“Go For It, Don’t Stop, Never Second-Guess Yourself”:

Billy W Milton Jr. advocates for financial literacy through his nonprofit, The Righteous Project.

Recent studies show that Generation Z has the lowest financial literacy rate among all generations — a statistic that Billy W Milton Jr. and The Righteous Project are adamantly trying to fix. Through offering free online and in-person financial literacy courses to students grades 4–12, Milton and the nonprofit hope to shift the narrative around money and what it means to be “financially literate.”

Making A Change

“It wasn't until I was about maybe 30, almost 35, that financial literacy actually clicked for me,” the founder and Denver native says. “My coworker showed me how to navigate the stock system … seeing the potential of what I could have saved if I had just started earlier — it lit that fire under me.”

Prior to launching The Righteous Project in 2021, Milton had “dabbled in music studios here and there” with a passion for audio engineering. He attended The University of Phoenix for a Bachelor's degree in business shortly before COVID-19, an academic accomplishment that Milton contrasts with his high school experience. 

“I graduated [high school] with a GPA below 2.0,” Milton says. “At the time, I didn’t care much about that …  I know there's still a lot of kids out there that are probably in the same circumstances and don't apply themselves, even though they do have the knowledge to graduate with a higher GPA or even go to college as well.”

Teens are the primary target audience for The Righteous Project, an age group that he recognizes as a pivotal learning period. 

“Everything I did while growing up, you know, the trouble I [went] through — I was fortunate enough to get out of it … But I felt like there had to be some type of help I could provide. And that’s when I decided to start a nonprofit,” Milton says. “If I can reach some younger [people], you know, even if it's just a few, and give them something they can be passionate about for the future, they can invest a lot better into themselves instead of investing into the streets.”

"Trust yourself [in] what you want to accomplish." -Billy W Milton Jr.

Cash Courses

Each financial literacy course offered by The Righteous Project is powered through EverFi, a platform that creates online education curricula and financial literacy resources that nonprofits can register for.

“One of my favorites is a course that helps teenagers learn how to file taxes through TurboTax,” Milton says. “It shows you how that process looks … I didn't learn about that until I was probably in my mid-20s.”

Though the courses require registration through the Righteous Project website, they’re entirely free to take. The modules are also self-paced, meaning a participant can start and resume the course at any time. Lessons explain filing taxes, provide accounting resources and even discuss entrepreneurship. Milton and his team also offered the first in-person course last year, instructed as a summarized version of the topics with students and their families. 

“We get nothing but positive responses with these courses,” Milton says. “This is probably the biggest year we’ve had as far as community support, and that’s just years of building that trust, you know? Showing them what I’m passionate about — not only showing them, but just doing the work and continuing to persevere through many challenges to make sure people know what we’re doing.”

Paying it forward

When asked about the most common money misconception, Milton points to confusion over the meaning of “financial literacy.”

“When you mention financial literacy, people think it’s about how to get rich,” he says. “When you're trying to get rich, you take the opportunities that you feel are going to just make you a lot of money. And [financial literacy] is not about how fast you can make money. It's about how you can leverage the money that you have to build for future purposes.”

Milton says that The Righteous Project understands people learn financial literacy at different ages and different paces; they’re here to provide as many resources as possible, a reason that has driven the nonprofit to start a new initiative: a mental health and community resources summit.

“We're trying to build an annual base that people can come to and get the resources that they don't normally have access to,” Milton says. “We want to make it a hub, at least on an annual basis, [where] people can come through and get those resources.”

The summit, hosted in collaboration with Denver-based nonprofit Anchored in Hope, will take place on October 4th, 2025, and will include a variety of guest speakers, vendors and workshops about financial literacy, healthy eating, resume building and more. Interested attendees can find more information on the Righteous Project website.

If he could give a singular piece of advice to youth in Denver, Milton says to “trust yourself [in] what you want to accomplish.”

“Each individual has something that they … aspire to be when they're younger, right? And then you get the influence. You get that outside influence telling you that you have to do this, you can't do this. And that kind of makes you second-guess yourself,” Milton says. “Figure out what you want to do … don’t let anyone tell you different.”

Find Billy W Milton Jr. and The Righteous Project on Instagram at @therighteousproject and online at righteousproject.org.

Billy W Milton Jr. is a part of Rooted Change's People Worth Knowing (PWK) Spotlight Series. This initiative reflects the strength, complexity, and beauty of the people we serve, centering voices often spoken about—but rarely spoken to. If you’re eager to share your story, contact emma@rootedchange.co.