Money Confusion Hurts Families (Community Leadership Changes Outcomes)

What if the difference between generational struggle and generational stability starts with one local leader deciding to teach money differently? Today's conversation with Vince Shore, founder and CEO of the National Financial Educators Council. We will explore how local leaders influence family financial outcomes, why one-time workshops are not enough, how institutions can create sustainable financial education, and what measurable success looks like when communities treat financial literacy as part of their essential infrastructure. Welcome to the Small Business Credit Minute with S.E. Day, the podcast helping business owners build stronger business credit and real profit growth without the confusing finance speak. Remember, qualify first, apply second. Stay tuned, we'll be right back. In today's competitive world, your business deserves more than just hard work. It deserves the financial freedom to grow. Building business credit is the key to unlocking opportunities. With strong business credit, you can expand faster, invest smarter, and reduce your personal risk. Start building your business credit today because your dreams deserve the chance to grow, just like your business. Secure your spot at the next Small Business Credit Survival Bootcamp. Welcome back. Today's guest is Vince Sorb, founder and CEO of the National Financial Education Educators Council. It's an organization that focused on advancing financial literacy and educator standards. Vince has spent years helping people improve their financial capability through education and coaching, and I'm proud to say I'm one of those people. I became a certified financial educator through the council. So Vince, welcome to the show.

S.E., thanks for having me. It's always a pleasure talking to you and appreciate all your efforts in this space. You know, Financial Literacy Month is critical just to raise awareness, and I appreciate all you're doing to advance this cause and what you do in your daily life. So thanks for having me.

Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, Vince, our conversation matters because financial literacy is often treated like a personal issue when in reality it's a community issue. You know, with family-level consequences. And those consequences tend to bleed into the business ecosystem because how you do one thing is how you do everything. If you can't balance a checkbook at home, you're not going to be able to balance a checkbook in your business. So Vince, if you would, tell us a little bit about the council. What, what drove you to start the NFEC?

Well, 20 years ago, we started almost 20 years coming July. I came into the space leaving the financial service world, and in that world I saw people making some bad mistakes on a regular basis and repeating errors time and time again. And I consider myself always a very logical person. I like, you know, numbers and data, and I like to follow that lead. But what I realize is a lot of people aren't like that. In a different way. So, a lot of it's driven by behaviors, emotions, and things I wasn't really addressing in my financial service space. So, when I came into the space, I really wanted to help people early, right? That's why I love your children's book coming out. I'm excited to read that. But I came into the space focused on teens and youth because I wanted to help them proactively avoid the problems that I saw these adults get into. I wanted to proactively help them develop positive habits and behaviors that would would last them long into their life. And what I saw out there was, and after talking to tens of thousands of people in my financial service years, was that oftentimes the early mistakes people made carried over. And I'm not trying to sound melodramatic here, but for many of them, it destroyed their lives, meaning they never recovered, right? It might have been from student loan debt, Making simple credit mistakes, things that carried over, right? Even on the small business side, we saw a lot of people commingling funds, you know, not knowing where their money was coming or going. So, we saw a lot of issues there, and that's what I want to address on a proactive basis. Now, since then, we've expanded to serve all ages, right? And I think we started with youth just because working with adults, as you know, you get emotionally drawn in. You just want to help them. You see the problems there and you want to help. And it does, I think, take more challenge to work with adults. And with kids, there's a fresh slate. We can help them build a solid foundation and avoid those mistakes that even I got into when I was younger. Many people out there have. And that was really the vision when we started.

Well, Vince, you know, I— you spoke of the book, The Adventures of Finance and Literacy. And, you know, I wanted to work with the adults as well. But like you and I both know, Once you go through those formative years, the things that you heard about money or you didn't hear about money, they baked it in for you, right? So it's like cracking an, um, a walnut with your fingers, squeezing them together when you're dealing with adults. I, I'm with you. I just put it out there. Adults are harder because it's baked into them already, but the children are a wealth of just openness. Um, there was this guy years ago, I, I listened to him through, um, Napoleon Hill, and he talked about a guy named Billy Sunday. And Billy Sunday was a pastor, and Billy Sunday was one of those firebrand pastors. And he said, if you give me a child by the age of 5, I will plant a seed so deep in that child's head that by the time he's an adult, no one can change his mind because it has become a part who he is. And this is what we're looking at with financial literacy. If we can touch children at an early age, yes, we want to work with the adults and the teenagers, but if we can touch children in those formative years and plant the seed about developing good money habits, good money behavior, it will carry them a lifetime. And this is what I've been challenging the banks and credit unions with. If you teach them when they're younger, You will have a better customer or member when they get older. So Vince, let's start at the foundation. Like I said, a lot of people think financial literacy is personal or a personal responsibility issue, but your work suggests the community has a major role in this. So why does financial literacy start— have to start in the community instead of waiting for, say, schools or the parents to actually join in on this?

