Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund

Overview

Over the past five years, municipalities have increasingly embraced financial access, capability, and asset building strategies.

In strategic attempts to limit capital drain from communities and to deliver more impactful services to residents on limited or declining budgets, cities have brought into being a whole new field of municipal financial empowerment which at once offers the promise of both scale and sustainability to the asset building field.

The CFE Fund identifies high-impact, scalable, evidence-based municipal approaches and then invests in replicating them nationally.

Financial Empowerment Center Replication Initiative

Local Consumer Protection Replication Partnership with CFPB

"Twelve in Twelve" Webinar Series

National Disability Institute's LEAD Center

National Financial Education Networks

Financial Empowerment Center Replication Initiative

The gold standard of financial education, Financial Empowerment Centers offer free, professional, one-on-one financial counseling to enable residents to address their financial needs and plan for their futures. Clients receive assistance with money management, budgeting, reducing debt, establishing and improving credit, connecting to safe and affordable banking services, building savings, and referrals to other services and organizations. Counselors are professionally trained, and support their clients in navigating complex financial decisions.

Developed in New York City, the CFE Fund is now replicating the model in 5 new cities through a $16.2 million, 3-year pilot supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies. The five replication cities are: Denver, CO; Lansing, MI; Nashville, TN; Philadelphia, PA; and San Antonio, TX.

To read more about the model developed by New York City and success stories, click here.

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Local Consumer Protection Replication Partnership with CFPB

Announced by CFPB Director Richard Cordray, NYC Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, and NYC Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) Commissioner Jonathan Mintz, the CFE Fund was tapped to help local governments across the country develop and enhance their capacity to offer their residents consumer protection and financial empowerment. Hailed as a model for combining local capacity with federal partnership, the NYC DCA protects consumers through licensing, enforcement, mediation, and outreach powers and programs. To learn more about participating, contact the CFE Fund.

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"Twelve in Twelve" Webinar Series

The CFE Fund is proud to announce its Innovation Center webinar series "Twelve in Twelve: Financial Empowerment Programming Across CFE Coalition Cities." Once a month throughout 2013, the CFE Fund series will feature one program in each Coalition city. Join us to learn more about how these experts make it happen. This webinar series is made possible thanks to a generous partnership with the Capital One Foundation.

Register here for our May 23rd webinar, "K2C: 'Kindergarten to College" Child Savings in San Francisco Public Schools."

See the full list of upcoming topics here.

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National Disability Institute's LEAD Center

The CFE Fund has joined the National Disability Institute to establish the National Center on Leadership for the Employment and Advancement of People with Disabilities (LEAD Center). The LEAD Center, supported by a grant from the US Department of Labor, will focus on improving employment outcomes and promoting the economic advancement of people with disabilities.

The CFE Fund will add its expertise to connect financial stability efforts to employment programming, identifying and integrating targeted financial empowerment strategies within the LEAD Center.

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National Financial Education Networks

Establishing a Financial Education Network (FEN) is a good first step for cities looking to build the financial capability of residents. FENs enable cities to engage local non-profit community organizations to build, promote, and disseminate their services using city platforms. Many cities have robust non-profit communities already engaging in financial education linked to borrowing, lending, homeownership or small and microbusiness interventions. By reaching out to these disparate, often isolated players and establishing a network, cities can harness the capacity of the local non-profit sector while offering their ability to conduct outreach at scale and centralize and coordinate client flow to the available resources.

The CFE Fund will be launching a set of tools for local communities to launch their own Financial Education Networks in 2013.

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