Municipal Toolkit: A toolkit for embedding financial empowerment supports into municipal services

Financial empowerment (FE) is an approach to poverty reduction that focuses on improving the financial security of people living on low income. Evidence shows that embedding FE interventions into municipal welfare, employment, housing, shelter and health services can significantly boost service outcomes and support the life stabilization framework.

If you are a manager or frontline staff working in municipal services and starting your FE journey, this toolkit can help you to begin embedding FE supports into your existing programs.

Prosperity Gateways: Cities for financial empowerment is an initiative at Prosper Canada which aims to reduce poverty by building financial help into municipal services used by residents with low incomes.

This toolkit has been made possible by the Government of Ontario, JP Morgan Chase and the Maytree Foundation. Prosper Canada is grateful to our financial empowerment community partners and Ontario Works offices for their collaboration in this effort. We also recognize related pioneering work by US-based Prosperity Now and the CFE Fund.

Worksheet resources in this toolkit are available as fillable PDFs. Please open with Adobe Acrobat Reader for full functionality.

Updated April 4, 2023: Building partnerships, Coaching readiness checklist, Shadowing guide, 5 elements of integration