- Welcome, and thank you for standing by.
All participants will be on a listen-only mode
until the question and answer session of today's call.
If you'd like to ask a question, please type it
in the question and answer pod through the WebEx.
I'd also like to inform all parties
that this call is being recorded.
If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time.
I would now like to turn the call over to your host,
Miss Lessie Evans.
Thank you, ma'am. You may begin.
- Thank you.
Good morning, and good afternoon,
and welcome to the FDIC's Money Smart for Small Business
Town Hall Webinar.
I am again Lessie Powell Evans.
I'm Chief of the Community Affairs section
here at the FDIC.
We are very excited to provide this webinar
as an opportunity to showcase
Money Smart for Small Business Alliance members
that represent two important segments
of the Money Smart Alliance membership,
Community Development Corporations
and Chambers of Commerce.
So, by the way,
we will primarily be using the acronym MSSB
to refer to our Money Smart for Small Business products.
So our two speakers today will describe how and why
they use the MSSB curriculum,
but more importantly, they will share
practical information about successful partnerships
and collaborations in their communities
to enhance the impact of the MSSB program.
As a reminder, today's program is intended for
intermediary organizations who are using
or considering the use of MSSB.
As you may know, MSSB is co-branded with
the US Small Business Administration,
and we are thrilled to work with SBA
in providing business training and other resources
for aspiring and existing entrepreneurs.
Today we have Donald Smith,
Director of the Office of Entrepreneurial Development
at the SBA office here in Washington D.C.
I'm going to ask Donald to introduce himself
and share any SBA program updates with us.
Donald, please join us in welcoming our attendees today.
Hi, Donald.
- Hey, Lessie. How are you?
- I'm great.
- Thanks so much for the warm introduction.
I just wanted to say that SBA is committed to ensuring
that entrepreneurs have access to trusted advice
and the financing to grow their businesses.
The foundation of making sure that happens
is being financially literate and capable.
That's why our partnership with the FDIC is so important.
The Money Smart for Small Business curriculum
not only provides the foundation for entrepreneurs to work
through the entrepreneurial development process
and cultivate their ideas, but it also lets them know
how important financial management is
to a successful business venture.
Each year across the country,
thousands of intermediary organizations use Money Smart
to reach entrepreneurs in their communities.
Similarly, the SBA implements an initiative
for mid-stage entrepreneurs.
Each year, 700 entrepreneurs
participate in SBA's Emerging Leaders program.
For those entrepreneurs
that have revenue of $400,000 and above
and have three or more employees,
we would love to have them participate.
So please take a look at sba.gov and search for Emerging Leaders
and let us know whether or not
an entrepreneur that you work with
or that you serve is interested.
Together we can pair entrepreneurs with
trusted advice and guidance to help them be successful,
and that will help us create jobs and generate revenue
and transform communities across our country.
Thanks so much.
- Thank you, Donald.
So, at this point, I will turn it over to Paola Diaz
who is the MSSB senior community affairs specialist
responsible for our MSSB effort.
Paola will moderate our presentation today.
- Thank you, Lessie.
As Lessie explained,
I also work based in the Washington D.C. office,
and I usually coordinate national outreach.
I also support our staff in helping organizations
that are using or considering to use
Money Smart for Small Business
and working on other small business initiatives.
For example, in collaboration with the SBA
and other federal agencies
and other small business development organizations.
Again, welcome, and thanks for investing this time
to learn about how two organizations are using
this free resource for aspiring and existing entrepreneurs.
The chat function is enabled
so that you can make connections with other participants
and ask any questions that you might have
as they come into mind,
or during the designated times for questions and answers.
This webinar platform should appear
in the browser window in your computer,
and if at some point, you lose the PowerPoint presentation,
you should look for a circle icon
that is green and blue in your taskbar.
The taskbar is usually at the bottom of your screen
or wherever you can visualize your start button.
In the case of Microsoft users, the start button looks like
a blue circle that has a four-color flag inside.
The slides are projected as a smaller window.
There's a box next to the slides where you should be able to find
menus to chat or questions and answers.
You should use the chat function to communicate with the audience
or the panelists,
and you should use the questions and answers
to submit questions to the panelists.
Given the large audience that we have today,
we may not be able to address all questions that we receive
during the registration process or during the webinar.
All questions that are relevant to the audience
will be published in the questions and answers document
that will be posted along with a recording of each town hall
just like we did for the Town Hall Fourth Quarter 2016.
