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MFEC Announce Recipients of Financial Education Mini-Grant Moving Forward from the MFEC Conference Thank You to All Who Made the MFEC Conference a Reality |
We are proud and thankful for all of the great work and dynamic partners affiliated with the MFEC. Together we can have an impact on the financial lives of families across our great state. We have so much to report. First of all, thank you to everyone who came to the 2010 MFEC Conference. Thank you to all of the sponsors, speakers, resource table providers, and attendees! The MFEC currently has two major initiatives underway: the financial education clearing house and the mini-grants. The financial education clearing house is a comprehensive, searchable database of financial education programs and providers across our state. It is our hope to connect rural and urban communities and resources so that we may work together to help Montanans achieve personal financial well-being. We have partnered with the Montana Society of Certified Public Accountants (MSCPA) and are in phase one (securing funding) of the five-phase process. Our goal is to have the clearing house up by April 2011, the next financial literacy awareness month. National Financial Literacy Awareness month is right now, April 2010. We encourage you to include financial tips and articles in your newsletters, websites, and other communications with consumers. Please let us know what you are doing for National Financial Literacy Awareness month so we can share it with others. You can find tips and stories that you can use on our website, www.mtmfec.org. Our second major initiative stems from the conference. This year we are reinvesting our sponsorship dollars in community financial education initiatives through ten mini-grants. These mini-grants are a boost for programs that need a little extra ($500) to cover necessary expenses. Thank you all for applying. There are some amazing programs occurring across our state; we received 24 strong applications, and we were disappointed we could not fund more. We will keep you updated on the grantees’ progress. A list of recipients, along with a description of each project, is included in this newsletter. Descriptions are also posted on our website. At our MFEC Celebration dinner, which was graciously hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank, we honored the founding members of the Montana Financial Education Coalition. In 2004, four business women came together to discuss financial education in our state: Maria Valandra, First Interstate Bank; Susan Woodrow, Federal Reserve Minneapolis Branch; Marsha Goetting, MSU Extension; and Kelly Bruggeman, First Interstate Bank Foundation. What began in that conversation quickly evolved into a coalition with over 100 organizations participating in financial education efforts across our state. All of the founding members are still involved with the MFEC, and three of them remain active board members. We thank you all for your continued support of financial education for Montanans! While conference highlights are too numerous to reflect on each one, we must thank Diana Holshue, with the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Helena Branch, and her team. Diana led an incredible conference committee. The conference, as with all of the work MFEC accomplishes, was executed entirely by volunteers. The committee included:
Thank you all for your support and dedication to Montana individuals and families! Jolene Bach MFEC Announces Recipients of Financial Education Mini-GrantsThe Montana Financial Education Coalition (MFEC) is pleased to announce the awarding of mini-grants to ten of our partner organizations. Selected from a pool of twenty-four strong applications, the grants will fund programs serving a broad range of groups in all regions of Montana. Please see below for a description of each project. The mini-grants are designed to build on the successes of MFEC’s 2010 Conference in February. At the end of the conference, attendees were invited to apply for mini-grants to be used either in implementing financial education programs they discovered at the conference or were already planning. The ten programs funded by these mini-grants represent best practices in financial education in Montana. We believe that helping to fund these stellar programs will yield successful results that other organizations can integrate into their own financial education programs. We will be posting the results of programs to our website, www.mtmfec.org. We are granting a total of $5,000, two-thirds of our overall budget. Each program will receive $500. The mini-grants will ensure that all programs are able to cover all their expenses, and will in many cases provide a lion’s share of total funding. We would like to thank our sponsors—who provide the entirety of MFEC’s funding—for their generosity in making both the conference and these mini-grants possible. Our sponsors are:
