Founding
The Institute of FAME, Inc. was incorporated as a Georgia nonprofit on November 9, 2016 (Georgia Secretary of State control number 16105972) and received its IRS Determination Letter as a 501(c)(3) public charity on January 17, 2017. The institute is headquartered in Atlanta and operates on a calendar fiscal year, filing its annual IRS Form 990-series return.
FAME holds the IRS's 170(b)(1)(A)(vi) public-charity classification — the preferred classification for receiving foundation grants and individual donations. Contributions are tax-deductible to the fullest extent permitted by law.
What we do
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 published work covers regulatory sandboxes and FinTech adoption by small and mid-sized firms; its current work covers household financial stability, fraud and scam losses, older adults' financial security and financial education. The institute's funding is free of financial-services-industry sponsorship. As a matter of policy, the institute's research conclusions are reached independently of the positions and views of its funders.
FAME-funded studies have appeared in Economies and the Journal of Risk and Financial Management. The founder's wider research has appeared in journals including PLOS ONE, IEEE Access and Knowledge-Based Systems.
How we operate
FAME is intentionally small. Its research relies mainly on public federal survey and administrative data. Any study involving human subjects will receive independent ethics (IRB) review before it begins.
The institute's research is led by its Chair and CEO, Dr. Patrick Bernard Washington, who has authored or co-authored 14 publications with 1,208 citations, an h-index of 11, and an i10-index of 11 (Google Scholar, November 2026; OpenAlex confirms 961 citations / h-index 10 from the formal-database subset). The complete publication list — with the two FAME-funded papers identified separately — is available on the Papers page.
How our research drives change
FAME exists to move evidence into decisions and into people's hands. Our research becomes change two ways: policy — positions, briefs, and, as the work matures, regulatory comments for the agencies writing the rules; and education — materials that translate the findings for the households and educators who can use them. We take no partisan side; we put sound evidence where it does the most good.
From the Chair and CEO
I started the Institute of FAME because the people most exposed to financial risk are the least likely to have research built around their actual decisions. Most personal-finance guidance is written for people who already have a cushion — then applied, untested, to people who don't.
FAME exists to close that gap. We produce peer-reviewed research and put what we learn to work two ways — translating it into policy, and into financial education that reaches people directly. Our only test is whether the research is sound and whether it helps households make better financial decisions.
That work is slow, unglamorous, and rarely funded by anyone with something to sell. That is exactly why an independent institute has to do it.
— Patrick B. Washington, PhD, Chair and CEO