All other organization-specific questions can be handled by
your local FDIC community affairs specialist.
If you don't already know your FDIC community affairs
specialist in your area, you can go to the FDIC website,
www.fdic.gov/moneysmart
and go to the contact tab
to find who to contact in your geography.
My contact information
and a direct link to the FDIC points of contact
is provided in the last slide.
Also, please know that all the participants' lines are muted.
In today's agenda, we will cover
Money Smart for Small Business flash news,
so I will be very brief.
They will be followed by a presentation
by the Martindale Brightwood Community
Development Corporation in Indianapolis, Indiana
and the Atlanta Metropolitan Black Chamber of Commerce
in the state of Georgia.
I want to remind everyone
that we have recently updated our MSSB web page
by adding records from previous town hall meetings,
as I explained.
You will find the MSSB town hall information
within the Money Smart for Small Business web page.
Also, our Money Smart alliance is really growing,
and if you have not already joined,
please do so after today's webinar.
We recently completed the Money Smart for Small Business
Train-the-Trainer Curriculum
that is intended to be a self-help tour to assist
Money Smart for Small Business Alliance members
to train their staff and volunteers
to become MSSB instructors.
Also, we are sharing that we will be updating
our banking and credit modules.
So, if there are organizations in today's meeting
that have experience using both of these modules
and you have feedback that you want to share with us,
this would be a great opportunity.
Finally, I want to remind everyone
that all Money Smart's modules are available for download,
and most of them are available in English and Spanish,
and I have provided the two-web links
where you can download all of the modules
and you can find icons to join the Alliance
and other references that I mentioned today.
So, at this time, I'm going to turn the presentation over
to Josephine Smith,
and she will tell us about her experience
using Money Smart for Small Business
at her Community Development Corporation.
Josephine, you have the presenter role,
and we welcome you to get us started anytime.
- Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone.
As Paola mentioned, my name is Josephine Rogers-Smith,
and I am the executive director at the Martindale Brightwood
Community Development Corporation
in Indianapolis, Indiana.
I have been in this position now for 11 years.
In some cases, that has been a long time,
but to me, I don't think it has been long enough
because we have a lot of work to do
in our Martindale Brightwood community.
I have been involved with business development
from various aspects
and have over 30 years of nonprofit management experience,
working with nonprofits
such as the Madame Walker Theater Center,
Indianapolis public school system,
then a township trustee and many others.
I have been an entrepreneur myself
and own two businesses here in Indianapolis.
One was a childcare center for infants and children,
and also another broad spectrum from that
was owning a beauty salon, and what helped me out
was that my daughter was a hair stylist.
So that helped us tremendously with that business.
Martindale Brightwood CDC is now moving into its second year
providing the Money Smart curriculum for our community.
This curriculum in my opinion is very well developed,
and I was really excited
when I went to the first train-the-trainer program
to see that such a tool was out there for our community.
- Josephine, I'm sorry. This is Paola.
I just want to remind you to please move the slides.
We're under the impression
you're not moving the slides yet.
Thank you. - I'm trying.
I'm trying to move the slides.
- You can go on. Until we figure this out,
participants should know that we are currently
at slide number 6 where we can see Josephine's picture,
and from there, you should be able to move the slides
at the pace at which Josephine is making her presentation.
Thank you.
- Okay. Thank you.
I'm not quite sure what's going on right here.
So, the Martindale Brightwood CDC, our organization,
we started in 1992, and our organization was formed
by five neighborhood associations
and Martindale Brightwood,
and the CDC was formed to provide a wide range of services
that you see here, and the services were to help
residents living in the community
to have a better quality of life.
Our organization is only five miles
from downtown Indianapolis.
We have done a number of housing projects
from 67 scattered sites, rental units.
We have developed 25 homeownership units,
and homeownership units are still a very good showcase
for our community.
I have to say we did sell our scattered site units in 2012
to an investor that has renovated and now rented out
all 67 of those units.
Some of the areas that we have to address in our community
include the fact that we have
a lot of vacant houses in the area,
and environmental justice is also a critical issue
because our community was high industry.
We had railroads.
We had a lot of chemical plants in the area.
So, we have found, as a matter of fact,
that a lot of the soil in the community
was contaminated with chemicals, contaminated with lead,
and even now we still have the Environmental Protection Agency
and the state Environmental Management
working to clean up some of the soil in the neighborhoods.
