INCOME

PROMOTING FINANCIAL STABILITY

United Ways promote financial stability and long-term independence by focusing on realistic strategies that help individuals and families increase and maximize their income, build savings, and ultimately gain assets such as homeownership, continued education, access to quality child care, small business development, and retirement planning. While there are many ways to determine increases in financial stability, some indicators of success include decreases in the percentage of income spent on housing and increases in access to mainstream financial products, including accounts and loans.

Financial Stability Partnership Meeting

By hosting a Financial Stability Community Meeting you can educate community partners, your Board, donors and the community at large about the issues facing lower-income working families, gather multiple perspectives on the causes and symptoms of financial instability in your community, identify and share strategies to address these causes, and create shared ownership for the initiative among meeting participants. These resources can help you create such an event:

• A draft agenda, with objectives, that can be customized by local communities
• A list of potential speakers and invitees
• A sample PowerPoint presentation
• United Way Financial Stability Partnership video
  • Download the 90 second trailer
  • Purchase the full video
• United Way Financial Stability Partnership brochure:
  • Download
  • Purchase professionally printed brochures

Launch an America Saves Campaign

America Saves™ is a national social marketing effort created by the Consumer Federation of America to increase the value that institutions and individuals - especially the financially vulnerable - place on saving and wealth-building. Through the America Saves campaign, communities offer information and encouragement, as well as tools and resources, to help individuals and families develop savings goals and a plan for achieving those goals. Individual and family "savers" are enrolled and their progress is tracked and celebrated. The campaign offers turnkey services and materials such as a motivational workshop, a branded brochure, advice and assistance, and a database that manages information about "savers" in each community and reports on their progress in quarterly newsletters. For more information visit:

• United Way Financial Stability Partnership FastFacts - Savings Campaigns
• Integrating Savings Campaigns into Financial Stability Initiatives
• Webinar archive
• PowerPoint: PowerPoint_America Saves Webinar_For Distribution.ppt
• America Saves website
• Campaign manual

Promote IDAs

Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) can be an integral part of a holistic approach to help families attain assets and achieve greater financial independence. Since these accounts require earned income, United Ways might consider distributing information about IDAs through local employers, or at shopping malls, community fairs, or farmer's markets. FastFacts_IDAs1.pdf

Financial Education for Grandparents

Teach a class for grandparents raising grandchildren; include information about income-boosting benefits they may be eligible for as well as the importance of savings accounts for themselves and for their grandchildren. Hold the class at a senior center and encourage participation by offering childcare.

Other Ideas for Promoting Financial Stability

• Incorporate financial education - including asset protection strategies - into existing financial stability impact strategies.

• Work with financial institutions to create products that better meet the needs of the low- to moderate-income population, such as no-fee, no minimum balance checking or savings accounts.

• Mobilize volunteers to become knowledgeable about the EITC and commit to helping low-income families file for the credit in 2009. Solicit ideas on how to get more people involved, and what role banks and companies can play. Educate families about the availability and benefits of the EITC and provide support services, such as free or low-cost tax preparation to facilitate receipt of the credit.

• Representatives of banks often sit on United Way boards and can be an excellent resource for developing and acting on ideas to increase financial stability.

• Read about United Way of Palm Beach County's Prosperity Campaign. It offers a comprehensive plan for addressing financial stability.

• United Way of Los Angeles built a family savings program with a network of community partners that offers free classes on how to manage budgets, how to choose a bank, how to protect credit, and how to save. Learn more through UWLA's website and through the United Way's Knowledge Café.