February 2016 Newsletter
RAISE Texas News
Are YOU a member of RAISE Texas? Join the Movement TODAY!
Last week RAISE Texas launched its annual Membership Drive. This year’s goal is to have 20 new members join RAISE Texas by March 1, when the 2016 Summit registration begins. We have already had several new members join just in the past few days! YOUR membership support can help increase our success, and our members are an essential part of pilot and program activities around the state. Membership has many benefits, and is easy and affordable, starting at as little as $100 for a Basic Nonprofit Membership. Join the Asset-Building Movement today! And, thank you!
Save the Date: RAISE Texas Summit May 11-12, 2016
The 2016 RAISE Texas Summit and workshops “Building Financial Success for Texans: In Schools, The Workplace and Our Communities” will be held on May 11- 12, 2016 at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas in Dallas, Texas. We will be discussing the latest cutting-edge information on:
- Financial Coaching
- College Savings Accounts for children through schools
- Small Dollar loan alternatives
- Implementing asset-building products and programs in the Workplace
Texas News
Mark Your Calendars for the 3rd Annual FOCUS Summit
The Cornerstone Credit Union Foundation invites you to attend its 3rd Annual FOCUS Summit – The Financial Education Conference! The two-day Summit will take place on Thursday, March 3 and Friday, March 4 in Dallas at the DoubleTree Hotel Galleria.
The FOCUS Summit offers opportunities for financial education advocates to network, share best practices, learn about available resources, as well as explore proven techniques and strategies for deploying financial education into local schools and communities.
A few FOCUS Summit Highlights:
- KEYNOTE: David Bach, 9 Time New York Times bestselling author, The Automatic Millionaire
- Representative Marsha Farney, District 20, Why Personal Financial Literacy Matters
- Laura Rosen, Opportunity Texas, New School-Based Savings Program Policy
- Danielle Brown, National CU Foundation Development Director, Biz Kid$
Please visit the Foundation’s website, www.cscuf.coop, for FOCUS Summit details such as the full agenda, speakers and bios.
Job Announcement- Director of Financial Programs at Foundation Communities in Austin
Foundation Communities, a nationally-recognized provider of affordable housing and financial capability programs, seeks an experienced, entrepreneurial leader to advance their work aimed at helping low- to moderate-income residents and community members achieve long term financial stability. Programs currently serve more than 20,000 families in Austin, and include free tax preparation, financial education and coaching, FAFSA preparation, and savings tools. The available position is Director of Financial Programs and reports to the Deputy Executive Director. Click here to download the job description.
Payday Lending Ordinances Continue to Fight Predatory Payday Lending Practices in Texas
The Texas Fair Lending Alliance announced that thanks to the hard work on the local level, now 30 cities across Texas have adopted the Texas Municipal League unified ordinance, including the cities of Arlington, Temple, and Mesquite.
Great work continues across the state as faith and community leaders in the cities of Killeen, Waco, and Longview are currently work hard to enact the unified ordinance. The unified ordinance includes basic market standards to ensure that borrowers have the ability to repay payday & auto title loans. Under the ordinance, at least 25% of each payment is applied to the loan principle.
Texas Financial Education Endowment (TFEE) Announce Grant Recipients
The TFEE grant program is designed to support and promote financial capability, education and responsibility of Texans. Specifically, the endowment supports innovative consumer credit building activities and programs for youth and adults throughout Texas. Congratulations to the eight organizations awarded a total of $250,000 for the 2016-2017 grant cycle! And a special congrats to RAISE Texas partners and members: Texas Council on Economic Education, Family Pathfinders of Tarrant County, Community Development Corporation of Brownsville, and Texas State Affordable Housing Corporation which all received grants. Keep up the great work! For more information on the TFEE, click here.National News and Resources
New Jersey Pension Fund Divests in Texas-Based Payday Lender
Thanks to pressure from community advocates, the State Investment Council that manages New Jersey’s $71 billion public pension fund sold its stake in the private equity fund that owns Texas-based ACE Cash Express (ACE). ACE provides check cashing services, short-term loans and prepaid debit cards, and was fined by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2014 for using harassment and false legal threats to “pressure overdue borrowers into taking out additional loans they could not afford.” Payday lending is illegal in New Jersey, and interest rates are capped at 30 percent. New Jersey made the investment of public pension funds in JLL Partners Fund V in 2005, which then used the proceeds to acquire ACE the next year. The state was not involved in this acquisition or any other companies the fund invested in. Click here to read the entire article.
FINRA Resources Now in Spanish
The FINRA Investor Education Foundation translated several financial resources into Spanish. One of the resources is its short video about why people make bad financial decisions, “Pensando Dinero”. Also in Spanish is a glossary of online financial publications, and a video about financial fraud. Click here for the Spanish resource web page. Or, for other financial resources highlighted in the Squared Away Blog, click here.
Reports Released on Summer Youth Employment Programs (SYEPs)
The Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund released a new series of reports on their Summer Jobs Connect initiative, supported by the Citi Foundation, which leverages the scale and infrastructure of SYEPs to create banking access and other financial empowerment opportunities. The reports detail the variety of strategies used by city partners to provide banking access and targeted financial education as part of their local SYEP programs, and how they are working to sustainably integrate these efforts into their SYEP systems. Click here to read the reports.
New Brief on the Help Low-Income Families Need to Save
The Annie E. Casey Foundation released a policy brief, Investing in Tomorrow: Helping Families Build Savings and Assets, urging government leaders to make saving easier for low-income families. Specifically, they cite there needs to be programs that are developed to help families start saving for the future like establishing savings accounts when children are born, or helping employers provide workplace savings opportunities. The four policy recommendations made focus on myRAs, asset limits, homeownership, and children’s savings. Click here to read the brief. The public news service also wrote an article about the local efforts happening that support the recommendations in the brief.
Final Impact Report from the SaveUSA Evaluation
SaveUSA was launched in 2011 to encourage low- and moderate-income individuals and families to save money from their tax refund. This final report, Encouraging Nonretirement Savings at Tax Time, highlights the findings from the implementation of SaveUSA in New York City, Tulsa, Newark and San Antonio. Some key findings include:
- SaveUSA was successfully implemented in all four cities. About two-thirds of the SaveUSA group received at least one savings match during the three program years. Across the whole SaveUSA group, total match dollars averaged $365 over the three program years.
- As of the 42-month follow-up point, SaveUSA had increased the percentage of individuals with any nonretirement savings by almost 8 percentage points and had increased the average total amount of savings held by $522, or 30 percent, above the average for the group that did not have access to a SaveUSA account. These effects were present even after most of the SaveUSA group no longer had access to a 50 percent match on savings.
- The program led to improvements in some measures of financial security, such as having more cash available to pay for normal household expenses or for emergency or unexpected expenses, that were directly related to (and reflected) the program’s savings increases. SaveUSA had no positive or negative effects on general indicators of financial security, including debt, financial net worth, and incidence of financial hardship.
Click here to read the entire report.
