Occasionally I will be asked why we work with NFL players to promote financial literacy. In addition to the obvious tie to our Financial Football game, the reality is that this is an issue everyone agrees is important but yet it so rarely rises to the level of garnering mainstream attention. Football players can cut through the din of information barrage we subject ourselves to and get that elusive attention.
So we partner with thoughtful athletes like Matt Stafford of the Detroit Lions and London Fletcher of the Washignton Redskins who recognize the crucial need to help Americans of all ages learn more about sound money management. They harness their own celebrity to demistify a subject that has far too many of us scared into inaction.
And yesterday Messrs. Stafford and Fletcher went to the White House to speak at the Financial Capability and Empowerment Summit. We were invited to showcase the Financial Football game at the White House Summit, a true honor, and asked Fletcher and Stafford to join us. The fact the Administration is even holding such a Summit is genuinely impressive and the day’s focus on delivering tangible results made it all the more impactful.
Before their White House appearance, Fletcher and Stafford took time to visit the Pentagon, where, with Rep. Gary Peters and Navy Federal Credit Union, they spoke to a group of our troops about financial education.
When they talk about financial literacy, Fletcher and Stafford do no preach from on high. Like all of us they have made mistakes with money. But unlike most of us, they were willing to subjugate their pride and talk about it openly with others, sharing with both the financial and political titans gathered at the White House, as well as with the enlisted men and women at the Pentagon.
It is selfless acts like this that makes them perfect ambassadors for financial literacy.
Posted by: Jason Alderman, Visa Corporate Relations on May 11, 2012 at 12:24 pm
