Dave Zasada, vp-education and corporate responsibility at Intuit, talks partnerships, event content and scaling up a mission
The momentum behind personal finance education is growing. In 2024, 25 states adopted policies that guarantee access to at least one personal finance course at public high schools, according to nonprofit Next Gen Personal Finance. And Intuit is joining the movement with a CSR mission and event series.
Timed with Super Bowl LIX, the global financial technology platform launched a national Financial Literacy Forum series in collaboration with the NFL and its Inspire Change social justice initiative. The series aims to introduce high school students around the country to essential financial skills and concepts through hands-on education sessions and tools powered by Intuit for Education, a free financial literacy program designed with interactive lessons.
For the first event on Feb. 4, ahead of the Big Game, Intuit and the New Orleans Saints invited 400 high school students and teachers from the city’s west side schools to a forum at the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. There, the students received Intuit x Super Bowl LIX-branded swag, got hyped up by a New Orleans Saints dj, participated in ice breakers and listened in on a financial literacy panel discussion with Saints linebacker Demario Davis and LSU basketball star and rapper Flau’jae Johnson, who also performed a few songs.
“The panel is a great way for them to hear about the topic in a way that’s relatable, and this is important because the kids get to see someone who might look like them, have a background similar to them, can speak to them in a credible way and have personal stories that they could relate to,” says Dave Zasada, vp-education and corporate responsibility at Intuit. “Then, they go through these breakout sessions where they’re not sitting in chairs getting talked to. It’s all very interactive. In one session, they’re using their own phones, which they were shocked that they were even allowed to bring their phones to an education event, let alone actually use them.”
After an hour and a half of breakout sessions, the event wrapped with a student tailgate experience that offered up food, games, photo booths and time to socialize—not bad for a day spent off campus during one of the most exciting sporting events of the year. Here, Zasada breaks down how Intuit’s Financial Literacy Forum series came to be, how the NFL and NBA got involved, and how the brand measures the value and success of its student-focused program.
The Pro of Partnering with the Pros
Next month, the Financial Literacy Forum will continue with an event in San Francisco in partnership with the 49ers Foundation on March 21 and one in Washington, D.C., with the Washington Commanders on March 26. Then on April 1, Intuit Dome in L.A. will host a forum in partnership with the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers.
Intuit’s relationship with the L.A. Clippers and its community team is what led to the original idea for a Financial Literacy Forum to help local students. After a two-year test, Zasada calls it, Intuit refined its approach for connecting students with financial literacy tools and connecting educators with the Intuit for Education curriculum. The positive results led Intuit to expand the program this year on a broader scale and further activate its existing relationship with the NFL, he says, in a lead-up to April’s Financial Literacy Month campaign, which also includes a Financial Literacy Forum popping up in San Antonio, TX, during the 2025 NCAA Men’s Final Four, through TurboTax (the official tax preparation partner of the NCAA).
“We can certainly run these events on our own, but we found through the pilot we did with the Clippers that when you partner with a professional sports team or a league, it can be much more impactful and brings a unique element of excitement for both students and teachers,” Zasada says. “We also find that there’s value in getting them out of school and into environments that they might not normally see, especially if that means going to professional sports teams’ corporate offices or their practice facility, a stadium, or even a convention center. It just opens the kids’ eyes to possibilities for their future.”
Post-Event Content FTW
While all the stops in the forum series will follow a similar itinerary to the New Orleans event, each will be tweaked to fit the venue and align with local partners and entertainment. Zasada says Intuit is very conscious of branding at the forums as part of its plans to use content captured post-event.
“We think about what is going to be the photo moment and think through what the video is going to look like. How do we bring it to life after the event?” he says. “What we want to do is package that and then be able to share it both internally at Intuit to generate excitement and externally to try and help future partners understand what we’re doing, most importantly among the districts we’re working with to help them see how kids, when using our curriculum, are actually getting engaged. So we’re thoughtful about: Where’s the logo on the shirts? What’s the backdrop? What’s the signage look like?”
The brand promotes Intuit for Education on its website and through social campaigns and trade shows, but this kind of event-captured content helps add life to otherwise “static” promotions. Still, according to Zasada, nothing beats the IRL experience of the forums and seeing students light up as they participate in and learn from simulations.
“For educators to really understand that our intentions are pure and that everything we are doing is for free—whether it’s the curriculum, the training, the supporting programs—when they engage with us directly at these events, they start to see us as a trusted partner that’s simply focused on helping this next generation become financially literate, capable and confident, just as we have with our customers for 40 years,” he says.
Drafting a Winning Measurement Playbook
Intuit is also thoughtful about defining and gathering its success metrics for each event, setting goals in advance, thinking about how to measure them and designing the program around them. For short-term measurements, Zasada says the brand looks at the number of attendees; student net promoter scores (NPS); media coverage; impressions from Intuit’s, partners’ and influencers’ social channels; and impacts to brand awareness and recognition. Long-term measurements are focused on the adoption and use of Intuit for Education in the targeted school districts, he says.
“We talk about how many students we should have, and it’s not about getting 1,000 students; that, honestly, isn’t that big of a driver. We feel if we can get 300 to 400 students from multiple large school districts, and if they adopt, now we can ultimately reach tens, or even hundreds, of thousands of students,” Zasada says. “We have a bold goal: We want to help 50 million kids by 2030. We’re really testing this model at scale this year.”
