Financial Literacy Compendium Compiled by Karen Long-Trail, Coordinator of Admissions and Financial Aid TWU T. Boone Pickens Institute of Health Sciences Dallas-Center Presented by Karen Long-Trail, Coordinator of Admissions and Financial Aid TWU T. Boone Pickens Institute of Health Sciences Dallas-Center and Julie Wittmis, Financial Aid Advisor TWU Denton Campus

Financial Literacy Compendium! How to Launch a Financial Literacy Program! Create a mission statement. Define a vision plan. Develop a brand to enhance marketing efforts. Identify primary services provided within the financial literacy program.

Financial Literacy Compendium! Verify and explore resources within your department. Clarify, review, and plan a budget for strategic planning. Develop a team. Embrace your students to obtain feedback.

Financial Literacy Compendium! Create a five year plan for future services.

Financial Literacy Compendium! Create the mission statement. Brainstorm ideas with a focus group composed of students, staff, and faculty Complement the created mission statement with your institution’s mission statement.

Financial Literacy Compendium! Identify driving components within your mission statement. For example, legislative requirements or a deep commitment to students. Explore what type of message is your institution trying to deliver?

Financial Literacy Compendium! What are future visions of the Financial Literacy Program? What are the Guiding Principles? A business plan can be a helpful guide to provide structure.

Financial Literacy Compendium! Creative vision statements examples. –To empower students with lifelong financial management tools. –To teach students to obtain lifelong money management skills. –To educate and serve as an advocate for students.

Financial Literacy Compendium! Develop a brand or theme to strategically market the financial literacy program. Creative title examples such as “ Financial Fitness”, “Financial Cents”, or “Getting in Shape with Financial Aid” can provide a theme.

Financial Literacy Compendium! Brand Financial Literacy events. Tailor topics to respective student populations such as “Living off Campus”, “Consolidation of Loans”, “Loan Forgiveness Programs”, or “How to Create Repayment Plans for Student Loans”.

Financial Literacy Compendium! Branding Financial Literacy events could include holiday themes such as, “Debt Can be Scary”, or “The Walking Debt”.

Financial Literacy Compendium! Identify primary services within the financial literacy program. Limited staff and budgets call for creative ideas! Implement face to face presentations with question and answer sessions.

Financial Literacy Compendium! TWU launched five face to face presentations and question and answer sessions per semester to the Denton, Dallas, and Houston locations. Presentations were delivered by a professional financial aid team member. Additional sessions were created around student academic schedules.

Financial Literacy Compendium! Devote an entire week for Financial Literacy Sessions. Plan your events with the university’s academic calendar to prevent competing with other programs. Offer personal coaching sessions with a professional financial aid staff member,

Financial Literacy Compendium! Collaborate with other university departments to share resources. For example, TWU Office of Student Life provides emergency loans to assist students experiencing a crisis which impacts university retention efforts.

Financial Literacy Compendium! Verify and utilize University Resources. Draw upon institutional relationships such as the Marketing Department, Internal Auditors for compliance questions, and the Department of Institutional Technology. Gather student feedback to generate topics of interest for outreach presentations.

Financial Literacy Compendium! Create a Webinar to reach Distance Education and commuter students.

Financial Aid Compendium! Develop a team. Evaluate strengths and weaknesses within your staff. Encourage team members to obtain skills by rotation of duties. Consider team strategic planning events.

Financial Literacy Compendium! Gather and record data. Create surveys and assessments. Measure the impact of your Financial Literacy Programs. For example, evaluate correlations and effects in the areas of academic progress and student retention.

Financial Literacy Compendium! Document variations in cause and effect relationships with cohort default rates. Create exit forms and surveys.

Financial Literacy Compendium! Plan for future services. Embrace technology! Create a dynamic website as a first point of contact for students. Create a Facebook page as a driver to generate student traffic to the main website. Use Twitter to promote campus events.

Financial Literacy Compendium! Create a Cellphone application to use as a cross-platform to generate student traffic to the main website. Create an Instagram for online photo-sharing and social networking.

Financial Literacy Compendium! Successful Endeavors at TWU. Offer lunch or snacks to the first 75 students that sign up for a literacy program. Consider offering financial incentives. For example, the Department of Financial Aid offered students the opportunity to participate in a daily $ scholarship drawing.

Financial Literacy Compendium! Create a five-minute pitch to classrooms one week before scheduled events. Review classroom and building schedules to market the Financial Literacy program and optimize visibility for strategic planning purposes.

Financial Literacy Compendium! Sell the Financial Literacy Program to Associate Deans and faculty.

Financial Literacy Compendium Partner with outside agencies such as the YMCA, community and high school events. Include financial literacy sessions with university orientations. Invite financial experts as speakers. Create a student mentor program within the business department.

Financial Literacy Compendium Work and utilize technology such as creating a dynamic website to create a first point of contact for students seeking information about money management.” Create a Facebook page to driver or generate student traffic to a main center website. Use Twitter that can promote campus events.

Financial Literacy Compendium Create an Instagram for online photo-sharing and social networking Create a Cell Phone Application to use as a cross-platform to drive student traffic to main website

Financial Literacy Compendium Ideas created by other institutions. Mandatory participation for undergraduate and news students. Future registrations are blocked until the curriculum is completed. Incorporate the Financial Literacy Program into general education requirements.

Financial Literacy Compendium! Charge a small student service fee to fund specific Financial Literacy Events at your school.

Financial Compendium Questions? or Thank you!