MoneyWi$e trains Richmond non-profits in financial literacy

Consumer Action trained 54 CBO partners at the meeting, which drew groups from in and around the state capital.

The team conducted a full-day meeting that focused on timeless topics such as establishing credit, rebuilding credit, money management and banking. The MoneyWi$e curricula includes brochures, leader's guides, lesson plans and PowerPoint slides.

Consumer Action Associate Director of Outreach and Training Audrey Perrott, Capital One Senior Financial Literacy Associate Petra Khaliqi and Capital One Volunteer Manager Amy Chapman provided welcoming remarks and told participants about Consumer Action and Capital One’s ongoing commitment to partnering with community groups to educate consumers.

Feedmore Program Manager Warren Hammonds also provided a warm welcome to the food bank partners that attended the training and are working with Capital One as part of a financial literacy initiative.

Community Outreach and Training Manager Linda Williams kicked off the training with Why Adults Learn, helping participants to understand the motivations behind adult learning. Afterward, attendees agreed that the training helped develop their understanding of why, and how, adults learn.

Williams also led the session on Managing Your Money Wisely, segueing from that into a group activity that focuses trainees on a case study of fictional client Sally Walker. The Sally Walker case study incorporates elements of the money management, rebuilding credit and identity theft MoneyWi$e training modules. (Click here to view all MoneyWi$e modules.) Williams organized participants into groups that worked together to develop recommendations for Sally. Following the breakouts, the groups shared their case management plans with the rest of the trainees.

After lunch, Community Outreach and Training Manager Nelson Santiago led Good Credit and Rebuilding Good Credit sessions. Santiago covered the importance of good credit, how to obtain your credit report, how your credit rating determines the interest rate you pay and strategies for rebuilding good credit. Santiago also discussed secured cards and told the group about several key resources, including Consumer Action's Secured Card Survey.

Williams provided an overview of the Banking Basics module and gave participants a note-taking guide that she had developed to help trainees retain key concepts.

Williams and Santiago together led the teach-back/fishbowl activity, during which participants, working in small groups, selected one of six modules to review and present to the full group. The module choices were Banking Basics, Micro Business, Rebuilding Good Credit, Elder Fraud, Saving to Build Wealth, and ID Theft and Account Fraud. Each team was given a condensed version of the module it chose to study and then tasked with developing an engaging way to present the material. The purpose of the exercise is to demonstrate how quickly trainers can grasp the MoneyWi$e materials and be prepared to deliver the content effectively to their target audiences.

The feedback from the Richmond evaluations was excellent, with 94.3% of attendees saying they agreed or strongly agreed that the training covered everything they had hoped it would.