Program development – Prosper Canada Learning Hub

The COVID-19 Wildfire: Nonprofit Organizational Challenge and Opportunity

Nonprofit organizations in Canada were significantly impacted by COVID-19, including lost revenue and needing to adjust the program delivery. The lack of technology capacity in the nonprofit sector is a key barrier for many nonprofit organizations to adapt to delivering programs online. Momentum, a Calgary-based nonprofit organization, experienced both financial and programmatic challenges due to COVID-19. Momentum pivoted program delivery to provide supports during the COVID-19 lockdown and developed innovative approaches to online programming. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada, Momentum was able to rapidly develop its capacity to use technology for online programming with the support of critical new funding. Many nonprofits will have to transform their business models to not only survive but thrive in the post-COVID world.

Human Insights Tools & Resources

Human insights are used when designing programs and improving services through understanding clients’ hidden preferences, environment factors and behaviors. The Human Insights Tools from Prosperity Now are intended to take you through the process of discovering opportunities for innovation from clients’ point of view, designing solutions to meet those needs, and testing your ideas to ensure they bring about the needed change.

Tools and resources are presented for each of the discover, design, and test phases.

Meeting the Emergency Moment: Key Takeaways from Delivering Remote Municipal Financial Counseling Services

Local governments across the United States are working to help their residents weather the health and financial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. In many cities and counties, that means deploying their Financial Empowerment Centers (FECs), which provide professional, one-on-one financial counseling as a public service. Local leaders were able to offer FEC financial counseling as a critical component of their emergency response infrastructure; the fact that this service already existed, and was embedded into the fabric of municipal anti-poverty efforts, meant that it could quickly pivot to meet new COVID-19 needs, including through offering remote financial counseling.

This brief describes how FEC partners identified the right technology; developed skills to deliver counseling remotely; messaged the availability of FEC services as part of their localities’ COVID-19 response; and shared lessons learned with their FEC counterparts around the country.

Youth Reconnect Program Guide: An Early Intervention Approach to Preventing Youth Homelessness

Since 2017, the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness and A Way Home Canada have been implementing and evaluating three program models that are situated across the continuum of prevention, in 10 communities and 12 sites in Ontario and Alberta. Among these is an early intervention called Youth Reconnect.

This document describes the key elements of the YR program model, including program elements and objectives, case examples of YR in practice, and necessary conditions for implementation. It is intended for communities who are interested in pursuing similar early intervention strategies. The key to success, regardless of the approaches taken, lies in building and nurturing community partnerships with service providers, educators, policy professionals, and young people.

Are charities ready for social finance? Investment readiness in Canada’s charitable sector

While social finance could have a transformative impact on the funding and financial landscape, relatively little is understood about its implications for charities. This webinar presents the results of a national survey of over 1,000 registered charities undertaken by Imagine Canada to better understand charities’ current readiness to participate in Canada’s growing social finance market

Supporting Financial Health Fintechs in Canada: Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities

Technology can play a key role in addressing some of the financial challenges that Canadians face on a day-to-day basis. Over the last five to ten years we have seen a growing number of companies, called fintechs, that primarily use technology to change and enhance the way we do banking or access financial advice and services. Many of these companies are building products that are specifically meant to help Canadians improve their financial health.

The purpose of this report is to explore the existing financial health fintech landscape in Canada, the challenges that these companies face, and how an accelerator program that provides mentorship and resource supports over a defined time-frame can better help these financial health fintechs grow and thereby help improve the financial health of people across Canada.

Financial Literacy Outcome Evaluation Tool

The Financial Literacy Outcome Evaluation Tool offers organizations a collection of evidence-based financial literacy outcomes and indicators. The tool guides users through a series of questions about their program and evaluation goals and then suggests scales (sets of questions) and individual questions they can use.

A Scan of Municipal Financial Capability Efforts

As the connection between financial capability and social mobility is made evident, both public and private actors are increasingly interrogating the drivers of personal financial health and investing in the innovation of products and services designed to improve the condition of economically vulnerable individuals.

This high-level scan of existing U.S. financial capability initiatives and the ways they fit together lends insight into the role that cities and their core institutions can play in promoting residents’ personal economic growth. This study, funded by JPMorgan Chase & Co. and executed by Urbane Development (UD), leverages
primary and secondary research to explore features of the broad range of programs and policy efforts that make up the financial capability landscape of the U.S. This examination focuses particularly on programs deployed by and within municipalities.