The geography that we serve includes about 10,000 residents,
and our Community Development Corporation
as we became known in 1992,
we were part of the trend with the city and other states
that developed community development corporations
to address unique needs in the community
from housing development to employment
as well as economic development.
And so now as a CDC, we're trying to make sure
that we stay relevant and we stay current
so that we can still provide services to our community.
In 2016, we presented seven modules.
But prior to that, in 2015 third quarter, we also...
I guess you could say it was kind of like a pilot program
where we did about four classes in 2015,
and they were very successful.
And our numbers in 2016, we had about 81 participants
that went through all of those sessions,
and each one of the participants received certification
for attending those sessions.
Partnership, collaboration.
You hear a lot about that,
but we have found that that is really key
to having your programs and your modules and attendance
for those to be successful.
We were able to generate funding for our program
from Fifth Third Bank to help cover such costs
as space and materials as well as, you know,
helping to promote and market the event.
It has been really amazing for me to see the businesses
that have come to our sessions,
the type of business that they have started.
Some are still in the exploration stage.
But we've had people that one of our participants,
she had gone to a culinary class,
and she got the chef there to help her blend her spices,
and from there she started coming to our first class.
She came to every class that we had last year,
and now she is distributing her spices all around town.
She sends some even out of town.
We had one gentleman who was manufacturing
and making parts for motorcycles.
We had someone who was a truck driver,
and she wanted to start her own trucking company.
We've had jewelry makers,
a number of interesting businesses
that I don't think we would have heard about
if we had not presented the modules from Small Business.
We had two businesses
that were successful in getting loans
from one of our banking partners.
So, all in total,
those two loans added up to over $200,000.
That was really exciting to hear and to know about.
We have brought together a number of partners
that have assisted us with our Money Smart program:
the Indy East Business Association
which was formed in 2010, we had two bank representatives
that work with us, and from our community,
we have an organization called
Community Resurrection Partnership
which is a faith-based group in our neighborhood
that works with churches, pastors,
to help them understand and be involved in the community.
The local Small Business Council.
We've had them participate in some of our training sessions,
and we are looking to have four this year
to also participate with us in some way
and provide information to our small businesses.
Money Smart, the workshops offered, you know,
like in a series or very succinct manner.
We like for the information to, you know,
build up from one session to the next.
SBA serves as the facilitator for a lot of our sessions,
and this year, we will get started
with finding out from individuals
whether owning a business is right for them.
Mama Rae's, which is the spice company I was talking about,
she will be one of the presenters at this session,
and she will talk about her experience,
how she attended the classes and some of the challenges
she had in getting her business started
and just providing a roadmap for the individuals
that will be in our first class.
For our training,
well, we try not to be too much of a stick in the mud,
if you will, on requirements for our training.
We do ask people to, you know, pre-register for the sessions
and we wanted people to come
that would either they had started a business
or were thinking about starting a business
or they were already in business.
We are considering, you know,
establishing a graduation for our program
where we will provide certificates again
for the people who attended.
One of the things that we were able to do,
like I mentioned earlier about the two loans,
our banking partners like for our CDC
and our partner organizations
to refer people to them for assistance.
So, we do that and as you see, we've been successful.
With our SBA partner, we have a...
this came about in 2016.
We have a strategic alliance with SBA,
and in this, they have committed to our community
to help us provide educational training and resources
to our small businesses.
So, this has been very, very successful.
We have been working with SBA now
for almost two years on this program.
The deputy director, Martin Anderson,
is our go-to person.
He knows the FDIC/SBA curriculum front and back,
and he is part of our team to help guide us
in the selection of our workshops.
One of the other things that has helped us
is that we're also able to select businesses
from the community who participate and service
facilitators in our sessions,
and that helps individuals in attendance
to recognize people that they know,
may be familiar with, to understand and see
that they have given back to the community.
We plan to use, and I'm glad to see
that FDIC has a train-the-trainer curriculum,
and we will use that for our staff
and for our facilitators
for our upcoming program and training.
So, we will take a moment now
to see if anyone has any questions.
- Thank you very much.
We're going to be moderating the questions
as they come in via the question and answer tab,
or the chat feature, but in the meantime,
I did have a number of questions that came as you were speaking,
and the first one is whether you charge any fees
to your participants and if you could provide
a few more examples about how you raise funds
to be able to provide this program in your community.
Thank you.
