MY ORGANIZATION | FINANCIAL EMPOWERMENT NETWORK

FINANCIAL EMPOWERMENT NETWORK

Over the past two years, UnidosUS has built a framework for the Financial Empowerment Network—an initiative that leverages the breadth and diversity of the UnidosUS Affiliate Network and the infrastructure that UnidosUS has built to make available the support of experienced, bilingual financial coaches in communities around the country. Support from JPMC will be used to support our efforts to build upon and continue work in this area.

This initiative has integrated financial education into health centers, school-based programming, and other community services offered by UnidosUS Affiliates to reach people with financial information in a new way, and in a new moment in their lives—a time when they may need but might not be looking for financial information. This model creates a pipeline of clients who are motivated to engage in financial coaching and refers them to the most effective financial coaches that the UnidosUS Affiliate Network has to offer. In doing so, it leverages the UnidosUS Counseling Connection (UCC) to smoothly refer a client from one Affiliate to another, while ensuring that the client can consistently speak to someone in the language he/she prefers and talking to someone who understands the context of his/her financial life.

Unique among national projects, this initiative has strong potential for scale and impact and can be customized to emphasize various dimensions based on community need and partner interest. Among the features that make this initiative unique are:

Provides access to financial coaching in communities where the service is limited, if available at all
Provides consumers access to phone/virtual counseling to match the busy lifestyles of working families and to align with changing demands among consumers
Integrates financial education into organizations that are trusted members of their communities, and helps reach people who likely would not independently pursue a financial education program, engage with financial education programs, but who would benefit from them nonetheless
Access to immediate/reliable referral via our call center
Access to financial products that are not known or that meet varying client needs

UnidosUS Financial Empowerment Network in partnership with the Financial Clinic are conducting a pilot program that seeks to integrate financial capability counseling and strategies into a variety of social service programs helping to educated and coach financially insecure communities. Through this partnership UnidosUS Affiliates will provide one of two levels of financial capability service. Affiliates who engage at one level (called Tier 1) will embed financial capability into their existing programs and provide an extensive amount of light-touch services that make sense given the context of the program. Affiliates who engage at the second level (called Tier 2) will provide individualized, ongoing financial coaching services over the phone or virtually to those clients who started working with a Tier 1 Affiliate and want a deeper engagement in financial capability services. Clients will be smoothly connected from one Affiliate to another through the UnidosUS Counseling Connection call center where financial counselors act as agents and will screen clients to ensure the best referral for financial coaching. To date the FinancialWorks program has outreached over 8,600 clients. For more information click here

Funding has been increased for another year, with support for the Chicago-area Affiliates, and for continued work on the question of how housing counseling organizations can integrate discussions of financial products into the counseling process.

There is a small ongoing initiative with three Affiliates who are using a financial education curriculum in their immigrant-serving programs.

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