Walkthrough: Planning an Effective Financial Literacy Camp

The following scenario is an example of a professional who, with a little help, managed to successfully orchestrate a financial literacy camp experience:

Donny is the lead coordinator for a community tutoring organization, where he was recently put in charge of 26 college-aged tutors for the summer semester. Many of them are 1st or 2nd-year college students. After he realized that several of them had approached him asking for money-related advice, he decided that he wanted to offer them a financial literacy camp that would help them improve their own financial situations. He already had a well-rounded education on the topic of personal finance, but he quickly understood that he’d need some help if he was to successfully plan a knock-out financial literacy boot camp for this group.

Following a quick sample survey that he performed with a few members of the group of tutors, he quickly understood that this group struggled with a basic level of understanding of financial literacy.

Donny fully knew what his short-term objective was: provide these young tutors with a good enough level of knowledge so that their financial lives would improve as fast as possible. As a result of the little availability that this group had each week, due to their class schedules, he could see that each member of the group would be able to participate for about three hour per week – maximum. For that reason, he was totally OK with planning a financial literacy camp that focused on just the core fundamentals of this critical subject matter.

As the first of his financial literacy summer camps eventually ended, however, his final goal was for each member of the group to reach the “Skills and Concepts” level on the ladder of understanding for this subject.

Since Donny already had his goals clearly defined, he was then able to move on to selecting the best delivery method for this upcoming camp. This group of tutors had varying schedules, so he knew that a digital screen-based financial literacy camp would be the best way to go.

Refining Your Financial Literacy Boot Camp

Donny had to then figure out a more defined focus for his financial literacy boot camp. This group was made up of younger individuals, so he decided to build this boot camp with a main concentration on healthy spending habits.

Donny, at that moment in the process, had to find an educator that would be experienced enough to present this easy-to-digest material and teach in alignment with financial literacy standards. That’s why he set out to procure an instructor who was both knowledgeable on personal finances as well as a great educator.

The person he ended up choosing was a Certified Financial Education Instructor (CFEI) who was experienced in leading financial literacy workshops.

The Critical Question of Curriculum and Format

Donny needed a digital financial literacy camp that could still be a success, given the group’s time limitations. For that reason, he decided to offer a flexible-style boot camp that would be divided into sections that could be completed whenever the tutors had time.

Out of the 26 tutors on Donny’s team that ended up taking part in the financial literacy camp, 24 completed them successfully – collectively achieving an average improvement rate of 17%. His next action was to gather the data points that resulted and generate a summary, which would show the tutors exactly how much progress they made in the first of Donny’s financial literacy summer camps.  This improvement was important for him to show in order to build his financial literacy business.