- The banks have been very helpful and supportive
of this program.
As you may know, they have certain requirements
that they need to meet
for the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA),
so that always helps.
So you can develop your programs,
develop a grant based on the bank requirements
and submit that like in the fall of the year
prior to your next season.
So that has been our main source of funding.
- Excellent.
I think we're going to let people figure out
what additional questions they have, but in the meantime,
we're going to turn it over to our next speaker.
I know that Josephine is going to stay with us
until the end of the event
and might be able to address any other questions
that we get in the next few more minutes.
But before I transfer, I do have one question in the chat,
and that question is for you, Josephine.
They are asking who do you use as trainers
and where and how did you find them,
and with your answer of that question,
we will turn it over to our next speaker.
Thank you. - Okay.
We use people who are a part of our Business Development Council
and they are volunteers who are either businesspersons
or from our local community churches as facilitators.
We have engineers.
We have someone from Indiana University
on our council.
We also have two bankers
who are also facilitators in our sessions,
especially on the ones with banking and credit.
The marketing tool that has been most successful for us
is our social media.
Right now, we already have 38 registrations
for our first class which is tonight.
- Do you want to share your last final piece of advice
and then we'll turn it over to Michael?
Thank you, Josephine.
- I would say for anyone thinking about
or has started the modules is to be flexible,
understand who your facilitators are,
allow them the latitude to make adjustments in the curriculum,
and utilize your community leaders,
people from your community organizations,
from your churches, and if you have an association
that provides training and technical assistance
in your community, get them involved as well.
And again, utilize the banks that are in your neighborhood.
- Thank you very much, Josephine,
for those excellent suggestions.
Next, we have Michael Hill, president and CEO
from the Atlanta Metropolitan Black Chamber of Commerce.
He will be introducing himself and then talking about how
he implements the Money Smart for Small Business program.
Thank you.
Do we have you on the line, Michael?
- Yes. Can you hear me?
- Yes. Thank you.
I will make you the presenter just now.
- All right. Thank you. Thank you so much.
All right.
First of all, I'm excited to be on the call.
I am President Emeritus,
president of the Atlanta Black Chamber of Commerce
from 2005 to 2015, and I've been
in the financial sector, in my employee days I would say,
for about seven years in the financial sector
and 12 years in the sales sector.
Of course, over the last 10 to 15 years
been in the business and economic development arena
with the Atlanta Metropolitan Black Chamber of Commerce,
and today I'm more so focused on mentorship and funding
and purchasing underserved businesses
and underserved communities.
Currently I am doing a coordination project
with the US Black Chamber of Commerce,
and we are mentoring and expanding chambers
throughout the southern region.
We first got exposed to the Money Smart program in 2010
with the basic curriculum,
and we were primarily using this curriculum
to our small businesses.
So once the FDIC adopted
the Money Smart for Small Business program,
we quickly jumped on that particular opportunity
because we thought it was a better fit.
We still are using
the Money Smart for Small Business curriculum
particularly when we go into faith-based institutions.
We do have faith-based institutions
as our membership base, and that has served well,
and I'll talk about that later on the slide
in terms of how we're using the program
in the faith-based institutions.
But over a period of time, we've graduated
well over 500 different students and members to date.
Our goal in 2017
is to expand the program throughout the state of Georgia
as well as throughout the southern region.
Our methodology for getting involved in the program
is that we strongly feel that financial education
fosters financial stability for individuals and families,
and a lot of individuals wonder, why did we, as the Chamber,
get involved in it.
Our membership composed of not only business owners
but those business owners have employees.
Those employees and owners also have families,
and that's what we really emphasize
in terms of legacy building of both
as we roll this particular program out
and has been received well by the business owners
as well as their employees and families.
So we're very excited about that
and as we reach out into the community,
we are also doing research in the various regions.
As you see on this slide for our presentation,
we actually set where the banking institutions were
in various communities like HUD communities,
targeted communities that were underserved,
and we try to zero down and make sure
that we are targeting these particular communities
that surround the Atlanta Metropolitan area.
It helps the different banking partners stay aligned
with their Community Reinvestment Act credits,
and then we also want to make sure
that we're holding them accountable because we know
that certain banks do have existing programs.
So, we want to make sure that those programs
are actually being educated to the community.
One of the biggest challenges with small businesses
is access to capital.
Many of the businesses that have matriculated
through the program are businesses that we see
that have sales pretty much under $50,000 in annual sales
and $30,000 in annual sales.