Client Engagement and Retention—The Secret Ingredient in Successful Financial Capability Programs

Grantmakers and practitioners recognize the importance of financial security for individuals and families, and many organizations therefore offer financial capability programs aimed at strengthening the financial well-being of the people they serve. But good financial capability programs are often high-touch and costly to provide for program administrators, and time consuming for clients to participate in. To benefit fully from such programs’ offerings, clients must actively participate in the program’s coaching, counseling, or other sessions, and engage in related activities to boost their financial health.

Thus, understanding what drives client engagement is critical to helping programs improve program retention and outcomes, and concurrently, helps funders maximize the value of philanthropic dollars and customers’ time. Grantmakers concerned about best practices for funding effective financial capability efforts must therefore understand the vital role of client retention and the strategies for supporting the nonprofit sector to address this challenge.

The brief explains the importance of client retention and engagement for financial capability program success, describes three key barriers to effective program participation, offers strategies to overcome those barriers, and closes with recommendations for philanthropy.

Creating a Strong Foundation for Change

This guide is designed to be a resource for programs working with low income families to use when anticipating or implementing a new approach, such as coaching, to doing business. It helps you to systematically – and honestly – look at your foundational readiness for change, so that the improvements you want to make will take root and grow in fertile ground. Making time and space to look deeply into your organization can offer the opportunity to reconsider what quality service delivery looks like, help you discover how coaching (or other techniques) could be a tool, and plan efficiently on where it fits best into your existing context.

Blended programs: Boosting financial education and participant outcomes

There are many different ways to deliver financial empowerment programs. Financial literacy education, financial coaching, and matched savings programs can be successfully delivered independently, with successful outcomes for participants. They can also be blended together to accomplish several educational goals and improve participant outcomes.

In this one-hour webinar we explore two examples of blended program models. The speakers are:

Anna Jordan (Momentum – Calgary, AB)
Monica Da Ponte (Strive – Toronto, ON)

Click 'Get it' below to access the video link, and scroll down to access handouts, slides, and video timestamps for this webinar.

Handouts, slides, and time-stamps

Read the presentation slides for this webinar.

Handouts for this webinar:
How Savings Circles Works
Information about the Strive program

Time-stamps for the video recording:
3:35 – Agenda and introductions
6:00 – Audience polls
10:58 – Financial empowerment interventions (Speaker: Glenna Harris)
14:00 – Savings Circles program at Momentum (Speaker: Anna Jordan)
33:18 – Strive program (Speaker: Monica daPonte)
55:50 – Q&A

Incentivized Savings: An Effective Approach at Tax Time

A tax refund is often the largest amount of money a low-income household will receive throughout the year. It offers a unique opportunity to think long term and save for the future. Thus, in 2018, Momentum launched a new pilot program called Tax Time Savings (TTS), presented by ATB. It was through a dedicated collaboration with ATB Financial, Aspire Calgary, Sunrise Community Link Resource Centre, Centre for Newcomers, and First Lutheran Church Calgary that made it all possible.

This report shares results and highlights from the 2018 Tax Time Savings program. 93% of participants earned the maximum match of $500.

Financial coaching for newcomers: Promising practices

For many newcomers, living in Canada involves learning about finances and money management in new ways. This can include navigating new financial systems, and learning about tax filing and benefits, as well as day-to-day money management and saving. One-on-one financial coaching programs offer assistance for newcomers seeking to better manage their finances and achieve their goals.

In this one-hour webinar we’ll hear from two agencies who recently piloted financial coaching programs for newcomers as part of Prosper Canada’s Financial Empowerment for Newcomers project. The speakers are:

Sheri Abbott (AXIS – St. John’s, Nfld)
Noemi Garcia (North York Community House – Toronto, ON)

Click 'Get it' below to access the video link, and scroll down to access handouts, slides, and video timestamps for this webinar.

