Consumer Financial Education Fund

Grants to USA nonprofit organizations to provide consumer education or information, or financial literacy or education. Applicants must submit an LOI before submitting a full application. A special emphasis is placed on issues related to large financial institutions, basic banking, access to financial services, retail banking accounts, and underbanked or vulnerable populations.

Within the overall framework of educating consumers about financial issues or increasing consumer financial literacy, eligible projects must specifically relate to teaching consumers how to manage their finances to avoid overdraft fees.

Eligible Projects:
It is anticipated that eligible projects may encompass, but not be limited to, the following issues or focus areas:

Financial Education and Training including:
-Education and outreach activities that teach adults and children about financial issues and increasing their financial literacy, including community workshops, classroom presentations, trainings, conferences, and webinars, especially including information about overdraft fees and how to avoid them. Educational programs covering the following topics are encouraged:

-Fees and choices related to debit cards and pre-paid debit cards that lead to high interest rates;
-Education for consumers to not opt-in to overdraft protection when fees will be charged;
-The dangers of high-cost, short-term credit such as payday loans and how to avoid this type of borrowing.
- Educational projects should seek to adapt and utilize existing curricula. Applicants proposing to create entirely new curricula should be prepared to fully justify why existing financial literacy curricula is insufficient.

Financial Education and Advocacy designed to promote fair and equitable banking practices and to protect vulnerable populations from predatory banking. Financial advocacy projects should have clear objectives and include immediate outcomes which are achievable within the grant period. Projects relating to current issues such as the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program are encouraged.

Proposals could include:
-Policy and/or regulatory development and implementation, including related research;
-Cost of relevant experts;
-Events for legislators and other policy-makers to help them understand pertinent issues;
-Legal advocacy including case development and litigation.

Preference will be given to:
-Applicants who can clearly define their desired outcomes and express quantitative and qualitative metrics that will measure progress made towards those outcomes during the grant period;
-Projects that specifically serve vulnerable and/or underbanked populations including low income communities of color, students, veterans, and non-English speakers conducted by organizations that have a demonstrated track record of working with these communities;
-Projects designed to affect long-term consumer behavior by changing habits and teaching clients how to independently maintain good financial standing for future years; o Projects that disseminate information in multiple languages;
-Projects with a clear strategy to reduce predatory lending and to promote fair banking practices.