Financial Ed Workshop Held at Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute

Some of the attendees at SIPI go over their materials

The Building Native Communities: Financial Skills for Families curriculum is a culturally appropriate financial education curriculum designed for use in Native communities. It is used by tribal colleges, tribal housing authorities and other programs to educate approximately 2,300 students a year – and the numbers are growing.

On October 1-3, 2014, First Nations Development Institute (First Nations) partnered with First Nations Oweesta Corporation to provide a “train-the-trainer” workshop to help practitioners learn to use the Building Native Communities: Financial Skills for Families curriculum in their home community.

In coordination with the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute’s (SIPI’s) Board of Regents Office, First Nations helped conduct a three-day workshop in Albuquerque, New Mexico, that provided an orientation to the curriculum, an overview of teaching tools, and training on a range of teaching techniques. More than 15 participants in the workshop learned how to use the Building Native Communities: Financial Skills for Families curriculum in a variety of settings to promote financial empowerment.

“We were happy to be able to partner with First Nations Development Institute to offer this workshop,” said Vonne Strobe, a project coordinator for SIPI’s Board of Regents Office. “We definitely learned a lot that will be useful in serving the clients in our financial education program.” Other participants in the workshop included staff from tribal housing authorities, education departments, and staff from New Mexico’s tribal libraries program.

“It is an honor to work with such a great group of passionate and dedicated financial educators,” noted Shawn Spruce, a workshop facilitator and a First Nations financial education consultant. “We look forward to hearing how people are able to use these tools to serve their community members.”

To learn more about the Building Native Communities: Financial Skills for Families curriculum, visit the First Nations website at http://www.firstnations.org/knowledge-center/financial-education/bnc.

By Sarah Dewees, First Nations Senior Director of Research, Policy and Asset-Building Programs

FN+FIMO+FINRA+SEC+OST = Navajo Financial Ed

Attendees closely listen to workshop presenters and take many notes

To help tribal citizens of the Navajo Nation prepare for a potential financial windfall, the Federal Indian Minerals Office (FIMO) teamed up with the FINRA Investor Education Foundation, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and First Nations Development Institute (First Nations) to offer a series of financial education workshops in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in December 2013. Staff from the Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians (OST) also assisted with the trainings.

Participants engage in an interactive activity during the training

The outreach event was held at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center and consisted of two three-hour workshops designed to help people learn about managing their money, avoiding fraud, and investing. Interactive exercises, videos and presentations were used to provide information on financial topics.   FIMO was established in 1992 by the U.S. Department of Interior to provide services to individual Navajo mineral owner beneficiaries regarding their mineral interests and rights. To date the organization has approved 70 of 344 pending negotiated leases worth about $195 million to over 20,000 people.  There are also plans to auction off roughly 200 additional leases as a result of the current oil boom on the Navajo Nation.

Another activity helped drill home the information

The training began with a financial self-assessment and guided the participants through making goals, budgeting, tracking expenses and making a financial plan. The participants then learned about different types of fraud and effective means of combating fraud.   First Nations Financial Consultant Shawn Spruce coordinated the event in partnership with Charles Felker from the SEC, Susan Arthur from the FINRA Foundation, and Leona Begay from FIMO. The event was partially funded by grants from the FINRA Investor Education Foundation and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.   The purpose of the event was to assist oil and gas lease beneficiaries with money management by promoting smart and informed decisions that will help with budgeting and protect beneficiaries from fraud. When asked about the training, many beneficiaries responded that the workshop was extremely valuable.

Visual aides were used during parts of the presentations

“It was really exciting to partner with staff from the FINRA Investor Education Foundation, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Federal Indian Minerals Office to provide this training,” Shawn said. “We look forward to providing many more, and having an even wider reach in the future enabling us to effectively build money management skills for this community.”

By Sarah Dewees, First Nations Senior Director of Research, Policy & Asset-Building Programs, and Rachel Vernon, First Nations Program Officer.

Trainers Are Trained to ‘Build Native Communities’

In January 2013, First Nations concluded another successful Building Native Communities train-the-trainer event in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  We were joined by many of our friends from the Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians (OST), along with a high school financial-education teacher and representatives from tribal housing programs.  It’s all part of our mission to provide financial education to Native American people so they can be financially empowered and better control their financial destinies.

As part of our work funded by FINRA Investor Education Foundation and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, First Nations provides Building Native Communities train-the-trainer events. First Nations often partners with the Office of the Special Trustee to conduct the train-the-trainer workshops.  The goal of these workshops is to provide training for OST Fiduciary Trust Officers and other employees, and high school teachers who teach financial education to predominantly Native American students.  First Nations is partnering with OST officers because they often provide financial education resources to their clients, many of whom are the recipients of Individual Indian Money (IIM) accounts or other tribal trust programs.  In an ongoing partnership with high school teachers in McKinley County, New Mexico, First Nations also reached out to teachers who have participated in other First Nations youth financial-education programs such as the Invest Native online challenge and the Crazy Cash City reality fair.

At the recent training, we had 10 OST officers from all across the country, a high school teacher from McKinley County, and five other tribal employees from the Pueblo of Laguna and Pueblo of Nambe.  The two-and-a-half day event took place at the Office of the Special Trustee for American Indian’s headquarters in Albuquerque.  It served as an introduction to the Building Native Communities suite of workbooks and training materials including Financial Skills for Families participant workbook, 4th edition, and the Investing for the Future workbook.  The train-the-trainer workshop also served as a forum for financial educators to share ideas, resources, and experiences.

On the final day of the training, participants took part in First Nations’ money reality fair, the “$pending Frenzy,” which is designed to address the needs of Native American youth who will be receiving a large tribal per-capita or minor’s trust payment.  The experiential learning model is designed to give kids a trial run at what it’s like to have a large sum of money and give them a chance to practice making smart spending decisions. The purpose of the simulation was to demonstrate to participants how to disseminate financial education topics in a fun and interactive way, and learn how the workshop could be offered to adult participants, as well.

Additionally, on the final day, the participants were required to practice-teach some of the lessons they learned over the past two days of training.  On participant evaluations, many stated that this task was especially helpful, including one person who claimed: “It was very helpful to have us teach a practice session. It brought up issues we might not have anticipated when teaching a course for the first time.”

Many of the participants are already making plans to use the skills and information they acquired at the training.  Some of these activities include facilitating a $pending Frenzy for high school students, making use of a presentation on managing expenses and modifying it for a youth financial fair presentation, and a housing entity employee creating informational materials for one-on-one counseling sessions.

“The training was packed with valuable information and it was a very engaging learning environment,” noted one participant on an evaluation form.

By Benjamin Marks, Research & Program Officer