These mini-grants address a real need, and we believe they will have a strong impact. Some recipients will use funds to upgrade their programs. Browning Community Development Corporation will use mini-grant funds to offer computer-based education games for the first time. According to Executive Director Janice Coburn, Browning CDC has up until now been using homemade games. She hopes that the electronic games will make their efforts more “professional,” and engage a younger demographic they might otherwise be losing. Others will use the grants to expand their services. The Career Training Institute is already teaching financial fitness classes, but its current funding is restricted for use only with clients who meet certain eligibility requirements. Thus many who need financial education are not able to receive it. Sheila Hogan, Executive Director of CTI, says of funding restrictions, “It does not necessarily allow us to address the needs of all people. We have some really great programs, but you can’t use them if you don’t meet eligibility.” The mini-grants will provide CTI with funds to allow people s to participate in these classes who would otherwise be excluded by funding restrictions. “It allows us to make financial fitness a cornerstone of what we do,” says Hogan. “Now everyone who comes through CTI’s doors can learn financial fitness.” Distributing mini-grants among ten organizations also allows us to assist a wide array of financial education efforts. Financial education is needed at all stages of life, and different demographics face different financial challenges. Our grantees will be serving populations ranging from elementary school students to the elderly, from reservation residents to women in transitional housing. Big Sky Senior Services’ mini-grant will be used to educate employees of financial institutions on how to stop financial exploitation of the elderly. According to Executive Director Denise Armstrong, the elderly are an underserved group, in part because it is hard to communicate the dangers of financial exploitation to them. “Education to the elderly is lacking,” says Armstrong. “We encourage banks to communicate to the elderly, [but] tellers are being approached by elderly people asking for large cashiers checks [as part of a scam]. The tellers know they’re being scammed, but it’s hard to convince them.” Big Sky is therefore using mini-grant money to fund a statewide campaign to teach the roughly ten thousand employees of financial institutions how to recognize and report such suspicious behavior. The ten mini-grant recipients also cover Montana geographically, with recipients in all regions and in both urban and chronically underserved rural areas. Communities in Montana often lack awareness of the financial education resources available to them. We hope to help address this issue by using the mini-grants to increase community awareness of the importance of financial education and the resources they can access, especially among underserved populations. Coburn, for example, sees a strong need for financial education among Native Americans served by Browning CDC, especially with the pending billion dollar-plus settlement of the lawsuit brought by Browning resident Elouise Cobell against the federal government for mismanagement of leased tribal lands. According to Coburn, “Historically, the relationship between the federal government and [Native American] landowners has been one where the government has told landowners what to do. With the resolution of this case, we need to step up our efforts and teach Native communities that it’s okay to ask questions about their finances.” MFEC Mini-Grant Projects: A Closer LookSalish & Kootenai Housing Authority—SKHA will teach the “Small Steps to Health and Wealth” financial fitness class, targeting low-income tribal families on the Flathead Reservation. The project hopes to serve at least 30 families, who may then enroll in SKHA’s homeownership program. “Small Steps to Health and Wealth” covers general issues in personal finances, and will be offered to all residents of the Flathead Reservation. According to Nicole Antoine, SKHA’s Affordable Homeownership Coordinator, one of the course’s virtues is its adaptability to different audiences. Although a general course, SKHA has already used it to successfully reach the unique needs of one group: women in transitional housing. “The curriculum is able to reach them,” says Antoine, “even at that lowest level of financial survival, where they’re just trying to meet their basic needs.” For further information on the Salish & Kootenai Housing Authority, please visit their website: http://www.skha.org/ Browning Community Development Corporation—“Make It Financially Fun” will target middle- and high-school students in Browning, using games and tips to promote healthy spending habits. The project hopes to serve 85 students, and will also engage low-income residents through club meetings and community functions. For the first time, the games used for the program will be computer-based. According to Executive Director Janice Coburn, Browning CDC has up until now been using homemade games. She hopes that the electronic games will make their efforts more “professional,” and engage