The research and policy symposium on income volatility was held on March 9, 2018, in Toronto, Ontario. Speakers from Canada and the United States present on key research findings on the nature of income and expense volatility in the early 21st Century. Speakers also suggest policy solutions to...

This brief describes the data collected and lessons gleaned from the Financial Coaching Impact & Evaluation Fellowship, which took place over the course of 10 months in 2017. Ultimately, this brief argues that the Financial Well-Being Scale and the Financial Capability Scale are promising...

In this video presentation Rob Levy from the Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI) shares some of the findings from the U.S. Financial Diaries project. He explains how the households in the study experience multiple "spikes" and "dips" in income and spending over the course of a single...

In this video presentation Fiona Greig from the JP Morgan Chase Institute explains what banking data can tell us about income volatility in the United States.   This presentation was given at the Prosper Canada Policy Research Symposium on March 9, 2018. Read the slide deck that accompanies...

The Center for Financial Security (CFS) and Annie E. Casey Foundation have developed a short set of standardized client outcome measures to create the Financial Capability Scale (FCS).  In 2011, CFS worked with four organizations to collect data on client outcome measures, with the goal of...

This discussion paper responds to a request from ESDC to develop options for reforms to the Canada Education Savings Program and, more specifically to improve access to the Canada Learning Bond. It reviews individual and institutional challenges to participation in the current system and consider...

Financial education plays an important role in guiding individuals to achieve their financial goals and contribute to the economic well-being of society as a whole. While the examination on the effectiveness of financial education has many factors to consider, the National Endowment for Financial...

This study addresses these gaps in the literature through an evaluation of a nationwide credit counselling program called Sharpen Your Financial Focus, an initiative launched by the National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC) in September of 2013.  The Sharpen initiative builds upon and...

This report provides information on the Financial Empowerment Center model, the people it served, the outcomes they achieved, the impact services had on nonprofit and city partners, and lessons learned for others looking to replicate or support this model. The evaluation was designed as a...

Statistics on the after-tax income of Canadian families and unattached individuals, including incidence of low income, increase in government transfers associated with child benefit programs and employment income rises since...

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...

Surveys are a great way to answer some of the questions you have about the people you serve and their thoughts and feelings about the services you provide. Surveys can help you decide which new services will have the greatest impact on your clients and help you evaluate the impact of your existing...

This is a webinar presenting the results of the Building Savings For Success evaluation report of matched savings account programs in 2 United States cities. One city used a coaching model, the other a case management model. The program showed that participants increased their liquid assets and...

In 2008, research conducted by Omega revealed that high-income families took advantage of Canada’s programs to encourage education savings at four times the rate of lower-income families. The findings also showed that only 16% of eligible Canadian children had received their CLB. In response to...

Individual development accounts (IDAs) help low-income families save by matching their personal savings for specific investments, such as a first home, business capitalization, or higher education and training. The Assets for Independence (AFI) program is a federally supported IDA grant program...

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,...

Recognizing the potential of financial coaching to improve the well-being of consumers, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) commissioned a rigorous study on the impact of financial coaching programs.1 Using a randomized controlled trial design, this study allows, for the first time, a...

Population health survey data are not routinely linked to specific health care organizations, limiting organizational capacity to assess performance improvements in relation to the observed risk and prevalence of differences in health. The lack of demographic information hinders the growth of...

We deployed field researchers into communities in California, Mississippi, New York, Ohio, and Kentucky to delve into the intimate financial details of approximately 200 households. Over the course of a year, field researchers visited each family once or twice a month, logging detailed information...

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...

To date no meta-analysis specific to Canada has been done to consider effectiveness in financial literacy programming and evaluation among existing financial literacy resources. This research project, therefore, seeks to explore the following: Issues in effective delivery of financial literacy...

This study aims to validate the results of a 2012 pilot study that developed a short instrument to measure financial capability, using national survey results as reference point. More importantly, this study also develops a numerical scoring system to provide respondents with a transparent and easy...

Performance measurement systems are widely used by organizations in both the public and private sectors, with the objective of improving decision making and performance. The cost associated with building and implementing these systems is high, yet many fail to deliver the expected results. This...

The purpose of this article was to detail the process used to establish validity and reliability for a recently developed instrument measuring financial distress/ financial well-being. Knowing that the establishment of validity and reliability of an instrument is an ongoing process, and keeping in...

This article describes development of the InCharge Financial Distress/Financial Well-Being Scale, designed to measure a latent construct representing responses to one’s financial state on a continuum ranging from overwhelming financial distress/lowest level of financial well-being to no financial...