National 501(c)(3) · Founded 2016 · Based in Atlanta
Better financial decisions start with better evidence.
The Institute of FAME, Inc. is a national 501(c)(3) public charity that researches how households make financial decisions and turns that evidence into practical guidance for educators, policymakers and the public. Its work covers household financial stability, fraud and scam losses, older adults' financial security, financial education and FinTech policy, and its findings become briefs, commentary and financial-education materials.
Research areas
The institute's research covers how households make financial decisions, how people are protected from costly mistakes and fraud, and how financial rules and new technology shape the choices consumers face.
See the research areas →The evidence base
FAME-funded studies on UK regulatory-sandbox effects (Journal of Risk and Financial Management, 2022) and FinTech adoption in manufacturing SMEs (Economies, 2023) have been cited in peer-reviewed work at universities including Oxford, Imperial College London and KU Leuven.
Browse the papers →Financial education
FAME's research is built to reach two audiences: the policymakers who shape the rules, and the people the research is actually about. The institute turns its findings into financial-education materials that bring what the evidence shows to households and educators. Reaching people directly is half of why the institute exists.
Our approach →Issue areas
FAME concentrates its research and policy translation in eight issue areas, from household financial stability and fraud to FinTech regulation.
Issue area · Financial Stability
More than a third of U.S. adults say they could not cover a $400 emergency expense with cash or its equivalent. Which household conditions — income, available cash, debt, access to banking — best predict who falls into hardship, and what helps households recover?
Issue area · Fraud and Scams
Americans reported $12.5 billion in fraud losses to the Federal Trade Commission in 2024. Who loses money to scams, how much of it comes back, and which protections actually reduce losses?
Issue area · Older Adults
Most adults 65 and older report they are doing at least okay financially — but among older adults with household incomes under $25,000, fewer than half could cover a $400 emergency with cash. Which older adults are financially fragile, and how do fraud and late-life shocks affect them?
Issue area · Financial Education
About 30 states now require high-school students to take a personal-finance course, and the states with the strongest requirements alone are projected to need about 37,000 highly trained personal-finance teachers by 2031. Who teaches these courses, how are they prepared, and what makes financial education effective?
Issue area · Financial Education Measurement
About 30 states now require high-school students to take a personal-finance course, but curricula are rarely tested against students' later financial outcomes. What measurement-grade evidence shows which approaches actually predict how people manage money as adults?
Issue area · FinTech Regulation
Regulatory sandboxes have been adopted in more than fifty jurisdictions, but the evidence on whether they help productive firms enter the market has lagged. What does the UK record actually show, and what should U.S. and other regulators learn from it?
Issue area · FinTech Consumer Protection
Buy-now-pay-later, alternative credit data and FinTech-driven small-business credit have produced uneven outcomes for lower-income households and small businesses. Which products expand access, and which raise costs or risks for the people who use them?
Issue area · CBDC and Digital Money
Many countries are exploring central bank digital currencies, yet retail use in early-launch markets has been thin. Under what conditions do people actually adopt new forms of digital money?
Why we can be trusted with your gift
The institute's Chair and CEO, Dr. Patrick Bernard Washington, holds a Finance PhD from the University of Alabama (2016). He joined the Morehouse College faculty in 2012 and was promoted to Associate Professor of Finance in 2017; his courses regularly enrolled cross-registered students from Spelman College and Clark Atlanta University through the Atlanta University Center consortium. He has authored or co-authored 14 publications that have accumulated 1,208 citations, with an h-index of 11 and an i10-index of 11. His publications are listed on the Papers page and the Press page.
Citation metrics: Google Scholar, November 2026. OpenAlex confirms 961 citations / h-index 10 / i10-index 10 from the formal-database subset of indexed venues.
Year founded
2016
IRS classification
170(b)(1)(A)(vi)
Founder citations
1,208
FAME-funded studies
2