a younger demographic they might otherwise be losing. “Make It Financially Fun” will aim to address what Coburn sees a strong need for financial education among Native Americans served by Browning CDC, especially with the pending billion dollar-plus settlement of the lawsuit brought by Browning resident Elouise Cobell against the federal government for mismanagement of leased tribal lands. According to Coburn, “Historically, the relationship between the federal government and [Native American] landowners has been one where the government has told landowners what to do. With the resolution of this case, we need to step up our efforts and teach Native communities that it’s okay to ask questions about their finances.” For further information on Browning CDC, please visit their website: http://www.browningcdc.org/ MSU—Missoula County Extension—Missoula County Extension will use the “Small Steps to Health and Wealth” course to reach at least 30 families in Missoula County. Kathy Revello, the Family and Consumer Science Extension Agent for Missoula County, is excited to be using the “Small Steps” course because of its “backdoor” approach to overcoming people’s reluctance to discussing their finances. “I’ve had low turnout for budgeting classes,” says Revello. “[Getting people to talk about budgets] is like pulling teeth. [The Small Steps course] is a sneaky way to get people to learn how to manage their finances by talking to them about their health. It entices them by asking them if they want to make changes in their health. People are more open to that.” Revello says the course is based on research showing a correlation between a healthy lifestyle and sound personal finances. The course aims to achieve change through small changes in behavior. “People think they have to changes their lives, but they don’t.” People can lose weight by modestly reducing their caloric intake. “You don’t have to completely give up the foods you love. The same is true with finances.” For further information on MSU—Missoula County Extension, please visit their website: http://www.missoulaeduplace.org/ NeighborWorks Montana—Funds will be used to provide resources, supplies, and space needed to teach in-house financial fitness classes to residents of the Helena YWCA, a transitional living facility for women and children. There is a strong need for financial education among residents. “To be able to take more control over their lives and take those next steps, these women need to have control of their finances,” says Liz Sump, an Americorps VISTA with NeighborWorks. “We’ve found that women who receive that education [on managing their finances] are more successful when they leave transitional housing.” However, it is difficult for them to attend classes outside the YWCA, and difficult to get educators to teach in-house classes. Many providers are willing to supply pamphlets on programs offered outside the YWCA, says Sump, but “it’s extremely hard to find people to come to the YWCA to teach.” The project aims to serve 36 residents. The general public is also welcome to attend. For further information on Neighborworks Montana, please visit their website: http://www.nwmt.org/ Career Training Institute—Many low-income individuals are unable to attend CTI’s financial literacy workshops because they lack the resources to pay for child care and transportation. CTI’s mini-grant will be used to provide child care, transportation costs, and meals for these low-income individuals. CTI hopes to serve an additional 20 individuals as a result of the mini-grant. CTI is currently teaching financial fitness classes, but its current funding is restricted for use only with clients who meet certain eligibility requirements. Thus many who need financial education are not able to receive it. Sheila Hogan, Executive Director of CTI, says of funding restrictions, “It does not necessarily allow us to address the needs of all people. We have some really great programs, but you can’t use them if you don’t meet eligibility.” The mini-grants will provide CTI with funds to allow people to participate in these classes who would otherwise be excluded by funding restrictions. “It allows us to make financial fitness a cornerstone of what we do,” says Hogan. “Now everyone who comes through CTI’s doors can learn financial fitness.” For further information on the Career Training Institute, please visit their website: http://www.ctibrc.org/ District IV 4H Camp—Funds will be used to teach money management and entrepreneurial skills to campers at the District IV 4-H Camp this summer through a concession stand where campers will both buy and sell snacks. Campers age nine to 13 will be able to participate in the program, which will also teach campers to make wise decisions about nutrition. For further information on Montana 4-H, please visit their website: http://www.montana4h.org/ Big Sky Senior Services—Funds will be used to teach employees of banks and credit unions throughout the state to recognize signs of financial exploitation of the elderly, and to take the necessary steps to report any suspicious behavior. The