About

The Mission behind MMB

Born out of the Heartlands, our journey has been a long and winding road.

ACCESS, American Consumer Credit Education Support Services, is a non-profit, tax exempt 501(c)(3) consumer advocacy group whose primary purpose is to disseminate credit education information and assistance to the general public.

ACCESS was formed in 1998 by several credit professionals who were concerned about the adverse trends occurring in personal privacy and credit reporting. With over 100 years of credit experience, they had watched credit move from helping individuals to harming them.

After successfully developing and managing a consumer education website, our board determined there was a fundamental need for financial education. In 2000, ACCESS began visiting colleges and providing a two hour lecture on loans, credit cards, and debt. After six years, the board determined that to make a real difference, in financial acumen, education needed to begin much earlier.

After several years of discussing different alternatives to early education, Mastering Money Basics was born.

Our goals were simple: design something fun, establish a priority of educational skills to be built upon year over year, develop a method to encourage school participation

While there is no quick and easy fix, ACCESS is committed to our children's future. Our Mastering Money Basics is a stepping stone of fundamental concepts which can help students live a richer life - where dreams can come true.

School Programs Designed

State

Dedicated Volunteers

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Read Testimonies from parents, participants and former participants. Our program is memorable for everyone. We are also on Guidestar. (do backlink)

The kids had a wonderful time collaborating on this topic and learning about money.

The contest provided my 9 year old with opportunities to discuss saving money & realizing he has a future wish.

We have since moved to Florida and Faith is a Senior, graduating from high school with her AA and 62 units of dual enrollment credit. She was accepted to every school she applied to including the University of Florida. Winning the writing contest at such a young age, really instilled in her the confidence to continue writing and she has won several scholarships for writing and even had one of them published. Not only has her love of writing continued, but financial literacy and stewardship have been very important to her. She has worked very hard to earn as many scholarship as possible to be able to keep costs to a minimum so that her five younger sisters will have money in the 529 plan after she graduates. This fall she will be attending Union University with a full tuition scholarship to major in Creative Writing and Broadcast Journalism. We are so grateful for that opportunity to write many years ago and hope this encourages you about the value of investing in young students. Thanks - Wonderful opportunity for students to think critically about money.

I think it is important to teach children how to manage money. Some day they will have bills to pay and they will have to do so before enjoying the extras that money can buy.

We love it and look forward to participating each year. We're hoping you'll extend it to older children.

This competition helped me to concentrate on what's good about saving money. In my story, the cat helps his friends because he had saved up money.

Our school participated in an essay contest sponsored by this organization, and it really helped my students think through the benefits of saving money. Some of the things they came up with were instructive to me, as well. It was a rich learning experience; as they say, teaching others is the very best way to learn. All of our interactions with ACCESS Staff were quite positive, and we found them to be humble, gracious, and dedicated to their mission.

The Mission behind MMB

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