Revenue, Funding, & Scaling for Individuals and Small–Mid-sized Programs

A reliable funding stream lets you hire staff, maintain quality, run follow-ups, and prove outcomes that unlock bigger opportunities.

After you graduate from the Certified Financial Education Instructor course, the NFEC provides you with resources and support to help you work toward your professional goals. Whether you are looking for a salaried position, funding your nonprofit, building clients, or developing more of an entrepreneurial venture, we welcome and support anyone passionate about helping the community.

We put together this post to address some of the top questions we receive about how people use their credentials. You will learn about the opportunities available for financial educators and how we support your goals.

4 Common Funding & Revenue Models:
Employment, Organization-paid, Individual-paid, and Client Acquisition Models

Organization Model (B to B)

When your work is funded by another company or organization – through contracts, sponsorships, or grants – you’re operating a Business to Business (B to B) model. Winning this business requires clear evidence of impact, quality, repeatable delivery, and professional reporting.

Individual Model (B to C)

When participants pay directly for your workshops, content, or provide donations to support your organization – this is a Business to Consumer (B to C) model. If you’re serving individuals, it’s important to have a reputable online presence, sales funnels, and ability to reach your target audience.

Client Acquisition Model

This model is common for financial coaches, financial services, banking industry, colleges, and others seeking to gain clients. Programs are delivered at low or no cost to participants (or partner organizations) with the explicit purpose of generating leads or new clients for a service or business.

Employment Opportunities

For those seeking employment, financial education jobs extend across a variety of sectors and present diverse opportunities.

Salaried & Employment Opportunities

Skilled financial educators are in demand across sectors that value measurable financial capability and workforce readiness. Employers hire CFEI®-trained instructors to design and deliver programs that improve employee well-being, support customers, and strengthen community outcomes. The most common organizations that hire salaried financial educators include:

  • Banks & credit unions
  • Nonprofits & community organizations
  • Colleges & universities
  • Corporations (HR / benefits / wellness teams)
  • Government agencies & public programs
  • Financial services firms & fintech companies
  • Healthcare providers & social service agencies
  • Consulting & training firms
  • Media outlets & content development platforms
  • Workforce development agencies
  • Employee assistance programs (EAPs)

Funding Opportunities Listed by Your Profession / Industry

Per the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as a nation we spend about $670 million per year on financial education. A growing demand for such education is being spurred by regulatory pressures, increased funding, social interest groups, and increased competition among various corporate and nonprofit stakeholders.

These financial literacy funding opportunities are available to organizations through various channels. The chart below outlines how individuals and organizations can fund their continued involvement in financial education:

CFEIs Execute Programs That Prove Impact – Increasing Funding Opportunities

CFEIs learn to design programs that deliver measurable outcomes – which increases opportunities for you to achieve funding and helps you build a trusted reputation. You’ll master needs analysis, define clear learning objectives, and deploy curriculum and assessment strategies that prove real learner progress – so you don’t just teach, you demonstrate impact.

The training equips you with tools – discovery templates, measurement instruments, case-study formats, and proposal language – so you can document results, report to stakeholders, and secure funding. Those tools, paired with your training, help you translate classroom wins into credible evidence that funders and partners trust.

Ultimately, this pathway positions you as a trusted financial education instructor: someone who can diagnose needs, recommend evidence-based solutions, and show quantifiable outcomes – making it easier to win contracts, attract sponsors, and scale your work.

How the NFEC Directly Supports Your Programming Funding

NFEC Connections

All CFEI graduates and State Advisory Board Members in good standing are eligible to receive programming revenue sources. The amount of opportunities varies significantly on location, expertise, and professional profiles. These possibilities can come in two ways:

  • Program bookings.
    All requests made through the NFEC for financial education programs are serviced by our graduates. When organizations request financial education programming, we hire CFEI® graduates to fulfill those requests.
  • Graduate webpage & profile.
    Every graduate can create an SEO-optimized graduate webpage (your public profile). These pages are promoted across NFEC channels and make it simple for clients and partners to find your services, view your credentials, and contact you directly.

NFEC-sponsored

The NFEC provides sponsorship funding to CFEI® graduates and State Advisory Board Members who document program outcomes using our reporting templates. To qualify, you must deliver a program with more than 20 hours of instructional contact, collect and submit pre/post measures and participation data, and report results in the NFEC format.

Sponsorship amounts vary based on program scope, instructional rigor, geographic reach, and the overall quality of the submitted data; funds are prioritized for programs that demonstrate measurable impact and potential to scale. See the full eligibility criteria and funding terms in your CFEI training materials.

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