We’re working to expand the reach of Your Money, Your Goals to more consumers, so we’ve selected 30 new organizations across the country to implement Your Money, Your Goalstraining with their frontline staff. These organizations include state and local government agencies, social services, legal aid, volunteer-based, and worker organizations, and a consortium of three consumer development financial institutions. Take a look at a brief summary of our new partners and what they’re working on.
Since the national launch, nearly 300 organizations have used the Your Money, Your Goals toolkit to serve more than an estimated 150,000 consumers with low-to-moderate incomes. Our new partner organizations, working together with our existing partners, will help us meet our goal of training an additional 15,000 frontline staff and volunteers, who can serve potentially an estimated 400,000 more consumers.
Key findings from the Your Money, Your Goals national launch report
We launched Your Money, Your Goals in 2014 to help low-to-moderate income consumers obtain accurate information about managing personal finances. Your Money, Your Goals is an adaptable toolkit with a “train-the-trainer” approach that equips social services staff, including case managers and others, to help clients identify financial challenges and goals. This includes how to create saving and spending plans, understand credit, manage debt, choose financial products, and access consumer protections. The toolkit helps frontline staff address basic questions and helps clients identify steps they can take to address their financial challenges.
In a new report , we found that three key elements contribute to the increasing reach of our Your Money, Your Goals initiative: a modular toolkit, free training materials, and a “train-the-trainer” structure. From June 2014 to June 2015, the report found that more than 600 people trained by us went on to train more than 6,000 frontline staff. We also learned that frontline staff in the training program reported having increased confidence to assess a client’s financial situation from 43 to 81 percent, and confidence in ability to discuss core money management topics with clients grew from 45 percent to 84 percent.
The free Your Money, Your Goals toolkit and training materials are available for download at: www.consumerfinance.gov/your-money-your-goals/
To learn how to lead a Your Money, Your Goals training or to receive email updates, contact us at YourMoneyYourGoals@consumerfinance.gov.