That's been the traditional audience
that has been coming and actually taking the program.
But as we have expanded the program,
we noticed that more high-end, more businesses with capacities
that have more advanced financial service needs
are now signing up for our program
and we changed the format from more of a general presentation.
So now we are implementing
more of the industry-specific presentations.
I want to say industry-specific, for example,
if someone is in the haircare industry,
their needs would differ
for somebody that may be in the transportation industry.
So, due to the flexibility of the program,
it allows us to really present industry-specific solutions
in terms of how we can meet their business
and cashflow needs.
So, we've really, really implemented the program
in that way.
Now when we do the program,
just to kind of give you guys an idea,
we kind of experimented with
different variations of the program
in terms of how long should the program
actually be implemented over a period of time.
We did it in a six-weeks type program,
and what we experienced when we were doing the six-week programs
is that we may start off with a class of 35,
but by the time we get to the end of the six weeks,
we only have 10 students left,
and this is due to a lot of business owners
not having time to come out on a consistent basis.
So, we began exploring different online,
webinar-type opportunities for them to take advantage of,
but what has been our most successful
delivery of the program
has been our two-day boot camp format,
and we actually have one of those formats coming up
where we do a 16-hour, two-day intensive of the program
to really introduce different modules
and have them to go home
to follow up with those different modules
so they can really get more insight on it.
Our facilitators that actually present the programs
are made up of different subject matter professionals.
So, for example, in the time management presentations,
we try to bring in individuals
who have a project-based management background
to actually present on that presentation.
Our banking and financial partners
pretty much take over the presentations
of financial management, credit reporting,
and in some cases, we've even had partners
like Equifax to come out or Dunn & Bradstreet to come out
and do the credit reporting presentation.
Risk management, we reserve that
to our insurance partners as well.
They tend to do the risk management presentation
on insurance as well as selling their small businesses
and succession planning.
These presentations via the Chamber
have been very beneficial for our financial sector
because it gives them an opportunity
to actually meet future clients to do business with
and really to kind of sit down and talk more about
what they learned in the individual classes.
It's very important that as we do the programs
that we have strategic partners,
and our partners have been invaluable
in terms of presenting this particular program.
Quarterly what we do,
we have a meeting of financial service professionals
which consists of banking institutions,
insurance professionals,
anyone that's in the financial service arena
for a period of time.
We meet with them quarterly.
We just actually had our first quarterly presentation
as we plan to prepare for the month of April
which is our Financial Literacy Month.
So, we're gearing up with that.
One of the leading agencies
that's going to be partnering with us on that
is SunTrust.
Over the years, we've made sure
that we align ourselves with our partners
such as the SBA who has been an invaluable partner with us
and the FDIC.
We've also partnered with organizations such as
the National Association of Black Accountants,
Black Accountants Association, the Atlanta Federal Reserve.
The IRS comes in as well. We have financial advisers.
Fifth Third has probably been
one of our stronger banking partners
in terms of leading on this initial effort,
and now we have our new partner that's coming on,
SunTrust bank.
We're excited about that.
We're bringing in micro lenders and our educational institutions
such as Herzing University, Clark Atlanta University.
We have a couple more institutions
that we're going to be bringing on
which provide a great mix of students
actually getting involved with the program
as well as us being able to extend the program
throughout the community.
Some of our church programs,
anytime that we're in a neighborhood
with a faith-based institution,
we typically get our neighborhood associations
involved as well as our merchant's associations.
We did that with Cascade United Methodist Church
for three years in a row
that worked out very successfully.
As we do the program within the church and institutions,
one of the things that we do is that we partner with
the different ministries such as the youth ministry
or the seniors' ministry, and they are able to present
some of the other Money Smart modules
while we are presenting our small business module.
That has been a very successful program.
Our funding.
Primarily, of course, our funders are underwritten
by the different participants that we used throughout that,
and this is kind of an example of how we do our funding
in terms of what our needs are.
They're sponsoring a workshop,
a specific session that has worked out for us
because we want to make sure
that we're still able to offer the program free for the public,
and this allows us to do so,
we're actually having the individual module sponsors.
So that's been very beneficial.
They sponsor the rental spaces for the location,
but typically when we are doing it
with an educational institution, they donate those spaces.
Of course, the box lunch.
That's the best way to actually keep your expenses down
is to do a box lunch-type thing,
and Chick-fil-A has a great $5 option for us.
