Grants Program Funded Projects 2015

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Financial Literacy Australia Limited © 2015

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I am delighted to announce the recipients of the second round of Financial Literacy Australia grants.

In 2015 we received 190 applications from organisations that had identified real gaps in financial literacy in their communities. This shows how far we still have to go to advance financial literacy across Australia – it is an everyday issue.

It is pleasing to see that so many organisations are keen to add financial literacy programs onto their existing suite of activities. This integration is an effective way to reach more people.

In this second round of grants, we have committed $1.1 million to 12 projects across the country.

Our grants program means we can partner with organisations and be a strong supporter of innovation. We don’t mind taking risks to support projects that experiment with new approaches or try to reach new audiences. Many of the grants are for ‘Stage 1’ of a project, and we are likely to fund further stages where the pilot phase gives good evidence of future impact.

As you read about the funded projects, you will see evaluation is a recurring theme. Financial literacy is a relatively new field, and it is critical that we build a body of evidence about what works and what doesn’t. We help partner organisations to build their capacity to do robust evaluation of their projects. We ask organisations to share their evaluation findings; good and bad, so we can all learn from their experience.

I hope you are as inspired as I am by the projects outlined here. The people and organisations behind these projects bring both passion and skill, and we are proud to partner with them.

Paul Clitheroe AM Chairman, Financial Literacy Australia Ltd

Preface

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About usFinancial Literacy Australia (FLA) is a not-for-profit organisation committed to advancing financial literacy in Australia. FLA was set up in 2012 by members of the Australian Government’s Financial Literacy Board.

Our two major programs each year are:• Financial Literacy Australia Awards• Financial Literacy Australia Grants

The Awards program recognises and rewards programs, resources and research that have advanced financial literacy in Australia, no matter what sector this work occurs in.

The Grants program funds promising projects in the not-for-profit sector.

For the Grants Program in 2015, we asked for expressions of interest about projects that would: • improve the money skills of Australians • provide practical materials to advance financial literacy • expand the body of knowledge around financial literacy

Proposals could include: • program development (e.g. pilots, evaluation) • product development (e.g learning modules, content) • scaling up existing programs (e.g. to reach a larger audience) • research

In 2015 we have funded 12 excellent projects, outlined in this booklet. It is likely that we will fund further stages for some of these projects as they evolve.

We also support projects in other ways. In 2015 we conducted the first workshop on ‘How to commission a financial literacy evaluation’ with more to follow. More broadly, FLA encourages co-operation between corporate, government, community and education sectors. Our work helps to advance the National Financial Literacy Strategy.

FLA will conduct another grants round in 2016. If you are interested, visit the FLA website www.finlit.org.au and register for the newsletter. This will ensure you get notified when the next grant round is open.

www.finlit.org.au

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Organisation & project GrantThe Smith Family To deliver their Certificate 1 Financial Services program to 3,000 young people aged 15-17 in disadvantaged schools.

$300,000

Women's Legal Service To develop an app giving immediate practical tips on financial issues to women suffering domestic violence or financial abuse.

$155,000

WIRE To develop online resources to help women have constructive financial conversations with their partners – Stage 2.

$151,000

Brisbane Indigenous Media Association A pilot project using radio to increase the financial literacy of Indigenous Australians in S.E. Queensland – Stage 1.

$86,000

Crossways LifeCareTo pilot and evaluate the “B-Empowered” financial coaching program. $80,000

Financial Counselling Australia To scope a self-help kit to assist prisoners address common unresolved financial issues on entry to gaol – Stage 1.

$58,000

Wyatt TrustTo pilot and evaluate a financial literacy program for school students with disabilities for the transition post-school – Stage 1

$48,500

Good Shepherd Microfinance Develop an online learning module for microfinance workers so they can maximise the educational benefit of their conversations with clients – Stage 2.

$48,500

Financial Rights Legal Centre Statistical research on the current and potential users of payday loans – Stage 1. $47,000

The University of Melbourne To evaluate the “Street Finance” program of the University of Melbourne. $46,000

Salvation Army To evaluate the Salvation Army’s “You’re the Boss” workshop program. $38,000

University of Western Australia To conduct a long-term longitudinal evaluation of the financial literacy courses run by University of WA and Macquarie University.

$38,000

Summary of funded projects 2015

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The Smith Family

About The Smith Family is a national children’s charity that helps disadvantaged young Australians to succeed at school, to prevent them from experiencing a lifetime of poverty.

