Creating Sustainable Personal Financial Literacy Campaigns that Benefit Society and Your Organization’s Bottom Line Takes Innovation

Until recently, organizations that want to participate in the movement to promote personal financial literacy have encountered major barriers to entry.

There were three ways organizations could participate in the financial literacy movement: 1) create their own materials, 2) sponsor / donate to organizations, 3) use 3rd party materials.  However they chose to participate, the sad reality is that most fail.  They do little to support actual financial wellness and often do not support a company’s organizational objectives.

New Opportunities

The NFEC’s recent innovations and experienced team now give organizations ways to align their brand with this important social cause, while they benefit their businesses and contribute to a meaningful initiative that can have profound impact on people’s lives.

As a resource provider with over 80 personal financial literacy assets, our solutions reduce the time, cost, and personnel required to establish a successful personal financial literacy program while providing branding and programming flexibility to your organization.

Personal financial literacyIn the process of developing more than 1,000 financial education programs, the National Financial Educators Council has learned exactly what it takes for those programs to achieve maximum impact. Thus the NFEC’s approach to teaching personal financial literacy pivots around three key components: Education, Awareness, and Sustainability.

Model programs that include all three of these essential components have been dubbed the “campaign approach” by the NFEC, a leading provider of free financial literacy education products and resources in the U.S. and worldwide. Many existing curricula to teach money skills fail to meet the criteria for the campaign approach. That is, they are one-dimensional and fail to align with larger objectives. Only by building an overall strategy that covers all three of these dimensions will a financial literacy program gain widespread success.

First, the campaign approach to financial literacy education means placing a focus on education. Programs that deliver practical lessons and motivate students toward action and behavior change are most likely to get results. The second aspect, awareness, is achieved by reaching the largest possible audience and increasing the frequency with which people are reminded to think about financial matters. Finally, sustainability must be gained by choosing a business model that reaches more and more people over time.

Advocates with an interest in undertaking financial literacy projects in their communities should be sure to strategize around all three of these important aspects. The NFEC can support your efforts. They offer workshops and training programs in addition to information about how to garner funding that builds long-term sustainability. The organization also provides turnkey marketing and promotional kits to raise awareness about personal financial education. By collaborating with this social enterprise organization, your campaign approach has best chances to inspire positive behavior change and gain long-term success.

 

Personal Financial Literacy Resources for Parent and Individuals

Most of us have made financial mistakes in our lifetimes—costly errors that we wish we’d had the knowledge to avoid. A lot of us learned money lessons from the school of hard knocks; we know firsthand the fear, stress, and worry that go hand-in-hand with money problems.

We can’t change the past. But what we can do is start now to gain personal financial knowledge that will improve our financial situations and help us attain our financial goals. The NFEC offers a variety of workshops and home study courses that can help you improve your financial capability and move closer to reaching your personal goals.

Parents, remember that you can make life easier for your children. The resources on this page can help them grow into worry-free, successful adults. With today’s increasingly complex financial markets, you must teach your kids about money before they move away from home, or they may face a lifetime of struggle and failed dreams.

Your children need a financial education. Celebrity videos and real world lessons makes learning about money fun. More

Increase Your Personal Financial Literacy

Dealing with personal financial planning intimidates a lot of people. But the solution to gaining confidence is simple – improve your money management skills. Increasing your personal financial literacy doesn’t have to be hard; and the rewards you reap can make a lasting impact on your life and family. In fact, just one comprehensive, professional-level personal financial literacy program can get you on the right track toward achieving your financial and life goals.

Fortunately, youth and adult literacy programs are popping up across the country to help people improve their money management skills. But be warned: not all adult literacy programs are created equal. Some educational institutions (universities, community colleges, high schools) provide basic classes on personal financial planning. Their goal is to teach courses designed to make their students more money literate. The problem is that these classes often are taught by instructors with no expertise in personal finance.

The NFEC, on the other hand, has developed comprehensive training and coursework by collaborating with financial education experts, financial professionals, and award-winning educators. The resulting programs both meet educational standards and pass the “real world” test.

Having even modest personal financial literacy knowledge significantly reduces the risks that go along with total ignorance. A comprehensive money management program taught by an expert instructor should be the first step in one’s quest to improve financial capability. Once you complete professional-level coursework, many different resources and ongoing education programs are available to help you continue honing your monetary skills.

In today’s information age, many money-oriented websites offer quick lessons on finance-related terminology; however, these types of sites should be combined with a proven education program that teaches you how to manage money. Trusting Internet content is foolhardy unless you already possess the knowledge to distinguish good information from bad. All individuals need at least minimal knowledge of how to take care of their finances and how to identify good advice.

Learning about money is essential for kids, teens, and adults alike. Teaching kids about money while they’re young helps them develop good personal financial habits to carry into adulthood. Teenage children need to know the core lessons so they don’t fall into financial pitfalls as they mature. Debt is one of the most common problems our youth today face. Credit cards represent one of the easiest ways to get in over your head financially. Most people know very little about how those pieces of plastic work. They’re unaware that using a card for meals and other small purchases adds an enormous amount to the cost of the purchase.

Learning how to take care of your finances scares many people. But not understanding the basics of how cash and credit work is much scarier. Just a small amount of time spent taking a professional-level money management course can greatly improve your confidence. People who don’t understand these simple concepts become easy prey for the unscrupulous, fall into common pitfalls, and become worried about their financial futures. If you lack monetary know-how, visit an online site to increase your personal financial literacy now.