You know, I'd love it to start with the parents, right? Ideally.

All right.

But I understand parents are being pulled every way. They have work, they have family, they're doing a lot of things, right? I would love to start there. I think it's that responsibility, but I understand their constraints. You know, with schools, I think it is definitely their responsibility. As a taxpayer, I can tell schools what I want, right? And we have a campaign called Make Financial Education a Core Subject because there's not a kid in this country that graduates from a state that requires as financial education that's capable of even making near-term financial decisions. So this falls upon the community, and the community is very diverse, meaning we have authors like yourself, we have podcasters, we have educators, traditional people going into the classrooms, we have banks, credit unions going into schools and other places, nonprofits, workplaces. We have people picking up the pieces where it needs to be, right? Often they're helping the people that get that service the least, the underserved. So they're doing a great job. And the thing I love about this financial education community is there's people that are really in it to make a difference, right? Oftentimes they come from backgrounds where they had to overcome financial struggles, right? Where they're— it's deeply rooted in them to serve their community and they want to serve by helping people avoid the problems they went through. So it's a very passionate community. They're really focused on helping students and I should say people of all ages achieve real outcomes in their life. You know, the end goal I think we want for all of our kids and really everybody, all of our citizens in the country, is live a happier, healthier life and have some security so they don't have those worries that they carry, you know, throughout their lifetime. It might start off early with getting in debt or credit mistakes. You know, later it's, oh, I'm, you know, I'm 40 years old. I don't have a house or any retirement savings. When it's 70, it's like, am I ever going to be able to stop working? And that's the life of many people in this country today. And it doesn't need to be. We know a good solution. Now, financial education isn't a cure-all. There are still factors and opportunities and things that happen in life. But I think it gives people a strong advantage to live a more fulfilling life.

You know, Vince, saying that, I go back to the G.I. Joe, right? Knowledge is half the power. The other power, the other half of that power is execution. So, I say, you know, knowledge applied is power. So when a community does financial education well, what changes have you seen first at the family level?

Yeah, it's interesting. Even thinking back to when I started in really volunteering in my community and just teaching it just because I wanted to support people and help them. It was interesting. You know, I'd get emails from parents. I would get calls from parents that said, hey, you told my kid this. Is that correct? Right. Then we started doing more family events and we saw, you know, they bring their teenagers in, the parents would be there. And we saw a lot of the— even though it was focused on teaching the kids, oftentimes it would get hijacked in a positive way with parents asking questions. So it's interesting with financial education, the flow of information often goes from youth to parents. And, you know, I think there's ways that, you know, it can strengthen the whole family unit if you have one family member that's doing well financially, right? They can be that bedrock. So, if something happens, if there's that support system, and if that person can have that influence, right? Like you mentioned about that gentleman that implanted good lessons when the kid was very young. If you can have that one person then shares those lessons they learn with the other family members, it strengthens that. From there, it reaches out to friends, acquaintances, other people. And really a good, you know, some key people within family units can really build a positive community as well because it increases tax bases. Many of these people doing well will drift into the entrepreneurship realm right now. They're creating jobs and opportunities for other people in the community. So I think it really has a powerful force. I always look at financial literacy like, like a snowball. Right. So, it starts with one person at the top of the hill and it keeps going down, gaining steam. And that's what I see in communities and with families.

