Updated: March 2008

Community Education Project—Our Model

Consumer Action is a national, non-profit 501(c)(3) membership organization with offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

Founded in 1971, Consumer Action is recognized throughout the country for its history of writing, translating and distributing educational materials on telephone, privacy, healthcare, insurance, utility and financial services.

In partnership with public and private entities, Consumer Action creates award-winning educational projects promoting informed participation in the marketplace by people of color, low income and rural consumers, recent immigrants and seniors.

Several years ago, Consumer Action entered into a multi-year project with the U.S. Department of the Treasury to improve financial literacy at the community level. During this contract, we examined and broadened the scope of our educational efforts to make them more effective. In subsequent projects, we further refined our approach.

Our Model

Consumer Action’s model community-based education project now includes the following elements:

• Educational modules that include: multilingual fact sheets, leader guides for community staff who counsel consumers; and PowerPoint workshop presentations, curricula and worksheets. We create between five and ten modules a year. Consumer Action retains editorial control over its publications.

The materials are distributed through our national community-based organization (CBO) network. CBO staff hand the publications to their clients in counseling sessions and use them in workshop settings. The materials we create are written clearly and simply, translated into the languages used in the community and distributed to consumers who are not be reached by traditional efforts. Throughout the country, Consumer Action is recognized as the primary source of free, multilingual, consumer educational materials used in the community.

Each year we distribute more than one million publications through our national network of more than 9.000 CBOs and individual requests. Virtually all of our publications are available in Chinese, English, Korean, Spanish and Vietnamese.

• Train-the-trainer regional meetings which bring together CBO staff from a multi-state region to be trained by Consumer Action staff on using its modules and educating people of color in the community. Over the last three years, we trained staff of more than 1,000 agencies in Oakland, Dallas, Portland, Newark, New York City, Tampa, Chicago, Charlotte, Phoenix, Boston, Miami and Washington, D.C. Following the regional meetings, the participants, in turn, train their agency staff and volunteers to conduct presentations in the community. In conjunction with the regional meetings we train corporate partner staff to conduct trainings in the community.

• Local train-the-trainer roundtables are hosted by agencies that attend our regional meetings. Hosting agencies are responsible for recruiting community groups to their roundtable. Consumer Action staff train the participants in English, Chinese and Spanish on using the educational modules in the community. In the last three years, more than 800 groups have attended the our roundtables in locations such as Miami, New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, Fort Lauderdale, Philadelphia, Georgia, Texas, North Carolina, Colorado and Maryland.

In California, Consumer Action hosts its own train-the-trainer roundtables on issues such as financial literacy, housing, telecommunications and privacy. In 2007, CA will train staff members of more than 500 CBOs at more than 20 roundtables on effective use of its materials at the community level.

• Multilingual media promotion includes press releases, PSAs, VNRs, ANRs and satellite media tours. Our media spokespersons conduct interviews in Chinese, English and Spanish. Consumer Action’s media outreach allows us to deliver key educational messages to millions of consumers that we would not reach otherwise. For example, one of our ANRs reached more than 27 million listeners on nearly 500 radio stations. Our media efforts encourage consumers to either request individual copies of our fact sheets by mail or access them on our web site.
• Consumer Action’s unique, multilingual web site (consumer-action.org) features our pricing surveys and more than 300 fact sheets and brochures. Consumer Action’s new housing web site (housing-information.org) features housing related publications and articles. Our publications are accessed through Consumer Action’s web sites that receive more than 250,000 visitors a month. In addition, our CBO listserv alerts community agency staff by email of new publications and urge them to click back to them on our web site. Consumer Action also assists CBO staff through toll free numbers in its Los Angeles and San Francisco offices.
• Consumer Action’s national grant programs fund agencies to use our educational modules more extensively in the community. Last year, Consumer Action has awarded $200,000 to more than 100 CBOs in grants of $1,000 to $5,000. Consumer Action’s grants support effective community education at very low cost. While Consumer Action provides the staff training and free materials, the CBOs tailor their program to the individual needs of their community.
• Consumer advice and referral Hotlines are provided in Chinese, English and Spanish. Consumers are also assisted through our Web site Hotline. Our counselors assist consumers with questions and problems on topics including those covered by our publications.

Our Partners

Consumer Action works in educational partnerships with all segments of the community, including government agencies (such as HUD, the U.S. Department of the Treasury, EPA, FDIC and the Federal Reserve), major corporations (including AT&T, Capital One, Humana, PacifiCare, Microsoft, MCI, Sprint, Verizon, Washington Mutual, Bank of America and American Express); community-based organizations (including the national networks of county extension services and Consumer Credit Counseling Services; faith based organizations and churches as well as thousands of agencies serving people of color, seniors, people with disabilities and recent immigrants. In addition, we have completed more than 150 translation contracts in Spanish and Asian languages for the federal government, non-profit agencies and corporations.

Our Goal

Consumer Action seeks to expand its educational work in the community by partnering with additional public and private entities. For more information, please contact Executive Director Ken McEldowney at 415-777-9648 or .

Revised 8/14/07

Filed Under

Community Education   ♦