In the very first post on this blog, I wrote about how personal finance is not about money. What did I mean by that? Money obviously is important. But the key is making sound decisions: Personal Finance “is about having the proper knowledge, experiences, and ability to make better decisions.”

Few money writers focus on decisions rather than money. That’s why I was so excited to find an educational project with a similar philosophy, and today I wanted to share a little bit about it.

Game Theory Academy is a non-profit that teaches youth how to make better money and life decisions. It is located in Oakland, California, and it serves over 300 youths per year with the following goal:

Game Theory Academy (GTA) has a mission to improve the economic decision-making skills of low-income youth who have experience with juvenile justice, foster care and homelessness. GTA teaches students how to think differently about money, increasing their financial stability and academic achievement while decreasing criminal activity.

This is a laudable goal, and it’s very interesting that game theory can be helpful. I hope to spread the word about GTA with this post. I also am thankful to Patricia Johnson, the founder of Game Theory Academy, for chatting with me to explain more about what they do. Here are a few of the things I learned and why you should care about Game Theory Academy.

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"All will be well if you use your mind for your decisions, and mind only your decisions." Since 2007, I have devoted my life to sharing the joy of game theory and mathematics. MindYourDecisions now has over 1,000 free articles with no ads thanks to community support! Help out and get early access to posts with a pledge on Patreon. .

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How Game Theory Academy works

I got this information from GTA’s website. GTA offers a course that is 10 sessions long and meets once a week, for youth aged 16-22 years. The youths that attend are actually paid money to attend the courses, up to $150 if they attend all the sessions.

This in and of itself is a clever lesson in economics: “Youth participants receive a cash stipend as an incentive to treat the course as a job, and as a demonstration of the central concept of opportunity cost. We recognize that young people have choices, and that in the very real game of the streets, ‘bad’ options often pay more in the short term than the ‘good’ options.”

The GTA website has a listing of upcoming courses: http://www.gametheoryacademy.org/gta-in-action/upcoming-classes/

Where game theory comes into play

Game theory is about making good decisions by considering how your actions, and other people’s actions, result in an outcome for everyone. For instance, I might want to grab a good deal on a TV during a Black Friday sale. But, as anyone knows, it is not so easy to get a Black Friday deal because tons of other people want them to. So what’s my strategy? I have to pre-empt other shoppers by lining up before the store even opens. But other people are thinking the same thing. The end result is that long lines form hours before the store opens. This is clearly wasteful–if we could all agree to show up later, we wouldn’t to waste time waiting. Unfortunately, no agreement can be enforced, and so everyone is stuck waiting in line.

Strategic thinking is an important skill when learning about money. GTA focuses on concepts like the tragedy of the commons and decision trees.

You can learn more about GTA’s curriculum by looking at their lesson plans. Three lesson plans available here for free (you have to “order” them with your contact information). The lesson plans are about: (1) using a decision tree to determine the risks of confessing to a crime, (2) how to plan for college with a budget (an example of “thinking ahead”), and (3) understanding the trade-offs when taking a loan for college.

How you can help

GTA strikes me as a very innovative way of teaching personal finance and helping at-risk youths at the same time. This is actually the first charity I’ve ever discussed on this blog and that’s how fascinating it is to me.

There are a couple of ways you can help GTA.

If you’re in the Bay Area or near Oakland, you can offer to volunteer on this page. GTA invites business professional to mock interview nights, or to speak about their careers.

GTA also relies on the support of donations to keep itself going. It is a 501(c)(3) non-profit and all donations are tax-deductible. A donation of $150 will sponsor a student for a 10-session course.

Donations can be made through GTA’s website: how to give.

For more information, visit the GTA website.