MoneyWise goes to Los Angeles

On August 5th, Consumer Action and Capital One Bank co-hosted a MoneyWi$e regional meeting in Los Angeles, California. The training brought together 61 nonprofit staff, front line advocates, educators and government officials to learn how to teach financial education to adults in the Greater Los Angeles area. Of those in attendance, 62% strongly agreed and 23% agreed that the training had a good mix of lecture, discussion among trainees and discussion of people at the tables.

The event started with a welcome from Kathy Li, Director of Consumer Action’s San Francisco office and Bert Davis, Senior Associate of National Volunteerism at Capital One Bank. Mikael Wagner, Consumer Action’s Director of Outreach and Training, described how the partnership between the organizations has evolved over time and discussed the contents of the MoneyWi$e toolkit with participants. MoneyWi$e toolkits are broken down into “modules” that include brochures, leader’s guides, presentation slides, activities and evaluations. After Wagner spoke, Consumer Action Associate Director of Outreach and Training, Audrey Perrott, gave a guided tour of the Consumer Action and MoneyWi$e websites.

Davis gave an exciting and informative session on strategies for teaching adults financial literacy. After explaining the major differences in approach between teaching adults and teaching children, Davis shared best practices for educational presentations and engaged the group in a discussion on the nuts and bolts of a successful training.

Wagner, alongside Consumer Action Outreach team members Linda Williams and Nelson Santiago, facilitated sessions on Money Management, Building Good Credit and Rebuilding Credit, combining Power Point presentation slides and group activities to make the sessions more interactive. Participants also had the opportunity to apply their field expertise with practical tips learned in the MoneyWi$e sessions to several training case studies.

In addition to providing free training and multilingual curricula, Consumer Action also provides technical assistance to groups to help them to implement financial literacy programs at their agency.

The MoneyWi$e training generated interest in the Los Angeles area Chinese media. Outreach team member Jamie Woo conducted three interviews during the training that appeared on the radio, Internet and in the Chinese print media.