Believing in Potential: How Fidelity Investments Earned a 2026 Novie Award for Expanding Financial Opportunity

Key Takeaways:

• Fidelity Investments won a 2026 Novie Award for Business Impact, NovoEd’s recognition for programs that demonstrate clear, measurable impact on business performance, capability building, or strategic priorities
• The award celebrates Invest in My Education (ME)℠, a $250 million Fidelity initiative that provides scholarships, mentorship, and financial education to under-resourced students
• The program deliberately focuses on the “mighty middle,” students with a 2.5 to 3.5 GPA who are often overlooked by traditional scholarship programs despite strong potential
• Personalized, collaborative learning helps keep financial education relevant and engaging throughout each scholar’s academic journey, building the confidence students need for long-term success

What does it take to make financial education accessible, engaging, and impactful for the students who need it most? For Fidelity Investments, the answer combines meaningful scholarship dollars with mentorship, community, and a learning experience designed to grow alongside each student. That approach recently earned Fidelity a 2026 Novie Award for Business Impact.

We’re proud to celebrate this recognition, because it captures exactly what the Novie Awards are meant to honor: programs that demonstrate clear, measurable impact on strategic priorities and the people they’re specifically designed to serve.

Who Is Fidelity Investments?

Fidelity Investments is one of the world’s largest financial services firms, and for decades the company has maintained a long-standing commitment to financial education and inclusion. That commitment extends well beyond its core business into a broader mission of helping build financial confidence and opportunity in the communities Fidelity serves.

In early 2023, Fidelity extended that commitment to the next generation by launching Invest in My Education (ME)℠, a $250 million social impact initiative designed to provide access to higher education and ongoing support for students from under-resourced communities. Administered in partnership with UNCF, the program has already grown significantly since its launch, reaching 1,200 scholars and building toward 1,800 scholars for the upcoming academic year.

Reaching the “Mighty Middle”

In the Novie Award recognition video shared on NovoEd’s YouTube channel, Cris Charbonneau, Fidelity’s Vice President of Social Impact, explains what makes Invest in My Education distinct from many traditional scholarship programs: its deliberate focus on the “mighty middle.” Rather than targeting only the highest-achieving students, the program is built for students with GPAs between 2.5 and 3.5—students who often feel overlooked and may assume college simply isn’t financially within reach.

As Charbonneau describes it, this is fundamentally a program about the power of belief, and about what becomes possible when an organization wraps its support around students who have real potential but haven’t always had matching opportunity. That distinction matters enormously. Nearly two-thirds of Fidelity’s scholars are the first in their families to attend college, an achievement that reflects exactly the kind of population Invest in My Education was built to serve.

Learning That Grows With Every Scholar

Financial education is at the heart of the Invest in My Education experience, but delivering it well to a nationwide, diverse group of scholars presents a real design challenge. Students join the program at different points in their academic journey and have different needs depending on where they are: preparing for their senior year of high school, transitioning into their first year of college, or navigating the years that follow.

To meet students where they are, Fidelity built a personalized learning journey that keeps content relevant throughout each scholar’s academic experience, rather than delivering a single, static curriculum to everyone at once. Discussions, reflections, and interactive activities help scholars build practical financial skills with real confidence, reinforcing the kind of hands-on financial literacy that translates directly into smarter decisions about college costs, debt, and long-term financial planning.

This personalized, collaborative approach is paired with mentorship from Fidelity associate volunteers and wraparound support that goes well beyond the classroom, helping scholars navigate not just their coursework, but the broader challenges of being a first-generation or under-resourced college student.

Why This Recognition Matters

The Business Impact Novie Award exists to recognize programs with clear, measurable results tied to strategic priorities, and Invest in My Education delivers on that promise in a way that’s both quantifiable and deeply human. A $250 million commitment, a nationwide scholar community already 1,200 strong and growing toward 1,800, and a program purpose-built to serve students who are too often overlooked all reflect a strategic initiative with real, trackable outcomes.

For L&D and social impact leaders building their own large-scale learning initiatives, Fidelity’s approach offers a valuable model. Personalizing the learning journey rather than defaulting to one-size-fits-all content helps ensure that education stays relevant as circumstances change. And pairing that education with mentorship and community support acknowledges an important truth: For many learners, especially those navigating unfamiliar systems like higher education for the first time, knowledge alone isn’t enough. Confidence, encouragement, and belief matter just as much.

Congratulations to Fidelity Investments

We want to extend our sincere congratulations to Cris Charbonneau and the entire Fidelity Investments Social Impact team on this well-earned 2026 Novie Award. Their work expanding financial opportunity through personalized, engaging learning reflects exactly the kind of measurable, meaningful business impact the award was created to recognize.

If you’d like to hear more from Cris Charbonneau about Fidelity’s experience partnering with NovoEd, you can watch the customer story on our YouTube channel.

See What NovoEd Can Do for Your Organization

Fidelity’s story shows what’s possible when personalized learning, mentorship, and community come together around a clear strategic mission. Whether you’re building a scholarship program, a workforce development initiative, or any learning experience that needs to grow and adapt alongside its learners, NovoEd’s platform is built to help you deliver engaging, scalable experiences that drive real, measurable impact.

Want to learn how NovoEd can help your organization build its own award-winning talent development program? Request a demo today and discover how we can help you turn your learning strategy into measurable impact.