Compound: The interest that never stops paying forward

A phone call. Five overdraft fees. A $5 slice of pizza. That's the moment Brenda Campbell — executive director of Secure Futures — realized financial literacy was never really about knowledge. It's about access.

For twenty years, Secure Futures has taught Wisconsin students the mechanics of money: debit cards vs. credit cards, compound interest, paying yourself first. But knowing the rules and actually using them turned out to be two very different things and the data proved it. So Brenda's team rebuilt the program around one-on-one mentoring instead of classroom lessons alone.

Dejah Banister is what that rebuild looks like in practice. She signed up for Money Coach out of pure curiosity in high school. Today she's a homeowner, a landlord, and the person who broke a twenty-year silence around money in her own family. Now, she's teaching the same lessons to her students.

Host: Shannon Sims 

Video & Audio Production: Dwight Cannon Audio

Engineering & Video Editing: Story First Media Group

Social Media: Brianna S.

Rising Forward: Stories of Change is a weekly conversation with Wisconsin social entrepreneurs building businesses to solve real community problems.