Well, before we transition, you know, we mentioned the book, The Adventures of Finance and Literacy. We turned it into a coloring book because we want parents to actually sit with their children, read it to their children. And I tell you, we did an interview on TV here in D.C. this week. And while we were sitting there, a lady walked in. She was, you know, there bringing a client to be on TV as well. And I gave her a couple of copies of the book. She told me her children were 4 and 6. And she sent me a message last night and she said, your book has really impressed my children. She said, my daughter, I sat with her the night that you gave me the book and we colored. She said she started reading it again. The next day. So it's like, this is exactly what you're saying. If we hit the children, start with them, it starts a snowball effect with the parents, and each one starts to teach one. I love it. I love that, Vince.

Let me jump in on your book too, because I think the ages you're targeting, 5 to 10, it's formidable ages right now.

Yes.

We were chatting before about the difference in when we grew up versus kids today.

Absolutely.

And I think parents out there understand the landscape, right? You know, most kids are born into a world where they're getting rapid and massive exposure to advertising. Now, on these advertising boards, they have psychologists and other people that are geared toward creating consumers of your children. We don't see many ads for them to save money or, or don't spend on this, wait till you save. No, it's buy now, you're not cool, strong emotional pulls. In addition, we have the power of social media that's impacting our peer influencers. Before, it was keeping up with the Joneses, for those that remember that phrase, which is keeping up with your neighbors. Now, the Joneses are global. Now, the Joneses are the Kardashians, right? So, these are people that we're seeing in peer groups.

Exactly.

And if we don't catch them at that young age, by the time they're 7 and 9 years old, which is where Brown University study points out, they interviewed or they surveyed 50,000 kids on their work ethic. And 9 years old was when habits form. So, it's very young. So, if we can catch them by then and start to shape some very positive habits, it can have a really great return, I think, of investment for companies supporting that, but also for those parents that want their kids to live a more stress-free and more rewarding life.

Absolutely. I totally agree. So, now we're going to shift. What do you see? What are local leaders often getting wrong when they try to promote financial literacy? What have you seen?

You know, first, I want to address the people doing it right. You know, there's most of the people out there in the space, they're really committed and want to support their community. Again, I mentioned before, they've— their hearts are in it. They want to see the best in the student achievement. That's where they're focused on and making real changes in their life. Now, some of the problems we see, there's, I think, 2 main problems. We have the virtue signalers, right? I have financial education. Well, what is it? You know, I come in for 45 minutes and I'm done, right? And I'll try to pitch a product, right? That's kind of virtue signaling. Or I talked to a college here, this is about 3 weeks ago, and the college, they had a— I was excited because they had a nice website marketing for parents, marketing for students, raving about their financial education program. It was 3 45-minute or 55-minute sessions. That was it over the entire school year. So those are problematic. I think it drags down the industry. Also, we see a big problem with state financial education mandates. You know, I have a— we have the most comprehensive report coming out here. It'll be out in May, May 2026, that evaluates state mandates and their meeting minimum education standards required of your core subjects. So these are basic minimum standards: trained teachers, testing, vetted curriculum, funding. These are basic things that your math, science, English, social studies enjoy. You wouldn't go to a math class and think you have a teacher that's never taught it before, no funding, and no vetted curriculum, right? You just would never expect that. But that is the reality of financial education with our state mandates. In fact, it goes so far. As there's a 90%, over a 90% disparity rating between minimum standards of your core subjects versus financial education. That's very problematic for a number of reasons. One, the students, you know, when they become adults, they think, well, I had a financial education class. Why am I making these mistakes? Number 2, when I have this conversation with parents a lot, they say, oh, the school's teaching my kids financial education. Well, they're delivering financial information. They're not teaching financial education. There's a big difference. And that's very problematic, especially, you know, when a school's focus, I feel, should be to graduate self-sufficient, contributing members of society. But they're failing to do so. And that's really why we started the Make Financial Education a Core Subject campaign. It needs the same time, the same rigor, the same standards as your core subjects to make a real lasting difference with these kids.

Absolutely. You know, you just answered that, you know, the next question, and it was, how do you define effective financial literacy versus just handing people information? And you just, you just knocked it out of the park. And I totally agree with you.

Outcomes, right? What are the outcomes? What is the student able to do? Right. And just to dig, I want to dig in there a little bit here, S.E., if you don't mind. Because, you know, it's not just sharing the information. What are the outcomes they're getting? Some basic things, right? Do they have their bank accounts open? Very simple. They can do that there. Now, it might need some parental approval if they can't do that. Do they have everything in place? Have they found the bank or credit union? Did they complete the application? Are they completely ready to do that? Something very simple like checking their credit according to one of the 3 credit bureaus. I think it's Experian or Equifax, one of the 2 E's. 25% of of minors have been victims of identity theft.