ProjectCertificate I in Financial Services for high school students

The Smith Family's will deliver their Certificate 1 Financial Services program to 3,000 young people aged 15-17 (Years 9-11) in 60+ schools based in 30 disadvantaged communities across Australia. The funding will be used to support programs in NSW, SA, VIC, QLD, WA, ACT and TAS.

Certificate 1 Financial Services is The Smith Family’s national program aimed at supporting young people to make informed decisions and take charge of their finances.

The program aims to improve skills, knowledge and influence behaviour in young people so they can: • develop a personal money plan/budget, • increase their knowledge of debt, consumer credit and

superannuation • increase their confidence in making financial decisions

The program has been evaluated annually since 2013, showing excellent results. Students are surveyed at three points (pre-program, immediately post-program, and 3 months post-program).

www.thesmithfamily.com.au

Grant: $300,000 over 3 years

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Women’s Legal Service

About Women’s Legal Service in Queensland is a specialist community legal centre that provides support to women on domestic violence, separation rights and family law issues.

Project Rebuild app for women

The project will develop an app giving immediate practical information and tips on financial issues to women suffering domestic violence or financial abuse.

Financial security is a key step to ensuring a woman’s long term safety from violence and decreasing the likelihood of a woman returning to an abusive relationship. The earlier women get information about improving their financial security, the better the likely outcome.

Women facing domestic violence often leave home with only their phone, so an app is a practical tool. It will help women protect their assets from ongoing financial abuse and rebuild their financial lives after violence.

The app will ask simple questions to discover the woman’s circumstances eg. Do you have your own bank account? Do you have consumer loans? Bills? In whose name? The app will then give simple step-by-step actions with immediate and practical benefit. eg. taking photos of documents, controlling access to credit and bank accounts, telling the bank your new address.

The app will always make safety a priority.

Financial Rights Legal Centre (NSW) is a project partner.

www.wlsq.org.au

Grant: $155,000

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WIREAbout Women’s Information and Referral Exchange (WIRE) is an information, support and referral service for Victorian women.

ProjectStrong Beginnings, Financial Equals – Stage 2

This project will publish online resources to help women start constructive financial conversations with their partners, and to create healthy financial relationships.

FLA funded stage 1 of this project, a detailed research project into the barriers that women face to being equal financial partners in a relationship. The research found complex and entrenched gendered barriers such as gender stereotypes, the gender pay gap impacting on power dynamics and women disengaging from financial conversations to demonstrate their love and trust. Factual financial information alone will not solve the problem.

The website will prepare women for financial conversations by helping them understand their own feelings about money and gender differences. It will provide practical conversation scripts (using video examples) showing how to structure a financial discussion with your partner on key financial topics. The videos will cover emotionally tricky issues, including what to do if your partner has a negative response.

The website will link to other financial information for women and will be promoted all around Australia.

www.wire.org.au

Grant: $151,000

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About Brisbane Indigenous Media Association (BIMA) is a community controlled First Nations not-for-profit organisation. One of its four divisions is 98.9FM – a 24-hour radio station with a substantial daily audience (87,000) in South East Queensland.

ProjectManaging Bungoo – Stage 1

Bungoo is an indigenous word for money. This is a pilot project using radio to increase the financial literacy levels of Indigenous Australians in S.E. Queensland.

BIMA will conduct research with community members to understand day-to-day experiences with money management.

The project will include: • Short radio messages with money tips and promotion of

existing tools and information sources. • Monthly interviews or talkback sessions with indigenous

money experts and stories from community members.• A monthly e-newsletter. • Promotion via BIMA’s social networking sites

The project will be subject to an independent evaluation, to test both the content and the effectiveness of radio.

Future stages could deliver similar content via the national network of 130 indigenous community radio stations around Australia, depending on the pilot evaluation.

www.bimaprojects.org.au

Brisbane Indigenous Media Association

Grant: $86,000

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Crossway LifeCare

About Crossway LifeCare is a community organisation in the Eastern Region of Melbourne. It provides a holistic service around material aid and counselling services.

Project B-Empowered Financial Coaching

This project is to pilot and evaluate the “B-Empowered” financial coaching program.

It uses volunteer coaches to give one to one support to people who are facing financial struggles.

The initial 10 week intensive coaching phase enables clients to:• learn financial skills including budgeting and manage their

spending, savings and debts,• use goal-setting to stay motivated,• stabilise their finances via food parcels, utility grants and

supermarket food vouchers, • build resilience to overcome financial stress,• get assistance finding employment.

The program also offers assistance and advocacy with creditors.

After the intensive coaching, there is a 6-month follow-up phase as skills become habits and there are challenges to keeping goals on course.

