MoneyWi$e financial literacy forum 2003

In late November, Consumer Action and leading credit card provider Capital One held a free financial training for more than 80 non-profit community groups from across the Washington, DC metro area. The two-day event was held at the Grand Hyatt Washington Hotel on Nov. 20-21, 2003, focusing on six areas of financial management for clients of community groups: banking, budgeting, understanding credit, credit repair, understanding bankruptcy and talking to teens about money. Consumer Action financial educators Guadalupe Aguilar, Linda Sherry and Mikael Wagner led the training sessions.

FDIC Deputy Director Donna Gambrell and Nathan Dungan, author of "Prodigal Sons and Material Girls: How Not to Be Your Child's ATM," were the featured speakers at the MoneyWi$e "Best Practicies" forum on the evening of Nov. 20.

Gambrell spoke about the FDIC's Money Smart program, a multilingual financial literacy initiative designed to promote financial independence and security.

Dungan discussed ideas and techniques for instilling successful attitudes and habits about family finances and personal money management. Additionally, a panel of non-profit representatives described how to improve financial literacy in diverse communities.

"We applaud the efforts of these organizations to provide much-needed support and relevant information to their communities. Our MoneyWi$e seminars assist these groups to continue to do what they do best: helping neighbors in their communities to help themselves."
- Ken McEldowney Executive Director of Consumer Action.

"We created MoneyWi$e to provide consumers at all income levels with both the information and practical assistance they need to help better manage their finances. We believe that this training seminar, combined with our new materials on understanding bankruptcy and talking to teens about money, will help support the efforts of community organizations dedicated to engaging and educating at-risk consumers."
- Diana Don Director of Financial Education at Capital One.

Consumer Action and Capital One launched the Money Wi$e partnership in November 2001. Since then, the program has produced and distributed a six-part series of Money Wi$e educational materials to provide consumers with the building blocks for developing and honing personal finance skills, from saving and budgeting to balancing a checkbook, understanding the basics of credit and credit repair and how parents can talk to teenagers about money.

By providing free brochures in multiple languages (English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese), the Money Wi$e program is able to address financial literacy across both income and ethnic barriers. More than one million brochures have been distributed to date.