Managing Money: Mission & Goals

Consumer Action, a national nonprofit consumer education and advocacy organization, was founded on the premise that financially literate consumers are more confident about their money management skills and thereby make more successful personal financial choices and are less vulnerable to scams and predatory financial services. Consumers who are taught personal finance skills and how to prepare for financial emergencies demonstrate a higher level of money management skills.

Despite the efforts of many nonprofit organizations and government agencies, there remains a critical need for financial education across many populations—students, young working adults, low-income people, immigrants, the uneducated and older Americans. The continued growth of predatory and abusive lending practices as well as the increasingly high credit card balances carried by average American households, are proof of the great need for improved financial literacy.

This is why Consumer Action has created The Managing Money Project and its web site, Managing Money (www.managing-money.org). A financial literacy clearinghouse, it will feature Consumer Action’s award-winning multilingual educational projects promoting informed participation in the marketplace by consumers with low financial literacy levels. These include but are certainly not limited to people of color, low income and rural consumers, recent immigrants, non-English speakers and seniors. The Managing Money Project will also provide training materials and curricula to community-based organizations (CBOs) nationwide.

The Managing Money Project will focus on these broad areas:

1. Understanding financial services (including banking, credit, credit cards and insurance), sound financial planning concepts and how to manage debt.
2. The importance of anticipating, planning and saving for emergencies—such as job loss, disasters, illness or disability—and a worry free retirement.
3. Ways that individuals can identify and avoid becoming victims of fraudulent activities—including bank fraud, account fraud, credit card fraud, investment scams and ID theft.

The work of The Managing Money Project will include:

• Creating coalitions of key stakeholders to coordinate and promote the use of existing financial literacy programs.
• Holding forums in which community and consumer groups can network with financial services industry associations and corporations to air problems and concerns and to create partnerships.
• Training Consumer Action’s network of more than 8,300 community-based organizations nationwide. Consumer Action has built this pipeline as an efficient and effective way to promote financial literacy, because these organizations are regarded with trust in their communities.
• Partnering with corporations and nonprofit consumer advocacy and community based organizations to create and distribute free materials and conduct outreach and training activities.
• Providing community partners with stipends and other financial support to allow them to fully participate in Managing Money’s financial literacy agenda.
• Bringing together stakeholders to further develop and coordinate existing financial literacy programs.
• Increasing awareness of success stories, best practices and key incentives for teaching financial literacy.
• Ensuring the availability of in-language materials and outreach in Spanish, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese. Other languages may be added in future.