The pilot includes an external evaluation that will focus on the particular impact of the coaching model.

www.crosswaylifecare.org.au

Grant: $80,000

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About Financial Counselling Australia is the peak organisation for the financial counselling profession.

ProjectPrisoner Debt Financial Literacy – Stage 1

The project will explore a self-help kit to assist prisoners on entry to gaol, to address common financial issues and stabilise their finances.

If a person’s finances are not sorted when they enter prison, problems can develop and snowball. A prisoner may need to notify creditors that they in jail to avoid further debt and loss e.g. their telco, landlord, bank, debt collector, utility provider, Centrelink, Child Support, fine authorities, etc.

These debts can be a crippling burden when the prisoner leaves prison, in addition to all of the regular difficulties.

Prisoners face particular hurdles to solving financial issues. Prisoners often have low levels of literacy. There is no internet access and phone communication with creditors or authorities is difficult.

Stage 1 is a scoping stage – research and program design. Potential future stages include a pilot delivery in one location, and then a wider demonstration in four sites (each with evaluation).

Partners include the Department of Corrections, Victoria.

www.financialcounsellingaustralia.org.au

Financial Counselling Australia

Grant: $58,000

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Wyatt Trust About

The Wyatt Trust is a leading philanthropic organisation supporting South Australians experiencing financial hardship.

ProjectEveryday Money Skills for Young People with Disabilities – Stage 1

This action research project will improve financial literacy for students with disabilities for the transition to employment, training and/or independent living programs.

1. Improve the ability of in preparation for the implementation of National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and the transition from school to work

The project will pilot a school-to-work financial literacy module at Bedford-Phoenix, SA’s largest employer of people living with disability. It will help young people with intellectual and multiple disabilities to engage with their finances.

The project is particularly timely, as it will improve the everyday money skills of young people with disabilities as the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is rolled out.

The pilot will be evaluated by Australian Industrial Transformation Institute at Flinders University.

The longer term aim is for the module to be accredited as a modified South Australian Certificate of Education unit. This would mean it could be used by students with a disability across the state.

Wyatt Trust is co-funding the project.

www.wyatt.org.au

Grant: $48,500

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AboutGood Shepherd Microfinance is Australia’s largest microfinance organisation. It offers a suite of people-centred, affordable financial programs for people on low incomes across Australia.

ProjectFinancial Conversations – Stage 2

When microfinance workers have a financial conversation with a potential client as part of the screening process, Good Shepherd research showed that the conversation has educational value. Clients gain a clearer understanding of their situation and the options open to them. Current research (funded by FLA) is identifying exactly which parts of the conversation (eg current financial circumstances, pressures, options) have the most education value.

This Stage 2 project implements the findings of that research. It will build an online learning module for microfinance workers so they can maximise the educational benefit of their conversations with clients.

The aim is to build workers’ skill and confidence so they can seize appropriate moments to build financial literacy during the microfinance conversation. Online learning will reach the network of 1,500 microfinance workers & volunteers.

The project will be evaluated by a follow-up with microfinance workers 3 months after training to investigate its longer term impact.

www.goodshepherdmicrofinance.org.au

Good Shepherd Microfinance

Grant: $48,500

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About Financial Rights is a community legal centre specialising in financial services, particularly in the areas of consumer credit, banking, debt recovery and insurance.

ProjectWheel of Misfortune – Payday Loans – Stage 1

This project is commissioning research on the current and potential users of payday loans.

The topics will cover users’ level of financial literacy, borrowing behaviour and perceptions as well as demographic factors. The research will drill into critical issues such as the purposes for which payday loans are being used and repeat borrowing. It will also track the trend towards online access to loans.

This research will inform potential future work involving the development of educational programs on issues such as the cost of payday loans and the availability of alternative forms of credit. The findings will help show what educational content and communication strategies are likely to be most effective.The research will be undertaken by Digital Finance Analytics

Future stages may involve: • developing additional educational content; • identifying appropriate communication channels; and • consumer testing content to see if the audience finds it

engaging• delivering education content as widely as possible

www.financialrights.org.au/publication/

Financial Rights Legal Centre

Grant: $47,000

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AboutStreet Finance is a co-operative project between the Faculty of Business and Economics and the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at The University of Melbourne.

ProjectEvaluate the Street Finance program in high schools

Street Finance is a final-year subject in the Bachelor of Commerce at the University. Commerce students are trained in aspects of financial literacy and education. They then develop and deliver three lessons on financial literacy for year 10 high school students.

The project will develop a framework for the evaluation of financial literacy, financial behaviour and outcomes in adolescents and young adults in Australia.