project will cast a wide net, reaching the roughly ten thousand employees of financial institutions in the state through a combination of presentations, mailings, and other channels. According to Executive Director Denise Armstrong, the elderly are an underserved group, in part because it is hard to communicate the dangers of financial exploitation to them. “Education to the elderly is lacking,” says Armstrong. “We encourage banks to communicate to the elderly, [but] tellers are being approached by elderly people asking for large cashiers checks [as part of a scam]. The tellers know they’re being scammed, but it’s hard to convince them.” Armstrong says that the project is motivated by demand on the part of these employees. “There has been such a large increase in financial exploitation in the past four to five years. Originally, we had been using a downscaled version of this program, starting about eight years ago. We had to really push it on the banks…then things turned around, the banks began coming to us, saying, ‘we need this.’ This program has grown out of that demand.” For further information on Big Sky Senior Services, please visit their website: http://www.bigskyseniorservices.org/ Junior Achievement of Montana—A lack of funding threatened to cut in half the number of students served by JA’s economic education classes in Park and Gallatin Counties. Mini-grant funds will help make up for the funding shortfall, so that JA may meet their goal of reaching 2,000 youth in southwestern Montana. The classes teach K-12 public school students age-appropriate, hands-on economic education. More than half the schools served by the classes are identified as Title I, with a significant percentage of students qualifying for free or reduced lunch, indicative of low-moderate family income. For further information on Junior Achievement of Montana, please visit their website: http://www.jamontana.org/ United Way of Yellowstone County—UW’s Financial Stability Partnership (FSP) will conduct focus groups to strengthen and increase community awareness of its Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). FSP will also conduct focus groups to determine financial best practices of successful low-to-moderate income households. (FSP) is a local coalition in Billings of for-profit, non-profit, and government entities. It aims to create a comprehensive infrastructure of services and policies that lead to financial stability for families and individuals. For further information on United Way of Yellowstone County, please visit their website: http://www.unitedwayyellowstone.org/ Western Sustainability Exchange—Mini-grant funds will be used to purchase “Biz in a Boxx” for WSE’s Young Entrepreneur Stewardship (YES!) summer camp. YES! teaches children to manage their own businesses by allowing them to set up booths and sell goods at the Livingston farmers’ market. Biz in a Boxx teaches students entrepreneurial skills needed to manage these businesses, including accountability, decision-making, communication, and money management. WSE tackles the challenge of sustainability through a “balanced meal” approach that addresses community, economy, and environment. According to Mary Ahmann, Program Associate at WSE, YES! is critical to the economic part of their efforts. “The economic portion is so important. Starting with these kids, empowering them to make wise economic choices will help our communities become more sustainable.” WSE hopes to reach 20 or more campers ages seven to 15 with the program. For further information on Western Sustainability Exchange, please visit their website: http://www.westernsustainabilityexchange.org/ Moving Forward from the MFEC Conference
Given where we find ourselves, the level of turnout was especially significant. “With the economic recession still wreaking havoc across the nation, now more than ever we are seeing the great need for raising the financial literacy of all our citizens, across all demographics,” says Sue Woodrow of the Federal Reserve Bank and Vice President of the MFEC Board. “The tremendous support for this conference in the form of financial sponsorships, planning committee participation, and high quality workshop presenters underscores for us the growing awareness of this need.” Our mission at MFEC is to facilitate cooperation and the exchange of knowledge among members of the financial education community. We hope that, by coming together at the conference, you were able to make connections and pick up information you can use to strengthen your financial education efforts going forward. “Nobody can do it alone,” says Galen Amy of Community Action Partnership of Northwest Montana (CAP). “We often get people referred to us from organizations which don’t provide the services they need.” Along with her colleague Claudine Maroon, Amy led a workshop on CAP’s “Free to Choo$e” program and participated in the conference’s panel discussion. Amy says of the conference, “It’s great to get the word out, to get people to refer to us. It’s really important to be able to make those connections at the state level….The most valuable