By Michael Gilmore, Founder, MAIAwards

What have the Oscars got to do with money awareness and inclusion? We think the clue is in this chart.

There is a desperate lack of real understanding about money, and it is sadly very persistent. We believe it is the biggest solvable problem in the world: big because it impacts every country, but solvable because many of the answers are known, just not nearly widely enough.

Once again, in 2021, the Bankrate survey in the US reported that 60% of respondents did not have access to $1,000 in the event of an emergency. “Once again” because that number has been close to 60% for years now – and has perhaps improved through the covid pandemic, but only very slightly.

“Just 39% of Americans could pay for a $1,000 emergency expense”

To be clear, this is data from the world’s richest economy and one of the world’s most “financially literate” countries: the US ranks 14th in the world, with 57% of respondents passing the questions set by the Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center (gflec.org) at George Washington University for the global survey they conducted for S&P.

If a country that wealthy, and near the top of financial literacy charts, continues to see 6 out of 10 people living precariously from pay-check to pay-check, unable to pay their way out of a minor emergency, is there any chance that we can help the rest of the world understand money and improve their financial outcomes?

We think so – and we think it can be done with a celebration. This is where the Oscars come in.

There are, to simplify, only two solutions to global inequality – politics and education – and unfortunately neither is a total solution. Education cannot help those people so far below the poverty line that only more money will help: but hand-outs are not long-term solutions for people whose predicaments are made so much worse by poor education or poor access.

There are no magic bullets. To solve every situation, we will need both, but to start educating, you don’t have to wait for everyone to agree, politically. We can start educating now. A proper grounding in money, financial tools, opportunities and costs, can have huge beneficial impacts. To cite a research report by GFLEC in 2020, “For example, answering one additional question correctly on a five-question financial literacy quiz administered in 2012 increased the likelihood that a respondent could meet a $2,000 unexpected expense in 2018 by eight per cent. Answering two questions correctly increased the likelihood by 16%, and three by 24%.”

Whatever happens in politics, through education, awareness and inclusion programs, we can try to give people the tools to improve their own positions, their own livelihoods, and their own outcomes, now, as soon as we can. Or even better, we can try to find the people who are teaching about money best. Once we have found them, we can celebrate their work, and by doing so, promote it to the rest of the world.

These are special people. These are often people who have seen the benefits understanding money properly has had on their lives, and they have chosen to devote their time to teaching others this same gift.

They have often realised that understanding money is much harder than people who understand think it is, while also being much easier than people who don’t understand it fear it is.

They operate, generally unsung and unsupported, in that middle ground. We think they should be supported. They should be celebrated and awarded – not just because they are unsung, but because their work could benefit so many others.

That is where a celebration comes in. That is where the Oscars and our chart at the top come in.

Nine times more people saw American Sniper and Zero Dark Thirty at the cinema after their Oscar nominations than before. Three times more people saw Letters From Iwo Jima and twice as many saw There Will Be Blood. Films that have already done their biggest domestic box office can do huge amounts of additional business because they are nominated for an award.

Awards support good work and spread good ideas. Awards can help create an ecosystem for an industry that otherwise doesn’t exist. They can help stop people from consistently re-inventing wheels, and advise others where to look for the best advice. They can be supportive, nurturing, celebratory, and kind.

If we can help some of the best money awareness and inclusion ideas reach nine times more people than they would without us, then we can hopefully accelerate the process of people learning how to use money more effectively.

That is why we want to hand out an award for money awareness. We think the people doing this work deserve an Oscar or more, and we hope that as a result, maybe up to nine times more people will hear about it, and learn how to manage their money better.