Individual Wealth Preservation

Financial Coaching: Review of Existing Research

Center for Financial Security
University of Wisconsin-Madison

This brief summarizes research into the theories underlying financial coaching and the effects of financial coaching on participant behaviors and outcomes. In practice, financial coaching remains an unregulated field, and individuals and organizations use the term “financial coaching” to refer to an array of interventions. This brief concentrates on coaching interventions that explicitly focus on working with clients to identify behavioral outcomes, set goals, brainstorm strategies, set concrete action plans, identify strengths and build motivation, and provide monitoring and accountability, all of which are features of a more theoretically-grounded coaching approach (Grant, Cavanagh, and Parker 2010). This brief includes literature gathered through searches encompassing briefs, reports, book chapters, academic articles, and other sources. 

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2014 Data Indicate That Four in Ten Children Live in Low-Income Families

Jessica A. Carson, Andrew Schaefer and Marybeth J. Mattingly
University of New Hampshire

In September 2015, the Census Bureau released 2014 poverty data from the American Community Survey (ACS), the only regular source for reliably estimating child poverty in geographic areas below the state level using the official poverty measure. In this brief, we use ACS data to explore child poverty rates across the United States by region, state, and place type (rural, suburban, and city). We also examine data on children who are deeply poor (those in families with incomes below half of the poverty line), as well as low-income children (those in families with incomes less than twice the poverty line). We find that while child poverty declined nationwide between 2013 and 2014, that drop was not felt uniformly across the country: several states saw declines, a few states saw increases, and others saw no change at all. We also found substantial differences in the magnitude of change across rural places, suburbs, and cities. 

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Tipping the Scale: How Assets Shape Economic Wellbeing for Women and Families

Rebecca Loya, Alexis Mann, Janet Boguslaw and Thomas Shapiro

The present analysis draws on interviews with black and white families of diverse means to illustrate how resource differences play out in the lives of American families. We contrast the options and experiences of higher-resource families like the Barrys, who have access to two or more resources at the personal, institutional, or neighborhood levels, with those who have fewer resources, like the Meehans. This brief focuses on women’s experiences speci cally and considers how women of different racial backgrounds with various income and asset pro les manage these economic challenges. 

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The Professionalizing Field of Financial Counseling and Coaching Journal

Edited by Jonathan Mintz

With nearly ten million households in the U.S. lacking a bank account, many families face challenges building wealth. However, with financial counseling and coaching, families can work towards financial security. This new collection of essays from Cities for Financial Empowerment (CFE Fund) and Citi Community Development highlights this potential and brings together the perspectives of leading experts in the field. The essays share strategies for building cultural competency, accessing public funding opportunities, and scaling and professionalizing efforts. 

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The Professionalizing Field of Financial Counseling and Coaching Journal

Edited by Jonathan Mintz

With nearly ten million households in the U.S. lacking a bank account, many families face challenges building wealth. However, with financial counseling and coaching, families can work towards financial security. This new collection of essays from Cities for Financial Empowerment (CFE Fund) and Citi Community Development highlights this potential and brings together the perspectives of leading experts in the field. The essays share strategies for building cultural competency, accessing public funding opportunities, and scaling and professionalizing efforts. 

Read more about The Professionalizing Field of Financial Counseling and Coaching Journal...

The Professionalizing Field of Financial Counseling and Coaching Journal

Edited by Jonathan Mintz

With nearly ten million households in the U.S. lacking a bank account, many families face challenges building wealth. However, with financial counseling and coaching, families can work towards financial security. This new collection of essays from Cities for Financial Empowerment (CFE Fund) and Citi Community Development highlights this potential and brings together the perspectives of leading experts in the field. The essays share strategies for building cultural competency, accessing public funding opportunities, and scaling and professionalizing efforts. 

Read more about The Professionalizing Field of Financial Counseling and Coaching Journal...