Handouts, slides, and time-stamps

Read the presentation slides for this webinar

Access the handouts for this webinar:
Poster presentation: Financial Empowerment for Newcomers project
Infographics: Newcomer settlement stages, money matters, and client personas

Time-stamps for the video recording:
3:11 – Agenda and introductions
5:21 – Audience poll
8:25 – Introduction to Financial Empowerment for Newcomers project (Speaker: Glenna Harris)
11:25 – AXIS financial coaching program (Speaker: Sheri Abbot)
30:05 – North York Community House financial coaching program (Speaker: Noemi Garcia)
45:40 – Q&A

Spurring Savings Innovations: Human Insight Methods for Savings Programs

This brief uses the experiences of participants in a service design process called the Savings Innovation Learning Cluster (SILC) to gather key insights into client perspectives and how it can be used to better program design. Four human insights research and design methods are explored—client interviews, client journey mapping, concept boards and prototyping—which can be used to develop more effective savings programs.

Introduction to Program Evaluation for Public Health Programs: A Self-Study Guide

This document is a “how to” guide for planning and implementing evaluation activities. The manual, based on Centers for Disease Control and Preventions's Framework for Program Evaluation in Public Health, is intended to assist managers and staff of public, private, and community public health programs to plan, design, implement and use comprehensive evaluations in a practical way.

Promise Accounts: Matched Savings to Help Families Get Ahead

This report from Prosperity Now shows the importance of matched savings programs called 'Promise Accounts' which help families successfully save for their futures. They are especially important for households of color as compared to white households.

Decreasing economic inequality and closing the racial wealth divide means creating saving pathways for low-income households to build wealth. Promise Accounts make some key changes to traditional matched savings programs. Specifically, these accounts would have features including:

Standardized accounts created through one platform, managed by the US Department of the Treasury
A strong role for local organizations
Broadening the uses for Promise Accounts including higher education, work, and housing
Allowing more families to participate
Elimination of savings penalties

More Than Just Taxes

Tax time financial capability services offered at Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) sites range from encouraging taxpayers to save a portion of their refund to free credit reviews, to referrals to financial coaching, and others in between.

This report from Prosperity Now summarizes research findings on VITA programs offering asset-building and financial capability services. Specifically, findings address barriers to be overcome, facilitating factors, and the opportunities for targeted outreach, tailored messages, and policy improvements to move the needle on Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) take-up rates.

An Evaluation of Financial Empowerment Centers: Building People’s Financial Stability as a Public Service

This report is a three-year evaluation of the Financial Empowerment Center initiative’s replication in 5 cities (Denver, CO; Lansing, MI; Nashville, TN; Philadelphia, PA and San Antonio, TX). Financial Empowerment Centers (FECs) offer professional, one-on-one financial counseling as a free public service. The evaluation draws on data from 22,000 clients who participated in 57,000 counseling sessions across these first 5 city replication partners, and provides additional evidence of the program’s success.

Saving on a low income: Programs and strategies

This is a one-hour webinar on matched savings programs and personal savings strategies that work for people living on low incomes. Our panelists share experiences from their programs in Ontario and Calgary. The presenters in this webinar are:

Dean Estrella, Momentum, Calgary, AB
John Cockburn, Credit Counselling Sudbury, ON

This webinar is geared towards frontline practitioners and organizations providing financial empowerment programs.

Handouts, slides, and time-stamps

Presentation slides for this webinar

Handouts for this webinar:
Brief: Matched Savings programs – webinar handout (Momentum)
Matched Savings programs chart – webinar handout (Momentum)
Budget Tracker – webinar handout (Credit Counselling Sudbury)
Monthly Budget – webinar handout (Credit Counselling Sudbury)

Time-stamps for the video-recording:
3:26 – Agenda and introduction
6:17 – Audience polls
9:41 – Reasons to save (Speaker: Glenna Harris)
12:08 – Effectiveness of Matched Savings (Speaker: Dean Estrella from Momentum)
32:10 – Savings strategies for clients on low incomes (Speaker: John Cockburn from Credit Counselling Sudbury)
47:50 – Q&A

Successful strategies for saving for higher education

This is a one-hour webinar on increasing take up of Registered Education Savings Plans (RESPs) among people on low incomes. Our panelists share challenges and success stories in their work to help clients save for their children’s post-secondary education. Learn successful outreach strategies, tips on increasing sign ups through one-on-one support, and other approaches that work. The presenters in this webinar are:

Allyson Schmidt (Credit Counselling Service of Sault Ste. Marie and District)
Rocio Vasquez, (Family Services of Greater Vancouver)

Click 'Get it' below to access the video link, and scroll down to access handouts, slides, and video timestamps for this webinar.

