4 Ways to Make Providing Financial Education Less of a Chore

As a bank or credit union employee, you likely understand that providing financial education for the members of your community is extremely important. After all, the more financially educated your community members are, the more likely they are to buy a home, start a business, invest, and overall just be financially secure. 

But that doesn’t mean providing this financial education is easy. In fact, it’s downright difficult and time-consuming. There are so many moving pieces: coming up with ideas, planning the event, marketing to community members, getting people to show up, and actually teaching the class or being present at the event. Not to mention all the data collection and tracking that can come afterward. See? Difficult. 

Instead of spending all your time planning and tracking financial education events, wouldn’t it be nice to just enjoy that feeling of helping your community? Don’t you want to sit back, watch your community members learn about finances, and turn your attention to one of the other billions of projects you’ve got going on?

This may sound impossible, but here are four ways to make financial education feel like less of a chore. 

1. Hire an intern

Who says you have to run your financial education program alone? Even if you have a whole community involvement department helping out, there’s always going to be more that needs to be done. One way to get the help you need—and gain back some more time in your day—is to hire an intern. 

Interns are a great resource when it comes to doing market research, planning events, gathering materials for the event, and more. And hiring an intern is another way to invest in your community, as you’ll be helping to shape the next generation of workers and give them a solid background they can rely on in the future. 

2. Lean on other departments

It bears repeating: you don’t have to do this work alone. Whether you’re part of a small or large team, there are other people throughout your institution who may be able to help. 

Try promoting your financial education event to employees as a way to get hours for the institution’s employee volunteer program. If employees are looking for ways to volunteer in the community, participating in a pre-planned event will save them time and effort. And these extra volunteers will make your job much easier and less time-consuming. (If your institution doesn’t yet have an employee volunteer program, check out this article.) 

If you’re part of a smaller bank, then you may also be over the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) program. If this isn’t the case and your bank has a separate CRA department, then that group may be a great resource to turn to. Financial education events often bring CRA credit, so any CRA employees should be happy to help you throw a wonderful event. 

3. Take it online

If your institution is used to holding in-person financial education events, then maybe it’s time to switch things up. In-person events are impactful and show that you care, but they’re time-consuming and sometimes difficult to coordinate. If you want to expand your financial education program while still having a solid impact on your community, then taking your program online can be a great way to go.

While taking your program online is a wonderful way to start, putting your program on mobile phones will expand your reach and increase your chances of being found by your target audience. 85% of the population have smartphones they are able to access without wifi more consistently throughout the day over a desktop computer or laptop.

There are many ways to take your program online or mobile. Here are some ideas:

• Host monthly virtual webinars

• Share financial literacy tips on social media

• Offer helpful resources and downloadables on your website

• Provide mobile financial education through a program like Zogo

So many people are used to finding information online these days, you may as well embrace it and take your financial education program to the next level. 

Mobile programs like Zogo make this easier than ever. Zogo is an app that lets banks and credit unions sponsor the financial education of its community members. 

The app is free for community members. Basically, users go through modules and learn about various financial topics, including credit scores, savings, budgeting, and more. While they learn, users earn pineapples, the in-game currency. These pineapples can then be exchanged for gift cards. Zogo has found that incentivizing people to learn about finances helps them retain what they’ve learned and leads to smarter financial decisions.

Zogo supports reward redemption for learners by working with bank and credit union sponsors. By sponsoring a city or school, your institution can bring financial education to hundreds of community members. All without you having to do a thing. 

Sound pretty neat? Schedule a demo to learn more and explore a partnership with Zogo. 

4. Track your data with Kadince

The fun doesn’t stop when your financial education event is over. Now it’s time to track all that data and report to your team. If you’re like most financial institutions, this is a manual, time-consuming, spreadsheet-heavy process. And if you’re tracking for CRA purposes, that data becomes even more crucial. 

If tracking this data feels like a chore, Kadince can help. Kadince makes it easy to track and manage all your community involvement data, including data from your financial education program (e.g. event details, how many people were impacted, employee volunteer hours, etc). 

Not only can Kadince track data after your event, but Kadince can even help plan your event. This includes managing registrations, volunteer shifts, tasks, and more. Planning a financial education event has never been easier! 

To learn more about managing your financial education data and planning events with Kadince, schedule a demo. 

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