Next Gen Personal Finance hit a big milestone today: 10,000 teacher accounts! I normally don't like to include company-specific news in the blog but..we couldn't have hit this incredible goal without YOU:

• You tell your friends and colleagues about our resources: About 1/3 of the new teachers came from these personal recommendations. We know how teachers love sharing resources that work in their classrooms and we appreciate you sharing NGPF with others.
• You give us feedback to make us better: Conferences, FinCamps, late night emails. You constantly share new ideas on activities, lessons and resources that work for you. Your feedback makes our curriculum and professional development (and by extension) our community better. 
• You inspire us with your passion for bringing the best in personal finance education to your students. When people ask our team members why we do what we do, it's a one word answer: Teachers. Enough said! 

We set this BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) of 10,000 teacher accounts in August of last year. Why? We kept hearing statements like this from teachers:

• "Your website has made my life so much easier...I just wish I had heard about you five years ago when I started!"
• "You are like a well-kept secret...you should do more to make more teachers aware of this great resource."
• "You started in 2014. Why am I only hearing about you now?"

We had spent so much time and effort on curriculum in the early years that we really hadn't thought much about growth. Since we only had 1,500 teacher accounts, it was a S-T-R-E-T-C-H goal. I mean like a Stretch Armstrong goal. Here's what happened after we set the goal last August:

We call that a "hockey stick" in entrepreneurial circles. How'd it happen?

• We continued to build resources that teachers love (and share with other teachers): Semester Course, PAYBACK and Interactive Library are just three examples.
• We met you at over 30 FinCamps and a comparable number of conferences where you saw how quickly you could implement these resources with your students.  
• We partnered with CEE and Jump$tart who got the word out and shared our resources with their network allowing us to reach a much larger audience faster. 
• We continued to develop new content on our blog that teachers found when they went out on Google to search for resources. 

To the team at NGPF, Christian, Danielle, Jessica, Laura, Rita, Sonia (and our newest team members, Abby, Greg and Yanely),

This past year demonstrated how a small team supported by an amazing community of educators, with a single purpose of increasing access to personal finance education, can accomplish amazing feats. I can't wait to see what we do for the this school year. Stay tuned for our BHAG for 2018-19...

About the Author

Tim Ranzetta

Tim's saving habits started at seven when a neighbor with a broken hip gave him a dog walking job. Her recovery, which took almost a year, resulted in Tim getting to know the bank tellers quite well (and accumulating a savings account balance of over $300!). His recent entrepreneurial adventures have included driving a shredding truck, analyzing executive compensation packages for Fortune 500 companies and helping families make better college financing decisions. After volunteering in 2010 to create and teach a personal finance program at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, Tim saw firsthand the impact of an engaging and activity-based curriculum, which inspired him to start a new non-profit, Next Gen Personal Finance.