Handouts, slides, and time-stamps

Presentation slides for this webinar

Handouts for this webinar:
RESP case plan – webinar handout (from Credit Counselling Sault Ste. Marie)
RESP tracking sheet – webinar handout (from Credit Counselling Sault Ste. Marie)
RESP quick reference sheet – webinar handout (from FSGV)
RESP sample letter to schools – webinar handout (from Credit Counselling Sault Ste. Marie)

Time-stamps for the video recording:

3:00 – Agenda and introductions
5:05 – Audience polls
9:00 – Importance of education savings (Speaker: Glenna Harris)
16:00 – Credit Counselling Services Sault Ste. Marie and District (Speaker: Allyson Schmidt)
33:00 – Family Services of Greater Vancouver (Speaker: Rocio Vasquez)
54:45 – Q&A

Financial Coaching Program Design Guide: A Participant-Centred Approach

This comprehensive resource from Prosperity Now supports organizations in developing a participant-centered financial coaching program. Grounded in a field survey, over 100 interviews, expert advice and beta-testing with six new financial coaching programs, the Coaching Guide highlights the strengths and limitations of financial coaching, offers designs tools, showcases promising models and practices, and includes resources from program leaders and financial coaches.

Integrating Financial Capability Services into Tribal LIHEAP

This brief is a companion resource to Building Financial Capability: A Planning Guide for Integrated Services (also known as the Guide) and provides real-world examples of financial capability integration efforts. The brief shares lessons and approaches for how tribal-serving organizations can integrate financial capability services into LIHEAP and other emergency assistance services.

The brief highlights the experiences of two tribal serving organizations in Alaska that integrated financial capability services: the Kenaitze Indian Tribe and the Aleutian Pribilof Island Association (APIA). It is organized into three sections: understanding households’ financial lives, deciding which financial capability services to integrate, and assessing organizational and community capacity to plan for how to deliver services.

Supporting Employee Financial Stability: How Philanthropy Catalyzes Workplace Financial Coaching Programs

More than half of all employees in the United States report that they are
financially stressed, and nearly one in three employees reports being distracted by personal financial issues while at work. This financial stress impacts individuals’ health, relationships, productivity, and time away from work.

This report describes different workplace models, the common characteristics and challenges of programs, and provides recommendations for funders who want to invest in workplace approaches to help workers achieve financial stability.

Boosting the Earned Income Tax Credit for Singles

By providing a refundable credit at tax time, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is widely viewed as a successful public policy that is both antipoverty and pro-work. But most of its benefits have gone to workers with children.

Paycheck Plus is a test of a more generous credit for low-income workers without dependent children. The program, which provides a bonus of up to $2,000 at tax time, is being evaluated using a randomized controlled trial in New York City and Atlanta. This report presents findings through three years from New York, where over 6,000 low-income single adults without dependent children enrolled in the study in late 2013.

The findings are consistent with other research on the federal EITC, indicating that an effective work-based safety net program can increase incomes for vulnerable and low-income individuals and families while encouraging and rewarding work.

Partenariat pour l’impact de l’autonomisation financière

Un nombre croissant d’organismes communautaires au Canada offrent des programmes qui aident à améliorer le bien-être financier des familles et des personnes dans leur collectivité. Certains de ces organismes préconisent également des changements aux politiques et aux systèmes pour faire en sorte que l’ensemble de la population canadienne, particulièrement les personnes à faible revenu, soit intégrée dans notre système financier.

Apprenez à accroître l’impact de votre organisation. Joignez-vous à EBO, Union des consommateurs et l’ACEF Montérégie-Est pour un webinaire d’une heure pour entendre Hélène Ménard, Directrice générale, Centre Éducation financière EBO; Sophie Roussin, chargée du Projet national des champions de l’autonomisation financière, Union des consommateurs; et Tanya Brodeur, conseillère budgétaire, ACEF Montérégie-Est, partager des conseils sur la manière dont les partenariats et la collaboration peuvent se traduire par des changements à grande échelle.