thing for us was to see how people run their programs. We run programs covering four counties [in northwest Montana] and we can end up feeling isolated. It’s refreshing to see how other people are running their programs.” We have posted workshop presentations to the website. Please take a moment to view presentations from the workshops you were unable to attend, and review those you did attend for anything you may have missed. We also urge you to use the momentum from the conference to follow through on the connections you made there, especially now that it is April, National Financial Literacy Awareness month. “The biggest hurdle is to pick up the phone, says Amy. “Picking up that phone and making that personal contact and talking to them…I’ve never had a negative experience.…Be the squeaky wheel that gets the grease. Things don’t always fall into your lap.” Thank You to All Who Made the MFEC Conference a RealityPutting on a conference is hard work. It requires a large investment of time and resources. MFEC would like to express our deep gratitude to everyone without whose contributions the conference would not have happened. We would again like to thank our sponsors for their generosity. Sponsorships provide the entirety of MFEC’s funding, including the mini-grants. Thank you to our speakers: Pam Kreuger and Jack Gallagher of MoneyTrack, and Director Whiting Sorrell for their informative and insightful keynote addresses. Thank you again to our conference planning committee: Diana Holshue, chair; Sue Woodrow; Karen Smith; Penny Cope; Lorraine Schneider; Karen Nebel; Marsha Goetting; and Jolene Bach. Of course, the conference would not have come together without those of you who attended and shared resources through workshops, resources tables, and the panel discussion. The knowledge and dedication that each of you brought to the conference helped achieve the exchange of ideas and knowledge which are so important to our financial education efforts. Thanks! MFEC Welcomes New AmeriCorps VISTAThe Montana Financial Education Coalition is pleased to welcome Thomas Schumann as its first full-time AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer. Thomas will be continuing and expanding on the valuable work of departing VISTA volunteer Benjamin Marks, who devoted a significant portion of his time to building MFEC capacity. Thomas is excited to be working on several major projects devoted to increasing MFEC’s capacity and public awareness of financial education events and services in Montana. Thomas is a 2006 graduate of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where he received his bachelor’s degree in American History. After graduation, he worked as a freelance contributor and beat reporter for several Washington, DC and Maryland based newspapers. Thomas has spent the majority of his time, however, as a consultant with Quatt Associates, a consulting firm specializing in the non-profit sector. He worked closely with a number of notable organizations such as the Pew Charitable Trusts, World Wildlife Fund, and National Public Radio. MFEC would also like to recognize the contributions of Benjamin Marks. Ben, while serving as a 2009 VISTA for Great Falls-based Rural Dynamics, Incorporated, contributed a substantial amount of his year of service expanding the reach of the MFEC. He mostly focused on improving outreach and marketing efforts, such as developing the new website and e-newsletter launched earlier this year, and compiling information for the partner resource guide. Thomas will continue to improve and update these outreach materials during his tenure as the AmeriCorps VISTA in 2010. Thomas will also be instrumental in converting the partner resource guide into a fully interactive searchable database on the MFEC website. Visitors to the web will be able to locate specific services based on geographic location. Thomas has a keen desire to assist individuals and families avoid predatory lending practices and improve their financial choices. He has a long-standing interest in public service, and decided to focus his interest on financial literacy after witnessing the country’s economic turmoil and talking with financial reform advocates. Thomas looks forward to utilizing his partner-building and communications skills to further our mission throughout the state of Montana. Request for Stories / EventsMFEC is here to get the word out on financial education. The more people hear about the financial education activities happening around them, the more people will take advantage of these programs and services. So please let us know of any financial education events you are planning, so we can post them on our website, http://www.mtmfec.org. And once you have held your event, please let us know how it went, so we can share your successes. As previously mentioned, we are especially interested to hear about activities held for National Financial Literacy month. You may submit financial education events and stories to mfec@mtmfec.org. |
Montana Financial Education Coalition * www.mtmfec.org |
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