Mobilizing the Millennials

Mobilizing the Millennials

A foundation to promote youth philanthropy, an interactive game to promote financial literacy, and electronic budget journals for daily “wealth watching” are among the award-winning ideas generated at the recent Youth Summit sponsored by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation and Mobilize.org.

The summit brought together young people from around the United States to discuss issues affecting members of the millennial generation, such as high rates of unemployment and student debt. Their discussions in work groups led to the development of solutions, which were then voted upon by the group, with the winning proposals receiving funding from Mobilize.org.

First place winner was Daniel Kaufman of Sacramento, California, whose One Percent Foundation calls on young people “to make a collective impact by making recurring donations of 1% of their annual income through a single funding entity.”
2nd Place: Gaming for Our Future, Eric Heis, 27,(Washington, DC) and Nicola Moore, 27, (Washington, DC)
Interactive web-based game to raise fiscal awareness, utilizes social networking and multiplayer components.

3rd Place: Wealth Watchers International, Edward Sandrick, 25, (Naperville, Illinois)
Enables users to enter and manage daily spending into an electronic budget journal on their PDA or smartphone.

4th Place: You Are Your Business, Alicia Holmes-Busby, 32, (Dallas, TX)
Establishes a two semester financial literacy program for older teens that focuses on the “business of self” by utilizing a peer educator program.

5th Place: MyImpact.org, Chris Golden, 20, (Coventry, CT) and Nick Troiano, 20, (Milford, PA)
Utilizes a “volun-tweet” application, which measures impact of Millennial volunteerism on Twitter and encourages volunteering through social networking.

Economic Challenges Facing the Millennial Generation – Mobilizing the Millennials

The Millennial generation faces giant hurdles in putting its economic future on a sustainable path. Currently, 30% of young Americans born between 1976 and 1996 are uninsured — more than any other generation. Additionally, these young Americans experience the highest rate of unemployment and more debt than any other age group. The average Millennial is burdened with $27,000 in student loan debt after college, and $2000 in credit card debt that doubles by age 35.

PGPF and Mobilize.org recognize that young Americans must take a greater role in protecting their economic futures, and are providing the tools, resources, and forum necessary to enable today’s Millennial leaders to work collaboratively to execute solutions to a variety of economic issues.

About Mobilize.org
Mobilize.org is an all-partisan network dedicated to educating, empowering, and energizing young people to increase our civic engagement and political participation. For more information, visit www.mobilize.org.

About the Peter G. Peterson Foundation
PGPF is dedicated to increasing public awareness of the nature and urgency of key economic challenges threatening America’s future and to accelerating action on them. To address these challenges successfully, we work to bring Americans together to find sensible, long-term solutions that transcend age, party lines and ideological divides in order to achieve real results. For more information, see www.PGPF.org.