A Much Closer Look: Enhancing Savings Counseling at Financial Empowerment Centers

Building savings is a fundamental strategy for empowering individuals and families with low incomes. Even relatively small amounts of savings can serve as a buffer against inevitable financial shocks that can otherwise undermine social service efforts and successes – and short-term savings offer realistic first steps toward building longer-term savings and acquiring assets.

The CFE Fund conducted a research pilot at municipal Financial Empowerment Centers to better understand how clients are saving, and inform new savings indicators for financial counseling success. This report explains the insights of this research pilot, and client outcomes in savings and goal setting.

MPower Money Coaching Program

This is the final report on the MPower Money Coaching Program. This program was a unique collaboration that brought together Prosper Canada, a national charity, Canada’s leading investment firms and investment industry associations, and the City of Toronto’s Employment and Social Services Division (TESS) to provide neutral, high quality financial help to people living on low incomes.

Financial coaching insights

This webinar shares insights from three different financial coaching and counselling programs in Canada, discussing what these financial coaching programs look like, program successes, and program challenges. The speakers are:

Sheri Fata, Manager of Education and Support Services at Thunder Bay Counselling
Danny Carestia, MPower Money Coaching program volunteer in Toronto
Jose Jaime Guerrero Financial Counsellor at Family Services of Greater Vancouver.

This is the video recording of the webinar.

Read the presentation slides for this webinar.

Read the MPower Money Coaching Program report discussed in the webinar.

Financial literacy outcome evaluation made easy

In this webinar, "Financial literacy & coaching outcome evaluation made easy," you'll learn about the new online evaluation tool developed by Prosper Canada. This is a revolutionary new online evaluation question tool designed to help organizations measure the effectiveness of their financial literacy and coaching programs.

The speakers are:

Lilian Knorr, Manager of Research and Evaluation at Prosper Canada
Salima Shariff, Research and Evaluation Officer at Prosper Canada.

The financial literacy and coaching evaluation tool is a product of the Strengthening evaluation of financial literacy programs in Canada project funded by the Canadian Bankers Association of Canada and conducted in partnership with Prosper Canada and the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada.

This is the video recording of the webinar.

Discover the Financial Literacy Outcome Evaluation Tool discussed in the webinar.

Insights to impact: Behavioural science

In this webinar, "Insights to impact: What behavioural science tells us about building financial well-being," you'll learn about how behavioural science can be used to help build financial well-being and influence the design of financial empowerment programs.

The speakers are

Katy Davis, Managing Director, ideas42
Emily Zimmerman, Vice President, ideas 42

This is the video recording of the webinar.

Read the presentation slides from this webinar.

Read the report Insights to Impact, discussed in this webinar.

Paving the Way – A Roadmap for Organizations Partnering to Deliver Financial Capability Services

Creating a More Inclusive and Accessible Financial Coaching Program: A Case Study Exploration of Strategies and Recommendations

LIFT-UP – An Innovative Approach to Municipal Financial Empowerment

Financial Literacy in a Box (FLIB)

Closing the Racial Wealth Gap: Establishing and Sustaining an Initiative

Creating Mobility from Poverty: An Overview of Strategies

Integrating Financial Capability Services into Community Health Centers

Selecting Programs for Integrating Financial Capability Services

Data Collection Methods and Food Assessments

This is the slide deck for a webinar presentation by First Nations Development Institute on data collection methods in first nations communities, related to food assessments. It explains the data collection process, what data analysis is, why it is important to have a data analysis plan, qualitative and quantitative methods, types of questions, and more.

Tax Time Savings for Native Communities: Ten Best Practices for Effective Native VITA Programs

Big Money: Structuring Minor’s Trust Programs for Native Communities

This manual is intended to help tribal leaders and their attorneys, financial advisors, and money managers in Native communities in the US think about innovative ways to structure minor’s trust programs. It turns out there are a lot of simple things that can be done to help kids make good decisions when they get their Big Money.

