Minnesota Business Venture 2023 – Financial Freedom Day

Our time at Minnesota Business Venture is coming close to the end and we have learned so much in such a short amount of time! Today for Financial Freedom Day we are extremely happy to have Piper Sandler Companies as our sponsor. We gained important insight into topics such as credit, budgeting, values, and much more.

We started our morning off with keynote, ‘Money and Values,’ by Bryan Polley, Managing Director at US Bank. He began his keynote by asking the campers about what they consider a need and what they consider a want. He then asked, “if I were to give you money what would you do with it?” He gave $5 to a student who answered him, which then made all the students want to answer his question.

Later in the morning we attended breakout sessions on Philanthropy to learn the importance of corporate giving. Philanthropy is important to an organization because it encourages charitable acts or other good works that helps people in need or society as a whole. It also gives opportunity to further align ourselves with our values which can show in donating money to something that you believe in. Philanthropy can be overlooked or not looked into at all which is why it is important when developing a business plan! Jackie Berry of 3m, Kenna Poppler of Allianz Life, and Nicole Hansen of Securian, thank you for sharing with us and giving us your time!

Later on we got to ask financial professionals questions that most campers took advantage of like: What’s a CD?, Should I use a money market account?, and What credit card is best? Presenters included Matt Adey of Morgan Stanley on Investing, Tara Pribnow of The College Place Minnesota on Paying for College, Adam Revoir of the University of St. Thomas Law School on Credit, and Jared Little of Wings Financial Credit Union on Budgeting. Thank you for educating us and taking your time to have an important talk about Financial Literacy today!

Our campers along with their companies have been working extra hard, non-stop, these last few days getting ready for their big presentations tomorrow. So far they are feeling nervous, excited, and even a little sad that things are coming to an end. The Business Plan is a comprehensive overview of a product or service complete with marketing, operations, and finance. For the plan to work out it need cooperation, dedication, and well-applied skillsets. We hope they take in all that they have learned this week and use it to impress the judges.

We are all tired and campers are now practicing their presentation for tomorrow. Today was very fun and the campers seemed to take a lot away from all the speakers today! We all hope to get a good night of sleep and be prepared for our last full day tomorrow.