NFEC Financial Education Program Gets Real Results
If you’re in the market for a hands-on guide that walks you through the best practices for designing a financial education program, you’ve reached the right website. Here you’ll find all the phases that go into creating a financial literacy program design that really gets results, regardless of its size or scope.
Practical Tactics Work Best
To build a successful financial education program, the practical method works best. We’ll demonstrate in the following example.
Amalie recently got her first career position as cyber security specialist for a promising startup. After meeting with the 17 employees at the company, she observed a common thread among them – they were super talented and well-versed in the technology they were working on, but not so adept at personal finance matters. Amalie decided financial education would have benefits for all of them, and she was knowledgeable in that area. She would just need a bit more information to guide her programming choices.
Amalie collected the data she needed for her personal finance course parameters by asking questions at the next staff meeting, determining that both the employees and the company would benefit if the staff gained some core money management basics.
Goal Clarification Focuses a Financial Foundation Education Program
Amalie set an overarching goal for the program of getting the staff to the “basic application of skills and concepts” level of knowledge acquisition.
Delivering the Educational Components
Tightening the Program Focus
Now was the time for Amalie to narrow down the subjects – drawn from money management lesson plans – upon which to focus the financial education program. Since Amalie’s own position involved cyber security, she chose to place top emphasis on the topics of income security and how to avoid identity theft. These subjects were consistent with some of the recommendations made by Americorps.
Enlisting Qualified Educational Help
The next phase Amalie faced in the sequence of planning a financial education program was finding an educator with top credentials to implement the training. Topical expertise and instructional skill were the characteristics she sought, and she found both in a CFEI (Certified Financial Education Instructor) credentialed by the NFEC.
Arranging the Class Structure
Delving into the Figures
Among the 17 staff members, all but one completed the online financial foundation education program. Those 16 participants realized an average increase in subject knowledge – based on pre- and post-testing – of 28%. Amalie was quite happy with the outcome of her initial personal finance programs, applying the data to build an eye-catching report that illustrated the program’s effects for her supervisors.
A Moment for Celebration…and Sustainability
Amalie couldn’t wait to move forward to expand her financial education program, but first she took a moment to celebrate its success and recognize the stellar efforts of the employees. She distributed certificates of completion to commemorate their success, and then proceeded to follow up with monthly mini-lessons in the company newsletter to keep personal finance matters in the forefront of participants’ minds.
Achieving personal success has many potential meanings. But for most of us, financial security forms a crucial part of success. Yet few people become successful—financially or otherwise—by flying solo. According to a current financial education program, networking with a stable group of other investors is essential to creating a winning financial plan.
The National Financial Educators Council (NFEC) has developed a financial literacy program that reaches individuals of all ages and from every walk of life. This state-of-the-art program emphasizes how building a stable network helps ensure a steady stream of viable investment options from a variety of possibilities.
Like every accomplishment, says this personal finance program, financial success is firmly rooted in good communication. Networking simply means gathering contact information from people we know, including friends, family, colleagues, and acquaintances. Most of us have contacts from every location where we work, play, learn, and do business. If we maintain a list containing phone and email information for each of these contacts, we have a network.
Since communication is a two-way street, keeping in touch with our network on a regular basis is another vital part of our financial education toward success. Watch for opportunities to give your network an update:
- Send out monthly notes about your current investments and ideas
- Contact your network when you hear about an exciting investment possibility
- Stay in touch regularly on anniversaries, holidays, and birthdays
Scratch your network’s back, and they’ll scratch yours—it’s a fundamental fact of life.
In addition to the basics of investing, the NFEC programs cover the whole gamut of personal finance subjects. Their financial education program teaches about goal-setting, budget planning, savings, managing credit and debt, insurance, developing skills, generating income, and retirement preparation. The NFEC doesn’t only prepare mature adults to invest for a secure future. They also have financial literacy programs for kids, teenagers, and young adults.