Developing Innovations in Tribal Per Capita Distribution Payment Programs: Promoting Education, Savings, and Investments for the Future

Beginning with the end in mind: Planning pilot projects and other programmatic research for successful scaling up

Practical guidance for scaling up health service innovations

Worksheets for developing a scaling-up strategy

Evidence and Ideology in Assessing the Effectiveness of Financial Literacy Education

On the Map: The Atlas of Student Homelessness in New York City

Cities and States Developing Creative Approaches to Fund Children’s Savings Accounts

Children’s Savings Accounts (CSA) are proving to be a powerful tool for growing college funds and building children’s aspirations for their future. CSAs are long-term, incentivized savings or investment accounts for post-secondary education that help promote economic mobility for children and youth. Advocates have found that the idea and goals of CSAs can be appealing to policymakers from across the political spectrum. However, while able to generate initial interest from policymakers, advocates often find that their efforts can stall when it comes to the question of how to fund a program.

This paper provides advocates and policymakers with several funding options—including examples from the city and state-levels—for establishing publicly-supported CSA programs. For more information about CSAs in general, please visit savingsforkids.org.

Growing Youth Financial Capability through Workforce Development: Opportunities for Lawmakers & Advocates

Building Economic Security in America’s Cities New Municipal Strategies for Asset Building and Financial Empowerment

Financial Coaching: Describing the Practice

United Way Evaluation Resources

The package has three parts: 1. A series of ten brief evaluation backgrounders that introduce and explore key evaluation topics and terminology; 2. A directory of evaluation resources focusing on technical aspects of evaluation; and 3. A directory of evaluation training options available to organizations based in the Greater Toronto Area. Evaluation is an ever-changing field. In order to make sure the information in this package remains useful, UWTYR staff will review and update the materials every year.

Financial Stability through Integration of Service Delivery

Emerging Pathways to Transformative Scale

Nonprofit-Corporate Partnerships: A New Framework

Toronto Employment & Social Services Programs & Services

Mapping momentum: A snapshot of the emerging field of systems change

Integrating Financial Stability Strategies into Workforce Development Programs: An Implementation Pilot in Boston

My Turn to Speak: Voices of Microfinance Clients in Benin, Pakistan, Peru and Georgia

Report on the Design of the National Demonstration Project

Promoting Competency, Self Care and Team Care

Financial Empowerment: Proven Strategies for Reducing Poverty in Ontario

Financial Literacy: Strategies to Meet the Needs of Low Income Albertans

Independent Living Accounts: Leaving Homelessness in the Past

Opportunities Account for Youth in Care

Financial Literacy and Youth

The case for Financial Literacy: Assessing the effects of financial literacy interventions for low income and vulnerable groups in Canada

Working It Out Together. Pikangikum First Nation’s Community Health Needs Assessment

Program Evaluation Toolkit

Improving Financial Literacy: Analysis of Issues and Policies

Taking the First Step: Using Behavioral Economics to Help Incarcerated Parents Apply for Child Support Order Modifications

Creating Financially Capable Communities: A Resource Guide

Building Financial Counseling into Social Service Delivery: Research and Implementation Findings for Social Service Programs

Financial Coaching: Understanding the Skills Needed to Become a Successful Coach

Getting it Right: Promising Practices for Financial Capability Programs

Scaling Financial Coaching: Critical Lessons and Effective Practices

Financial Empowerment: How Delaware Improved Financial Security through Coaching

Social Entrepreneurship: Social Impact Metrics

DE 201 – A Practitioner’s Guide to Developmental Evaluation

Estimates of the asset-effect: the search for a causal effect of assets on adult health and employment outcomes

How to Design a Monitoring and Evaluation Framework For A Policy Research Project

Canadian Housing First Toolkit

Emerging Models and Promising Practices: A “snapshot” of Community-based financial capability Practice in Canada

Performance Management in a Housing First Context – A Guide for Community Entities

Evaluating Student Performance in Pathways to Education

Expiring Operating Agreements: A Planning Guide for Ontario’s Former Federal Housing Programs

Welcome to the first in a series of planning guides on the Expiry of Operating Agreements. Housing Services Corporation has been working for a number of years on the issue of expiring agreements. We see this Guide as a living document. We hope that this Guide will become a trusted resource for you not only for the information it contains, which will be kept up to date, but also as we continue to add links to new resources based on work being done by the various organizations that operate in this sector. In addition to the range of information contained in the Guide, the online version allows you to link to additional resources which have been prepared or collected by Housing Services Corporation.