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THE SUPERVITAMIN QUARTERLY
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Letter From The President and CEO
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| Current CFE Fund Direct Engagements |
Updating our internal CFE Fund engagement map recently, we were struck by the sight of the municipal financial empowerment field achieving critical mass. Mayors from cities big and small are embracing this public service array, providing their residents with high-quality financial counseling, integrating access to banking and financial education in large-scale programs like Summer Youth Employment, investing in innovative banking access partnerships like those of Bank On 2.0, and making other efforts and commitments that change the way their administrations deliver anti-poverty services by addressing residents' underlying financial instability.
This was particularly evident to us here at the CFE Fund from the impressive response we received to our Next Generation Municipal Financial Empowerment Award opportunity, supported by Capital One. The enthusiasm and thoughtfulness of the applications we received from new City leaders, especially the five who received the award, underscored how far municipal financial empowerment has come. Each of these Mayors understood the promise of financial empowerment strategies and what they could bring to their unique local context: Shreveport Mayor Ollie Tyler asked for our help focusing on the high number of unbanked residents in her city, while we will work with San José Mayor Sam Liccardo to help his administration integrate financial empowerment strategies into the San José Works workforce development initiative for youth and adults, as just two examples. This edition of the Supervitamin Quarterly details multiple expansions of existing programs, as well, from the announcement of our third tier of four additional Financial Empowerment Center cities; to four new Bank On 2.0 pilot programs, supported in partnership with JPMorgan Chase Foundation; to the continuation and expansion of our Summer Jobs Connect initiative, supported by the Citi Foundation.
And as the field grows, particularly with investments of public dollars and political capital, it professionalizes. We are thrilled by the volominous, enthusiastic, and diverse response we have received to our Call for Essays on the professionalizing field of financial counseling and coaching, in partnership with Citi Community Development, and look forward to sharing this vantage point on the field with you this Winter.
And, as always, thank you for your emails, ideas, and partnership!
Jonathan Mintz
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| CFE FUND SUPPORTS FINANCIAL EMPOWERMENT CENTERS IN FOUR NEW CITIES THROUGH TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE GRANTS |
| Last week, the CFE Fund joined with municipal leaders to announce a third wave expansion of our Financial Empowerment Center initiative through In-Kind Technical Assistance grants to four additional cities: Birmingham, AL; Boston, MA; Chicago, IL; and Detroit, MI. The grant provides robust technical assistance and capacity-building resources aimed at building, launching, and sustaining municipal Financial Empowerment Centers to provide professional one-on-one financial counseling integrated with social programming as a free public service. The Financial Empowerment Center model was developed by New York City in 2008 during the Bloomberg Administration; in 2013, through a $16.2 million, three-year grant by Bloomberg Philanthropies, the CFE Fund announced the replication of this model in five additional cities (Denver, CO; Lansing, MI; Nashville, TN; Philadelphia, PA; and San Antonio, TX). Based on overwhelming municipal demand following the success of each of the replications, the CFE Fund expanded the program through in-kind technical assistance grants in 2014: Cleveland, OH; Hawaii County, HI; San Francisco, CA; and Seattle, WA are currently developing strategic approaches to replicating this one-on-one financial counseling model in their local communities, leveraging committed leadership and strong partnerships to provide a much-needed city service.
We are excited by the thoughtful, creative approaches these mayors put forward in their applications, as well as the tangible commitment to municipal financial empowerment in each of their cities.
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UPDATES FROM THE BANK ON 2.0 INITIATIVE
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| We're excited to share news from the Bank On 2.0 initiative, including four new pilot programs, part of the Bank On 2.0 Innovation Fund supported by JPMorgan Chase Foundation. These pilots will test new, replicable methods of reaching underserved markets through local government infrastructure and leadership. These new grants support:
- County of Hawaii, HI: The County will work with its residents who receive utility reimbursements, incentivizing them to receive these payments through direct deposit in partnership with a local credit union.
- Near West Side Community Development Corporation (Chicago, IL): Near West Side CDC will partner with a local bank to engage Chicago public housing residents in automatic rental payments, providing financial workshops, helping residents open accounts, and incentivizing automatic rental payments.
- Rural Dynamics, Inc. (Missoula, MT): RDI will work with Missoula public housing residents and Housing Choice Voucher holders to promote credit building and bank account opening as part of the larger Family Self Sufficiency program. RDI will offer integrated financial counseling that focuses on building credit for employment, as well as opening a bank account. Participants will set up automatic rent payments that can be reported to the credit bureaus as a tool to build their credit history.
