Message from the Chairman
Success can be defined in many ways. To some, success means a great achievement, like splitting the atom or finding a cure for AIDS. For others, like our Olympic athletes, success means winning the gold medal after years of hard training and dedication.

Some people define success as raising a happy, healthy family, or making a difference in their community. Still others equate money with success, or the attainment of a fancy title and a corner office.

At the FDIC, we consider our Money Smart financial education program to be a great success. We consider it to be a success not just because we have supplied more than 129,000 copies of Money Smart in five languages to our Alliance Partners, financial institutions, community groups, and faith-based initiatives across the country, but because lives have been changed for the better through financial education.

To date, more than 100,000 people have attended at least one Money Smart class, and as a result over 14,000 new banking relationships have been established. People who lived paycheck to paycheck are learning the value of maintaining a checking account, saving for a major purchase, and cleaning up their credit.

In this issue of Money Smart News, we will hear directly from several of the many people whose lives have been improved by Money Smart.

As Booker T. Washington said in his autobiography, “I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.” The individuals profiled in this issue of Money Smart News overcame many obstacles in their quest for financial stability, flexibility, and freedom. We are proud to have had them use Money Smart as their stepping stones.

---Chairman Don Powell