Charles Rotblut leads a class in AAII's new Essential Investing Video Course. Go to https://www.aaii.com/ves for more information and to subscribe.

Over the past couple of years, we’ve been adding several new AAII member benefits. These have included—but are not limited to—expanded mutual fund and ETF guides that are updated monthly, the My Portfolio tracking tool, helpful stock and fund evaluators, webinars and our online Education Hub.

Last month, we added two new AAII member benefits. The first is our PRISM Wealth-Building Academy. This is an interactive course designed to help you get the most out of the PRISM process.

The five-step PRISM process provides a framework for aligning your investment decisions with your goals. It crystalizes the education we at AAII provide into an actionable and disciplined way of managing your portfolio.

Many of you are already familiar with PRISM. We began running articles about it in the AAII Journal last year (originally under the temporary name of “The AAII Way”). We have continued to publish articles about it this year.

PRISM is more than a philosophy or strategy. It is a personalized financial plan that you create, use and revise as needed. Upon completion of all five courses in the PRISM Wealth-Building Academy, you will have your own personal PRISM plan created. Plus, you will have gained the knowledge and competence to use it to guide your current and future investing decisions.

I discuss the PRISM Academy more in my latest article about the PRISM process here. The article approaches the monitoring process from the standpoint of the progress you are making toward your goals and how life stage changes might impact how you invest going forward.

The second new member benefit is AAII Community. This secure, integrative discussion platform allows you to connect with other AAII members. It gives you the opportunity to share investment wisdom and experiences with like-minded individual investors.

AAII Community is also home to the PRISM Wealth-Building Academy. The Community platform allows us to incorporate multimedia features such as videos and “office hours” with me and other AAII analysts. Many AAII members are already engaged in the PRISM Academy and posting in Community. I encourage you to join them.

The PRISM Wealth-Building Academy and AAII Community are not the only things we’ve been working on. Our assistant editor Anine Sus is sharing her journey as a new investor in her Investing Discoveries Blog. It provides a front-row seat to Anine’s decisions and challenges. Readers will benefit from the knowledge she is learning both from working at AAII as well as from outside authors and experts. If you’re new to investing or know someone who is, visit her blog at https://investingdiscoveries.blog.

You can also help your children, grandchildren or others you are close to by gifting them AAII membership. Now is an ideal time to do so—not only because the holidays are coming up but also because we’ve discounted the price of a lifetime digital membership to $290. It’s a gift that will allow them to immediately take advantage of the new and many existing member benefits. To gift a membership, email member services at members@aaii.com or call 312-676-4307.

Besides adding new features, we’ve also been listening to the feedback AAII members have been giving us. Specifically, we have looked at how we can make our mutual fund and exchange-traded fund (ETF) articles even more useful.

As part of this process, we’re reimaging the quarterly mutual fund and ETF updates. As you will see, we are now combining mutual fund and ETF data into the same article. This is because we think investors should focus on the best fund for their needs, regardless of format.

We also include the mutual funds that we use to track the AAII Asset Allocation Models, along with matching ETFs. Reporting on these funds is something we’re going to build on. In future articles, we plan to look at alternatives for blend funds (e.g., broad large-cap funds) and tilts (e.g., value) to help you make more informed decisions when it comes to choosing a fund to fulfill your allocation needs.

Finally, as we approach the end of 2021, a quick reminder about the above-the-line deduction for cash donations made to qualified charities. Married joint filers who take the standard deduction can deduct up to $600 and single filers can deduct up to $300 if the donations are made this calendar year.

Wishing you prosperity and good health,