Absolutely.

Right? So that's problematic. These kids— I haven't seen a state that graduated kids with a job-ready resume. No job-ready resume. You know, and that's basic. You need to earn income. That's part of the financial education umbrella. You need to earn income. So these are outcome-based objectives, not can you tell me what a good FICO score is? Can you define what ROI means? I don't care if they know that. What I care about is they have the foundation. Foundation is actual tangible outcomes. Do they have a budget ready to move out on their own so they understand the cost and expenses and don't do like I did, move out on my own at 17 and then realize, oh, I had to put a big deposit for this, big deposit for this, trying to pick up some extra shifts, you know, figuring it out along the way. I want them to learn in a safe, secure environment, and we need to focus on outcomes, deliverables, and tangible items.

Absolutely. And that rolls right into the next question. So I interviewed a credit union branch manager, and one of the questions I asked her, and her answer I'm sure is going to be totally different from yours, but this question is, what role should community institutions like credit unions, community banks, nonprofit churches, and civic groups play in improving family outcomes? Now, before you answer, her answer was, Well, we need to start treating them— we give them the product, but we also need to start teaching them how to use the product. And I thought that was very interesting coming from someone who is in the business of selling products, that she said we need to start teaching them how to use the products. So what roles do you see those institutions plan with improving family outcomes when it comes to financial literacy?

Yeah, and it's a conversation I have quite a bit with our financial service clients and other people in the space, even colleges and so forth. And really, I think it comes down to, you know, from a philanthropic standpoint, hey, what do you want to see in the community? What change do you want to make? How do you want to take care of people? Right. We can go down that path. We could spend hours there, you know. Let's take it from an ROI perspective. You know, how are you going to build good quality clients that have trust in you where you built faith? For instance, going back to my financial service days, I always took extra time to educate people and take time to explain things and walk them through processes, what was going to happen, how this worked, and so forth. I was in the mortgage industry, and you know, I had a lot less calls of. Hey, what is this? What is that? A lot of my coworkers, they didn't. It was slanting, get them done, get them done. And they end up spending a lot more time with them, a lot more cancellations because constant calls. I'm not sure about this. I got this document. You know, I think a little education goes a long way. For those in financial services, you want quality clients, right? You want high-quality, good clients. That are going to grow with you. You know, so I think that's an investment, you know, talking just from the ROI perspective for them. How can you invest into your clientele so they're gaining knowledge or gaining trust in you, able to take advantage of different product lines and able to grow with you again? So, from the ROI perspective, that's there. From the giving back and just taking care of your community perspective, I think that speaks for itself. Now, now, the role that they should play, I think we need to make that case first. The role that they should play should be very active. I agree with your last guess. Hey, you provide them a product, but also provide them education along that line that, you know, they need. You know, if you see them starting to, you know, get overdrawn accounts or do late pays, that's a good touchpoint, a timely education touchpoint for Education, right? Yeah, I know you're making fees off that. I know that, and that maybe your company wants that, but it's a good way to get involved, build trust, support that client in a time of need, right? Hey, we see you're doing— you're paying bills late. You have— you can set up automated bill pay to avoid that, right? So some simple things that they can do, and I think that timely education is critical. When we look at best practices of education, it comes down to what is usable and timely. That's where people are going to focus on. So, if they're able to provide that timely education, I think that's a critical role that they can play on the financial service side. For those other groups, the nonprofits, the faith-based groups, and so forth, you know, a lot of those groups are really focused on people's well-being.

Mm-hmm.

And, you know, when we look at money, it has a significant impact on all areas of people's lives, from health to emotional wellness to relationships to you name it. It, I would say, plays the most significant role in people's life and, and even happiness, right? I know if you're—

Yeah.

You know, very spiritual and so forth and you're able to overcome that no matter what, wonderful. That's very few of you, but congratulations. Most people don't have that you know, fortitude with that connection. So, you know, money really becomes the biggest impact on their life. If we look at Maslow's core human needs, right?

Mm-hmm.

