Gifted Savings Executive Director Josh Landay addressed the class of 2027 about their newly gifted $1,000 investment accounts at a Gifted Savings kick-off event on Tuesday, Sept. 29. (Photo by Lauren “Chuck” Shows)
$1,000 for every senior— Gifted Savings kicks off second year in schools
- Published: October 15, 2026
There were balloons and cheers at Yellow Springs High School’s Gifted Savings kickoff Tuesday morning, Sept. 29, when seniors celebrated the start of a program that gives each of them $1,000 — and a school year to learn what to do with it.
“Are you feeling lucky today?” Superintendent Megan Winston asked, bringing out what she called her “cheer voice” to welcome students to the program.
The celebration marked the start of the second year of Gifted Savings at YS High School. All seniors are eligible for the nonprofit’s program, which pairs a donated investment portfolio with lessons about saving and investing as students prepare for life after high school.
The gift begins at $1,000, divided among stock and bond funds, a fund tracking cryptocurrency and a certificate of deposit. Students can follow its changing value through an online app, though they can’t buy, sell or trade during the school year. To claim their portfolios, students are required to finish the year, complete 20 lessons and three surveys, and turn 18.
“Now, I assure you, this is not a simulation. This is not pretend. This is your money,” Program Director Jennifer Inman told students.
The high school program grew out of an experiment that began in Yellow Springs in January 2024, when 20 adults received $2,000 investment portfolios through a partnership with the YS Community Foundation, or YSCF, and the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Guaranteed Income Research.
As the News reported in late 2023, Gifted Savings was founded by entrepreneur and philanthropist Farhad Mohit with the aim of sharing wealth through donated investments. The initial pilot required participants to hold their portfolios for two years, with access to limited emergency withdrawals, and complete intermittent surveys along the way. At pilot’s end, participants could withdraw their investments for deposit or reinvestment elsewhere.
The adult pilot was open to village residents whose household incomes fell within three times the federal poverty level. Gifted Savings has since shifted its focus to high school seniors, offering the program to every senior at participating schools, regardless of household income. Executive Director Josh Landay told the News that feedback from the adult participants helped make way for the program’s shift in focus.
“What we saw in that pilot was that the individuals who participated said that they began to see themselves as savers,” he said. “They began to see themselves as investors. They had a more positive outlook on their financial future — and they also shared that they wish that they had started earlier.”
Reaching students before a major transition in their lives would give them that earlier start, Landay said, and more time for their investments to grow.
Gifted Savings developed its first high school curriculum through a pilot in South Los Angeles, then brought the program back to Yellow Springs. The YS High School class of 2026 became one of the first senior classes in the nation to participate in the fully launched program; the program also launched last school year in Clarke County School District in Athens, Georgia. This year, the program expanded to some campuses in DSST Public Schools in Denver, Colorado.
Locally, Principal Jack Hatert said last year’s inaugural class held a year-end “Declaration Day,” where students shared their plans after high school and for their Gifted Savings funds. Hatert said the students’ self-reporting on what was next for their investments helped the district understand what the year of investing could mean for different students: some said they would keep it invested, others said they intended to put the money toward college. One student headed to trade school planned to use the gift toward tools required for their program.
“We learned that this is also an opportunity for kids to invest in themselves now,” Hatert said.
He added that all students are required to complete a financial literacy course in order to graduate, and that the year-long lessons required for the completion of the Gifted Savings program create a practical connection to what they learn broadly about financial literacy.
“When you’re actually watching money that’s going to become yours go up or down, there’s just a different commitment,” Hatert said.
“And it breaks a barrier that many young adults have,” Superintendent Winston added. “Whether it’s because they don’t have the family circumstances, whether they don’t have the knowledge passed down from generation to generation, this is an opportunity for all students to learn about investing and saving.”
During the kickoff event, this year’s seniors read aloud testimonials from a few members of the class of 2026 about participating in the program. As class of 2026 graduate Ace Sadowski wrote: “This experience has allowed me to think more methodically about how to invest my money and how to use that to achieve my goals for the future.”
At a meeting with community stakeholders the same afternoon at the YSCF office, Landay presented completion data and survey results for both Yellow Springs and Athens; 91% of students who participated completed the program — not an average percentage, but the same percentage in each district. Students rating their investing knowledge fairly or very high increased from 11% at the beginning of the year to 59% at its end. Those feeling confident in their broader financial knowledge increased from 14% to 44%, he said.
The group discussed the 9% of students at each district who didn’t complete the program; locally, Winston reported that most students who didn’t complete the program finished the year, but didn’t complete all the lessons, and most were Yellow Springs students who attended the Greene County Educational Service Center or Greene County Career Center. She said the district is looking into providing an adult support person at those locations to help students finish their lessons.
In that same vein, Landay said the program had gathered valuable data from last year about how best to pace the lessons. Last year, though lessons were structured to be completed in a set order and at certain checkpoints throughout the year, students were given a single, final deadline by which to complete their lessons. As a result, he said, more than 20% of students completed their lessons in the final two weeks of school. This year, the program has firm deadlines throughout the year.
Program Director Inman said teacher feedback also prompted Gifted Savings to make a dedicated webpage where teachers can find instructional resources; previously, teachers reported, those had been difficult to find amid emails and other materials.
Following students’ investments after the program ends has presented another challenge, Landay said. About half of last year’s participating students said they wanted to keep their money invested; at present, once the program is completed, students can receive their assets through an outside brokerage account recommended by Gifted Savings or take a check, but Gifted Savings loses visibility once the assets are transferred to students’ accounts and can’t track whether they remain invested. Landay also reported a drop-off between students’ desire to keep investing and actually opening their own investment accounts.
“Because the choice is between, ‘Oh, I need to get my ID and maybe I need a social or an ITIN and I need to spend time on this — or if I just put in my address, they’ll send me a check,’” Landay said. “There’s less friction to get the check, so we saw a steep drop-off from there, and that’s why we’re rethinking, ‘Well, how do we make that more streamlined?’”
To that end, Gifted Savings is seeking a banking partner to let students establish accounts directly through the program’s app, simplifying the transfer and potentially allowing the organization to follow investment patterns as a whole while protecting students’ privacy.
As Gifted Savings looks toward future senior classes, Landay said community participation could help sustain the program — an approach that builds on founder Mohit’s original vision of people with great wealth sharing investment assets to give others more financial agency.
“We think that those folks who come from extraordinary resources have the ability to make a significant impact with one check,” he said. “That being said, that’s just one group.”
Landay said community and family foundations can bring those donors together with residents and businesses making smaller contributions. In Athens, Georgia, he added, support has ranged from monthly donations of $10 to a significant investment from a regional bank. A sandwich shop’s contribution grew into “Dining for Dividends,” a campaign involving 19 restaurants. In the meantime, Mohit and a small group of patrons cover the program’s operating expenses, so that 100% of donations to the program go directly into student portfolios. And broader participation from the community around participating districts, Landay added, gives students a real, visible indication that the people around them believe in their futures.
“It helps to illustrate the power of what can happen when a community really buys in, and I think that is the thing that can make it sustainable over time,” he said. “And that’s why we rely on folks like the Yellow Springs Community Foundation to make sure that that’s the case.”
For more information about the Gifted Savings program in Yellow Springs, and how to donate to future student portfolios, go to http://www.giftedsavings.org/high-school/yellow-springs-2026
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