The ability for one to manage their personal finances is a necessary skill for survival in an increasingly complex financial world where individuals are responsible for their own financial decisions. No longer do paternalistic bankers manage all the financial concerns for their customers. Today, people are required to make choices in retirement planning, money management, and savings. Failure to save and make wise money decisions has left many Georgians overwhelmed with financial difficulties, sometimes leading to bankruptcy.
The vision of the Consortium is to empower Georgians to make wise decisions as consumers encouraged by a supportive business community, educational institutions, media, legal and regulatory systems. The consequences of bad financial decisions are not limited to the individual person or company that is facing financial trouble but impact the entire community.
The Consortium approaches the issue of personal financial literacy without any age barriers and therefore needs to address education from multiple arenas and through a variety of distribution mechanisms.
The Consortium recognizes that there are many very good personal finance resources created by respected organizations and businesses working toward the same goal of personal financial literacy. It is not the intention of the Consortium to duplicate efforts of these existing organizations, but to foster working relationships between and among those agencies and organizations that can make a relevant impact on the objective at hand. The Georgia Consortium for Personal Financial Literacy sees the problem as twofold:
- The fragmented approach to making concerned citizens aware of these valuable resources.
- The lack of perceived need for personal financial education as a whole by individuals, business, organizations, agencies and schools.
To this end the Georgia Consortium for Personal Financial Literacy seeks to raise public awareness, develop an educational network of businesses and public agencies, track and present research findings, recognize best practices in a variety of arenas and serve as a type of Clearinghouse through which individuals and organizations can have access to resources, services, speakers, research results and programs.