- City of Lansing, MI: Working with their Parole Office, Lansing will help people on parole open bank accounts through targeted banking education in conjunction with Bank On fairs. Parole officers and Lansing Financial Empowerment Center counselors will help parolees address credit history concerns; and assess, select, and open an appropriate bank account that can then allow for direct deposit once they get a job.
We look forward to partnering with these local governments and organizations, and sharing the results of their work with you and the field.
Additionally, the CFE Fund welcomes David Ehrich to the Bank On team. David will spearhead our national and local partnerships as we expand the rollout of this initiative. David joins our team as Principal after leading Card Strategy and Product Development at JPMorgan Chase's Big Data team, and was previously General Manager for American Express' Prepaid Division and a consultant with McKinsey & Company. Please email David at [email protected] with all your Bank On 2.0 questions and ideas!
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SUMMER JOBS CONNECT UPDATES
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| The second, expanded year of our Summer Jobs Connect (SJC) initiative is in full gear. The program, generously funded by the Citi Foundation, now spans across eight cities, with Washington, DC; St. Louis, MO; and Newark, NJ newly joining the five original SJC cities of Chicago, IL; Los Angeles, CA; Miami, FL; New York, NY; and San Francisco, CA to provide over 2,000 youth with summer jobs, skills training, and financial empowerment services including safe banking. In March, the CFE Fund joined the Citi Foundation in announcing the expansion of the program at the President's Advisory Council on Financial Capability for Young Americans (PACFCYA) meeting hosted at the White House. At the PACFCYA meeting, we also released More Than a Job: Lessons from the First Year of Enhancing Municipal Summer Youth Employment Programs through Financial Empowerment. This report highlights key lessons learned from the first year of the initiative. In addition, the PACFCYA recently released a report on their findings on the importance of building youth financial capability and promising practices in the field; the report highlights the role of cities and communities this work, including through youth employment programs like Summer Jobs Connect. |
| ESSAY SUBMISSIONS: THE PROFESSIONALIZING FIELD OF FINANCIAL COUNSELING AND COACHING |
| Over the last several years, large-scale investments in one-on-one financial counseling and coaching programs have grown exponentially. Private funders, federal agencies, local municipalities across the country, and large nonprofit organizations have been demonstrating these services can be delivered at scale, through trained professionals, with measurable client outcomes. Low income financial counseling and coaching is on the verge of becoming a professional field--but the long-term sustainability of this work must be supported by generally-accepted standards to continue this important progress. With this perspective in mind, the CFE Fund, with support from Citi Community Development, issued a call for essay abstracts on at least one of four main professionalization themes:
- Ensuring quality;
- Achieving consistency;
- Demonstrating accountability; and
- Establishing a professional community.
We were delighted with the depth and breadth of the more than 100 essay abstracts we received - thank you! We look forward to working with soon-selected authors to produce and release a journal this Winter.
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| GUEST COLUMN: COMMUNITY CREDIT: A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON AMERICA'S COMMUNITIES |
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By Kausar Hamdani, Senior Vice President, Federal Reserve Bank On New York Kausar was a guest at the CFE Coalition's Forum in January 2015, in San Antonio, TX. She brought the Community Credit profiles project to the Coalition's "construct-a-program" session to solicit feedback in anticipation of its public release. In this guest column, Kausar details some of the information that can be found on the now-released interactive online tool. Community Credit: A New Perspective on America's Communities Ever wondered about the credit health of your community? Are residents, through their ability to access and use credit, able to pursue economic dreams or meet emergencies? Can they be a source of strength and financial resiliency for their neighborhoods? A new data interactive by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York called Community Credit looks at these issues at the national, state and county levels. We start with the local credit economy, defined as all adults (18+ age) in a location with a credit file and credit score with the Equifax credit bureau. But being part of the credit economy is not sufficient to ensure timely access to credit. So we look at various measures of community credit quality. For example, what percent of the credit economy has a prime/ near prime/ subprime credit score? Or, what percent were fully current on all their credit obligations for a full year? And, what percent have a revolving credit product and sufficient capacity on the credit limits to obtain credit at their own discretion? We also look at credit stress since prudent credit behaviors are good for the community as well as the individual. To characterize the credit health of the community, we use individuals' four-quarter credit history to derive a five-category scale. You can see what percent of the credit economy for your county or state has been chronically delinquent of some credit obligation for the past year--as well as what percent is improving. Answers to these and other questions are on the website. Please use it and give us feedback as to what was useful and what more you would like to see. |
| The CFE Fund has moved! We have moved into a new space in the Financial District. Our new address is 44 Wall Street, Suite 605. |
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