If you don't have your physiological and your security needs met, you can't do those other things that are important in your life. So, I think it's a critical role. Everybody plays a very unique part. And we definitely encourage people to get involved and support your community. in the way you can.

Well, you know, Vince, um, you're, you're absolutely right on that. Um, I want to throw something in here, and, and this is something that really is something for thought for both of us where we're standing. When you and I were coming up, we actually saw physical money, right? We saw what a dollar bill was. We saw coins. Well, as the ecosystem is shifting and changing, and I saw it then when my young child at the time said, well, Dad, you have money, you have a checkbook, right? I saw it, but I didn't focus in on it. One of the things that my credit union guest said was, we have to look at the ecosystem differently now. Because money is this being pointed at something. Kids don't even see physical money anymore. So it's something that as educators we have to hone in on to. How do we address this issue with children who don't even see money, who has never seen money? I can tell you I haven't carried cash in 10 years. I myself, everything is on the phone or a credit card. How do we transition And teach those children about money when they're only digits, zeros and ones on a phone somewhere?

That's a really good point. You know, the Vegas model, if you remember, that's kind of the first cashless transactions. You go to Vegas, get chips. It doesn't feel as real. So they knew what they were doing, right? So, and it carried over. And it is interesting because it's a whole different model. My, one of my, almost my grandmother, I called her. She was my neighbor for many, many years. Her kid was— her grandson was 5 years old, named after me too, Vince. And good kid, smart. He was on the iPad or whatever, whatever tool he was, but he was buying things online at 5 years old.

Wow.

So, you're exactly right. The landscape has completely changed. It is digits, it's numbers. And I think, you know, early on, we need to find a way to make that tangible, especially with our kids. You know, they— the conceptual things, especially younger, under age 7, 8, it's hard for them to grasp concepts, right? They need the physical. So I think as a teaching tool, we need to show them the money. Once they get above 8 years old, now we can show how that money, that physical money relates. We need to make that connection. But it is a challenge, you know, and it's interesting, you know, you see something on here, you're not pulling out the $100 as you're You're, like you said, clicking a button. It's very easy, right? And you don't feel that pain right away. So I think it is a challenge. And I think, you know, we need to establish— the parents out there, you need to establish that connection between the tangible, the physical, and what this new digital society is, because that— you're right, that is the future.

Right.

And we need to prepare our kids for that.

So as we, as we head towards, head towards closing, one of the things is, um, you've been at this for a while and you are a staunch financial literacy advocate. And believe me, I appreciate it. I, it, it, it helps me to know that from a national level that this is being pushed, right? Not just individuals out there, but from a national level. So in your line of work, Vince, what does success look like for a local financial literacy initiative, say after 12 months? What do you see?

Yeah, it varies. You know, there's many factors— time, rigor, and so forth. But ideally, if we're doing a financial literacy initiative of programming where we have regular contact with people, we want to see actual results, right? And so let's say we're Working with adults, and again, we don't work with them, but our graduates, our certified financial education instructors like you, they work with them. We connect those opportunities with our graduates. Let's say they're working with people in debt. You know, after 12 months, hey, they should within the first couple weeks have everything organized, right? Know what their debt load is, know how organized what they're going to pay off. Create a plan, contact those credit card companies, negotiate. Everything is very action-based, right? So by the end of that, hey, we ideally would like to see a reduction in that debt load and measure it that way. Right now, leading up to that end goal, we're going to see indicators. Have they established systems? Maybe the automated bill pay I mentioned before. Maybe they're addressing credit issues to lower their interest rates. Maybe they're doing credit card, you know, transferring balances to get a lower interest rate. So we're going to see indicators. We're also going to be able to see if there's any behavior change in their spending. We're going to see, hey, Are they confident in making decisions? So again, the end goal is always going to be, you know, real change for— with this example, in their debt load.

Right.

But we're going to see indicators along that path that will help us as educators know, are we going the right path? And I think a simple rule for educators out there is, hey, if you're having them do actual things that will benefit them in the real world versus just education, It's critical. Now, with kids, it's different. You know, from you know three to you know say early high late middle school early high school. You know we that education is critical. High school, it's really focused on life stage preparation. I mentioned those before. In adults, it goes every which way. Some adults are doing good, some not, some job loss, some debt. So it goes every which way. But I say, hey, at the end of the year, we should have some tangible results. if we're working with teens or adults.