The Color of Entrepreneurship: Why the Racial Gap Among Firms Costs the U.S. Billions

Algernon Austin

“America is currently forgoing an estimated 1.1 million businesses owned by people of color because of past and present discrimination,” writes Algernon Austin, author of this new report from the Center for Global Policy Solutions. Using data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Survey of Business Owners, Austin finds that the country would produce an estimated 9 million more jobs and have $300 billion more in national income if entrepreneurship amongst people of color were proportional to their distribution in the labor force. To address this, Austin recommends creating tax credits to incentivize investments in minority-owned businesses, expanding the number of Minority Business Development Agencies, and utilizing alternative credit data for those with limited credit histories. 

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The Color of Wealth in Los Angeles

Melany De La Cruz-Viesca et al.

This new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco seeks to better understand the factors that influence and create disparities in wealth accumulation, particularly intergenerational resource transfers, historical context, and local asset markets. Researchers draw on data from the National Asset Scorecard for Communities of Color (NASCC) survey, the first of its kind, to assess wealth disparities among different racial and ethnic groups in Los Angeles and inform multifaceted policy solutions tailored to distinct community needs.

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Northgate Apartments

http://www.getahome.org/northgate

With 336 units, Northgate Apartments is Vermont’s largest single subsidized apartment development.  Concerned that the owners would convert Northgate into market rentals or luxury condos in the late 1980s, the government, under then Mayor Bernie Sander’s leadership, played a major role in helping convert the complex to resident ownership and establishing long-term restrictions to ensure it remained permanently affordable.  As a result of their efforts, the building is now owned by Northgate Residents Ownership Corporation—a resident-controlled, nonprofit organization.

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Community Asset Preservation Corporation

Based in Newark, Community Asset Preservation Corporation (CAPC) focuses on stabilizing and revitalizing communities. To do so, CAPC acquires vacant and abandoned properties and partners with local builders and contractors to return properties to productive use as quality, affordable housing.  As a wholly-owned subsidiary of the New Brunswick-based CDFI New Jersey Community Capital, CAPC has the financial capacity, reach, and expertise to make large-scale impacts on neighborhoods affected by foreclosure and abandonment.  Each year, CAPC returns 50-75 housing units to productive use.  Currently, CAPC is also working on a mixed-use project to create space for nonprofit and technology start-ups in Lincoln Park, a neighborhood impacted by significant unemployment.  The project will create space for several businesses, including a recording studio, event space, shared space, and a coffee house, and is expected in generate at least 11 new jobs in its first year.

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Cabel Foundation

http://www.cabelfoundation.org

Founded in 2003, the Cabel Foundation aims to help underserved District youth and families to appreciate and understand the importance of saving and investing in their future. To do so, it conducts workshops, seminars, and classroom instruction in financial literacy education and financial life skills in schools, churches, community housing centers, libraries, recreation centers, senior citizens centers, and other community-based settings.  The nonprofit also has an advocacy campaign to urge policymakers to require financial literacy education as a standard for students and those receiving financial assistance.

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The Housing Council

http://www.thehousingcouncil.org

Founded in 1971, The Housing Council aims to maintain and expand the availability of affordable, decent, safe housing for low and moderate income residents of the Rochester and Monroe County area.  To do so, the nonprofit provides landlord education, foreclosure prevention, pre-purchase counseling, emergency housing services, and fair housing education to about 8,000 households a year in the region.  It also conducts housing research and analysis on a variety of issues such as eviction activity and home purchase trends, and monitors the incidence and impact of city and county mortgage foreclosure.

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The Housing Council

http://www.thehousingcouncil.org

Founded in 1971, The Housing Council aims to maintain and expand the availability of affordable, decent, safe housing for low and moderate income residents of the Rochester and Monroe County area.  To do so, the nonprofit provides landlord education, foreclosure prevention, pre-purchase counseling, emergency housing services, and fair housing education to about 8,000 households a year in the region.  It also conducts housing research and analysis on a variety of issues such as eviction activity and home purchase trends, and monitors the incidence and impact of city and county mortgage fore Read more about The Housing Council...

California Reinvestment Coalition (CRC)

http://www.calreinvest.org

Established in 1986 and headquartered in San Francisco, the California Reinvestment Coalition (CRC) has been advocating for fair and equal access to credit for all California neighborhoods. As the state's largest community investment coalition, their 300-member organization attempts to create wealth equality through policy advocacy, grassroots alliances, research, and shareholder activism. Read more about California Reinvestment Coalition (CRC)...