A randomised controlled trial will be conducted to evaluate how the Street Finance program influences the financial behaviour and outcomes of the high school students. The project will also look at how the exercise affects the financial behaviour and outcomes of the participating university students.

The evaluation framework and the results of the evaluation will be publicly available.

fbe.unimelb.edu.au/finance/streetfinance

The University of Melbourne

Grant: $46,000

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About The Salvation Army community services programs assist over 1 million people each year – people who are experiencing poverty, homelessness, addictions, domestic violence and financial crisis.

ProjectEvaluation of You’re the Boss workshop program

The Salvos deliver about 130 You’re the Boss workshops a year to over 2,000 participants. The workshop content can be tailored to suit the needs of different groups of participants. Informal feedback from participants shows they feel the program is effective in advancing their financial literacy.

This project is an independent evaluation of the program. It will involve:• clarifying the program logic so activities and desired

outcomes are mapped• a process evaluation – examining what works and how the

program can be improved • an impact evaluation – quantitative and qualitative research

on how the program impacts participants’ financial literacy

As with all FLA funded projects, the evaluation report will be published.

www.salvos.org.au

Salvation Army

Grant: $38,000

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About Professor Paul Gerrans has a long history of research on financial literacy. He is a member of the Business School at the University of Western Australia (UWA).

ProjectLongitudinal evaluation of university financial literacy courses

UWA and Macquarie University each run a one semester financial literacy program for university students. The UWA program is face-to-face; the Macquarie program is via video online.

This research will conduct a longitudinal evaluation of each program and compare the outcomes. This will assess who enrols in each course, and how effective each course is for those who do enrol. It also allows a comparison between the two delivery methods.

The research will look back at students who have completed the courses (going back to 2012) and compare their long-term outcomes with a control group. The research will also deliver updated before- and after- surveys to future students and track the long-term impact of the courses. The assessment covers knowledge, skills, attitudes, behaviour and financial wellbeing.

www.uwa.edu.au/people/paul.gerrans

University of Western Australia

Grant: $38,000

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FLA funded the following projects in 2014. Further information will be available on the FLA website www.finlit.org.au as evaluations and progress reports are completed.

Organisation Project Grant (rounded)

Area

Indigenous Consumer Assistance Network

Training workers & delivering programs to indigenous communities in Far N. Qld; with evaluation

$274,000over 3 years Far North QLD

Girl Guides Australia Programs for girls 7-12, young women 18-30 & their leaders

$229,000over 2 years National

Financial Counselling Australia Merging the best of three debt help websites into one and upgrading the interactive debt self-help tool.

$207,000over 1 year National

Wesley Community Services Expand delivery of In Charge of Your Money workshop program

$165,000over 2 years NSW

10thousandgirl Regional workshops for women on money goals and investment

$150,000over 2 years National

Institute for Choice, University of SA Research on the relationship between financial literacy, attitudes and appropriate financial behaviour

$120,000over 1 year National

Wingate Avenue Community Centre Adding financial literacy into migrant English classes in a cluster of 6 community centres

$100,000over 1.5 years

North Melbourne

Good Shepherd Microfinance Research on the educational benefits of the screening conversations for No Interest Loans Scheme (NILS) loans – Stage 1.

$95,000over 1 year National

Western Sydney University Research into how financial literacy programs in disadvantaged schools can boost engagement with maths.

$80,000over 2 years NSW

Summary of 2014 projects

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Organisation Project Grant (rounded)

Area

Family Resource & Network Support Update & run a program on practical money skills for young adults with disabilities.

$58,000over 2 years Sydney

Council of Education Associations of SA

Pilot on how parents can enhance financial literacy of their kids $50,000 SA

Wesley Community Services Full evaluation of the In Charge of Your Money workshop program and compare impact of follow-up contact.

$61,000over 2 years NSW

Mission Australia Rollout delivery of Wesley Mission’s In Charge of Your Money workshop program across inner Sydney services.

$49,000over 1 year Sydney

Noosa Library Service Pilot program to include money topics in their volunteer-led literacy and numeracy programs.

$46,000over 2 years QLD

Women’s Information Referral Exchange

Research into how young women can encourage a healthy financial relationship with their partner.

$30,000over 6 months VIC

Mypolonga Primary School Expanding and sharing knowledge of their successful student shop enterprise.

$25,000over 2 years SA

Woodville Primary School Project to create a play supermarket to help students develop practical financial literacy skills.

$15,000over 2 years Adelaide

St Michael’s Collegiate School Practical money skills program for students with intellectual disabilities.

$12,000over 1 year Hobart

www.finlit.org.au