Vince, before I let you go, I want to bring this back to leadership and accountability. What is your message to mayors, school leaders, financial institutions, business leaders who say financial literacy is important but still have not made it a priority? What would you say to them?

You know, we can't wait any longer. You know, after the 2008 financial crisis, I thought there was going to be massive change. I underestimated the problem. To me, it seems so logical, right? Again, it's— hey, the biggest problem people face isn't that they don't know literature. It's not that they don't know a foreign language. It's not that they don't know advanced math or advanced chemistry, right? It's money. So, it seemed very logical, common sense that we should— every state should mandate a comprehensive financial education program, and every kid should graduate capable to make, you know, at least near-term financial decisions, at least. And that's why we developed our Make Financial Education a Core Subject campaign. And really, that's the rally for us, right, to bring in those mayors, to bring in those nonprofit leaders, to bring in those schools, and community leaders and individuals passionate about this. So that's our goal is to unite them. behind one campaign, which is really focused on holding financial education to the same standards. Nothing more, nothing less, just to the same standards that you would expect of your core subjects because there's research behind that. There's a reason they're teaching those subjects, or I should say there's a reason that they're teaching in a certain way, right? And we've been teaching the same subject for 100-plus years, 120 years to be exact. And, you know, financial education has never been a part of our curriculum in any significant way, which is scary. So they've really stayed with the old school stuff, even though we have AI, computers, flying cars. The world's changed. It's not the 1900s anymore, thank God.

Right.

And the world's completely changed and our schools have failed to adapt. So I used to be nice. I used to be patient, but now we're going very forceful and saying, hey, it's not just getting financial education into a semester, which is about 50 teachable hours, one work week. We're saying massive change needs to be made in our education system to prepare our kids. Ideally, parents are involved. Ideally, the community is involved too, because you need to see it multiple times, multiple locations for it to really sink in. And I think if we can make that happen, we can change the lives of of millions and millions of people. And that would be my ultimate dream there.

Vince, this was a strong conversation because it makes one thing clear. Financial literacy is not just about money facts. It's about changing behavior, strengthening families, and creating better outcomes through trusted community leadership. Vince, if you would tell us before we, before we get out of here, tell us how we can get— if those out there, people that have heard your message, that are interested, like I was, to become a leader of change in financial literacy, how can they get on board? How can they get in touch with your company and become a certified financial educator?

I appreciate it. You know, I think there's different levels of involvement. We have, you know, advocacy committee, which these are people we mobilized for campaigns like this that reaching out to legislative community and various, various people, various influencers. We have our CFEIs, our certified financial educators, that are out there, boots on the ground, serving their community. We have our state chapters. We're in 26 states, 27 come May. So, we've gone from—

Nice.

One state chapter 3 years ago. Now we're at 27. So, we were given some local presence to really have more of an impact impactful, you know, focus on different states. So, there are many ways you can get involved. I always tell people, hey, if you are passionate about this, if you want, if you think it is important either from a social cause issue or you went through challenges yourself, you are like, hey, I want to give, give forward and help people, reach out. My LinkedIn, Vince Schorb. I do a lot of advocacy there. Feel free to connect with me there. You can always visit our website. financialeducatorscouncil.org or just Google National Financial Educators Council. We have all the social channels and our focus really is advocacy and mobilization to create positive change. S.E., I can't thank you enough for everything you're doing, not only with this, this show, but with the books and how you're helping small businesses. And I'm really appreciative of everything you do.

Vince, absolutely. And I'm going to make sure I have all of that information in the show notes. Listen up, audience. This is, you know, I'm still in the business world. If you want a simple roadmap to start building business credit the right way, go to our website, grab my free credit starter kit. It'll walk you through the first steps to get your business lender ready starting today. And remember, your business credit isn't just a score, neither is your personal credit. It's your company's future, and it is your future. Always qualify first, apply second. Thank you for tuning in to the Small Business Credit Minute, and I hope you enjoyed today's episode on financial literacy starts in the community and with the family. How local how local leaders change family outcomes. If you got value from this credit minute, please download the podcast, share it with a fellow business owner, and leave a review so more business owners can learn how to grow smarter and faster. Until the next episode, your dreams deserve a chance to grow. Just like your business. Thanks again, Vince.