Savings Contest a Success for Student-Parents

Posted on May 18, 2016 by rblauvelt

Savings Contest Gallup Pinnacle Bank August 2015

Some students who opened accounts at Pinnacle Bank

First Nations teamed up with longtime partner Gallup Central High School in Gallup, New Mexico, over the 2015-2016 school year to offer a multi-modal financial empowerment program for young student-parents. We worked with students who are enrolled in the Graduation, Reality and Dual-Role Skills (GRADS) program. The GRADS program is a class for student-parents as part of a statewide initiative in New Mexico focused on providing support and education to pregnant and parenting teens.

In addition to working with GRADS teacher Tomi Jaramillo-Campos to implement financially-focused lessons and activities into the GRADS curriculum, First Nations has assisted the teen-parents in opening a savings account for themselves and their young children. All students were initially provided with a seed deposit of $50 for each of the accounts and were then challenged to save $50 to $100 over the school year, at which point they would qualify for an additional match of $50 for each of their accounts.

Students created Financial Literacy folders that contained printouts of items they were saving for. This student made plans to save for a crib bedding set.

To date, 23 students have opened a Youth Savings Account (YSA) for themselves along with 14 Children’s Savings Accounts (CSAs) for their children. Students have managed to save $680 of their own money over the school year – not an easy task for a full-time high school student supporting a child! The sum of all open accounts is nearly $3,000 when combining student savings with initial seed money and a bank promotion.

During a visit in April we held a savings contest for students who had saved money over the past three months. Students were given a raffle ticket for every $5 saved for a chance to win one of several gifts, including a grand prize of a family portrait package for their young family. In total, youth saved $531.28 between mid-January and the first week of April. The winner of the grand prize had saved nearly $150 since January with a goal to purchase a family vehicle. A second prize winner (of a $50 gift card at Foot Locker) had saved almost $250 since January by depositing money received from a 2015 tax return. Many savers informed us that their top savings priorities included saving for a first home and/or an automobile for their family.

As the school year wraps up, students have a variety of options for their own and children’s savings accounts. “We were pleased to discover that many students have decided to continue savings towards their goals rather than close out their accounts,” stated First Nations Senior Research Officer Benjamin Marks. “We thank our partners for making this program a success.” In the coming months, GRADS students will be contributing last-minute savings before the end of the school year and will receive their match funds if they meet the $50 to $100 goal set by First Nations.

This initiative is made possible through generous funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. For more information about the program please contact Benjamin Marks, Senior Research Officer, at bmarks@firstnations.org or (540) 371-5615.

Financial Literacy Program Kicks Off for Native Youth at NAYA

Posted on November 20, 2013 by rblauvelt

On November 19-20, 2013, First Nations Development Institute (First Nations) met with faculty and staff from the Native American Youth and Family Center (NAYA) in Portland, Oregon. With generous funding from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, First Nations and NAYA recently forged a partnership to offer financial literacy courses with a strong experiential learning component to empower Native American high school students at NAYA’s Early College Academy.

NAYA’s Early College Academy is a small, private school managed by NAYA that nourishes a hands-on, culturally relevant, student-centered learning environment. The academy offers a blended high school and post-secondary curriculum for 9th to 12th graders aged 14 to 20. The site visit kicked off an innovative and culturally relevant youth financial education course, and enables First Nations to offer financial literacy training to 21 NAYA faculty and staff.

First Nations facilitated a two-day Train-the-Trainer event utilizing the Building Native Communities: Financial Skills for Families educational workbook. All faculty and staff who participated in the event were certified to teach financial literacy. The goal of the training was to prepare NAYA faculty to teach the course to youth over the 2014-2015 school year and to enable NAYA faculty and staff to collaborate in tailoring the class for their high school youth.

The relationship between NAYA and First Nations on this project will culminate in offering the “Life on Your Terms” Native youth financial literacy course to the students and taking a field trip to a participating bank or credit union to sign up for a Youth Savings Account (YSA). Those who complete the course with a passing grade will be entered into a drawing to earn an additional $100 to deposit into their account. The students also will participate in a financial simulation fair called “Crazy Cash City” that will help them put the lessons learned in class into practice in an experiential setting. By the end of the grant period, an online teacher’s guide for the curriculum will be completed and then made available nationally to teachers of Native American students.

Financial and investor education is one of the five focus areas of First Nations. First Nations and its independent subsidiary – First Nations Oweesta Corporation (a community development financial institution) – work in partnership with Native American tribes and communities throughout the U.S. to assist them in designing and administering financial and investor education programs. These projects range from helping individuals and families understand the basics of financial management – opening and maintaining a bank account and using credit wisely – to helping individuals understand financial markets and a variety of financial instruments for borrowing and saving. The programs result in increased investment levels and economic growth in Native communities.

The Native American Youth and Family Center in Portland works to enrich the lives of Native youth and families through education, community involvement and culturally specific programming. It has provided educational services, cultural arts programming, and direct support to reduce poverty in the Portland metropolitan area’s American Indian and Alaska Native community for more than 30 years.

By Benjamin Marks, First Nations Research & Program Officer

Youth Savings Account Program Gathers Interest

Posted on March 18, 2013 by rblauvelt

To help youth learn the savings habit, First Nations Development Institute is partnering with two high schools and Pinnacle Bank in Gallup, New Mexico, to offer a Youth Savings Account (YSA) program for Native students.

In 2013, First Nations is working with financial education teachers at Gallup Catholic High School and Wingate High School. These instructors are teaching a financial literacy course called “Life on your Terms” based on First Nations’ Building Native Communities curriculum. To complement the lessons of the class, students will receive assistance opening up savings accounts at Pinnacle Bank. These savings accounts, referred to as Youth Savings Accounts, are custodial incentivized savings accounts for youth that teach positive savings and financial habits. A custodial account requires approval for all withdrawals by a custodian (which, in this case, is First Nations). First Nations provides an initial deposit amount of $50 in each student account, and students are encouraged to track the account balance and continue to make deposits.

If a student receives a passing grade for the financial literacy course and goes the entire semester without making any withdrawals, he or she is entered in a lottery to win $100, which will also be deposited into the account.

“Research suggests that having a savings account while in high school can lead to better financial management skills later in life,” stated Sarah Dewees, senior director of research, policy and asset building programs at First Nations. “We designed this program to help kids learn the savings habit, become comfortable with mainstream financial institutions, and start to build household assets.”

“Because of my experience designing and administering youth Individual Development Accounts and Children’s Savings Accounts, I was excited to work with FNDI to design this savings program specifically for high school students,” stated Christy Finsel, a consultant managing the Youth Savings Account program. “We appreciate the partnership of the local high schools and Pinnacle Bank.”

First Nations is supported in this effort by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. First Nations and its independent subsidiary First Nations Oweesta Corporation (a community development financial institution), work in partnership with Native American tribes and communities throughout the U.S. to assist them in designing and administering financial and investor education programs. Projects range from helping individuals and families understand the basics of financial management – opening and maintaining a bank account and using credit wisely – to helping individuals understand financial markets and a variety of financial instruments for borrowing and saving. We believe that learning how to manage finances ensures that Native people will be more likely to save and to challenge financial service providers to develop products that respond to their needs. Our programs result in increased investment levels and economic growth in Native communities.

By Benjamin Marks, Research and Program Officer