gone from helping 310 students in six high schools to more than 700 students in more than 20 middle schools and high schools. Our goal is to continue to grow Math Motivators to 15 cities and increase our volunteer base to 3,000. Most importantly, we want to continue to help more students improve their math skills and introduce them to the actuarial profession. Volunteer to be a tutor by filling out the form at this link: soa.wufoo.com/forms/kq6citr1wn9oov/.
Modeling the Future Challenge
The second annual Modeling the Future Challenge was a huge success! A total of 191 teams participated, which included 873 high school junior and senior students. Student teams worked to develop mathematical models of how future cures or treatments for diseases may affect our lives. For a full recap of the Challenge, visit actuarialfoundation.org/2019-mtfc-recap/.
Climate change is the topic for the 2019-2020 Challenge and team registration opened on September 23. The success of the Modeling the Future Challenge is largely due to our volunteers. If you are interested in helping with outreach, mentoring or judging for the 2019-2020 Challenge, please fill out the volunteer form located at the following link: soa.wufoo.com/forms/kq6citr1wn9oov/.
Holly Monahan is marketing & communications specialist for The Actuarial Foundation in Schaumburg, Illinois.