So, we really enjoyed that,
and all of these things end up covering our expenses as well.
Now one of the things that we are getting and improving on,
and this is something that in terms of
once the individuals go through the program
and we want to make sure there's some type of
reinforcement and accountability that's going on,
so the industry peer groups and sessions that follow that
are very, very essential to what we do.
That accountability helps us to really track progress
and it also allows us to create a cohort model
amongst the students so they can stay together
in terms of seeing how they're doing throughout the years.
Our plans for 2017.
We're now looking at about 20 markets
to expand throughout the region.
In this picture, here you see Larry Holman.
I'd like to talk about Larry. I'm very excited about Larry.
Larry has one of the few chambers...
I like to say he has one of the most successful
minority African-American chambers in the Southeast.
He's now running a $3.5 million budget
where he's doing a micro-lending program
out of Buford, South Carolina, and we are proposing
that the regions adopt the Money Smart program
as our regional program to be used
in all of the chambers within those markets.
So that's what we're currently working on for 2017.
And this is some of the network of chambers
that have signed on thus far,
and we're looking forward to getting that over to you, Paola,
so you can accept these chambers into the network.
We're excited about that,
and these are some of the regional cities
in Alabama, Mississippi, Florida,
South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and so forth
that we are taking the program into.
So, it has been well received and we're excited.
Probably we're looking at third quarter,
we'll have all these programs active and running.
We're currently now going to be doing
a series of different webinars and events
to get the subject matter experts via webinar trained.
Through the train-the-trainer program,
we will be coordinating with our local representatives
to help us implement that, and I can't say enough
in terms of our local representatives
such as Tom Stokes and Elaine Hunter
who are with the FDIC who have been tremendous
in terms of helping us and supporting us
to grow this program
as well as our state representative Terry Dennison
who has also been instrumental in helping us support
the Money Smart program.
For those who are new to the program,
I can't emphasize enough that this is a great program
and the flexibility that it allows
for you to be creative in terms of presenting
financial literacy solutions to the community.
It is something that we've been doing for years
with the Money Smart in the beginning
combined with the Money Smart for Small Business.
We have really seen businesses benefit from it,
but just keep in mind that as people enter into the program,
you will have businesses
that will vary in capacity and need,
and we have found from a customization point of view,
doing it by industry,
it has really, really created great value for our members.
Thank you.
- Thank you very much, Michael,
first of all for highlighting out staff from the FDIC
and the SBA in the state of Georgia.
We're so glad to hear that you have a very strong partnership,
and we have provided a value to the great programs
that you've put together.
I have a couple of questions in the queue for you,
and one of them is,
how do you and whether you have changed anything
in the curriculum in order to provide it toward the youth.
We noticed that in your slides
there was information about kids' programs.
Can you talk a little bit about that, please?
- The youth component of the program?
Is that what you were asking, Paola?
- Yes.
- Okay. Well, one of the things that...
yes, we do provide the customization of the program.
So, for example, some programs like
Time Management, Starting Your Own Business,
Is Starting a Business Right for You,
these are the new modules that have been added.
So, they've definitely changed
in the timing with which we promote the program.
What we've done now with those particular entities
has really made more of a panel-type presentation
around that particular module,
and then sometimes we also, when you talk about the youth,
we pull different programs in and out
for the different modules to present.
So, I know that youths there's How to Get a Car.
I think it's a presentation on the car and stuff,
and we partner with local automotive dealers and so forth
to come in and talk to the youth about cars.
Our plan this year [indistinct]
to take them down to a car dealership
and make that a part of the presentation as well.
So, incorporating real-life type situations are great.
We also do the youth module, I think I mentioned
that when we do go into a faith-based institution,
it really opens up and allows us to be very, very creative
in presenting the program by actually having Money Smart
going on simultaneously
while partnering with the youth ministry
to present the youth aspects of the module.
We are exploring right now different creative ways
that we can engage the senior community,
50-plus entrepreneurs, and that's something
that we've been exploring in our conversations with AARP
to come in and look at some things that they're doing
as well as probably piling an actual special program
with a 50-plus entrepreneurship model.
So, what we're going to do now is put together an actual team
to look at the existing models and look at ways
that we can present it to make it more age appropriate.
You know the youth have different modules,
I think from K through 12.
So, we're looking at, well, if I'm 40,
how does Money Smart complement me at 40-something,
how does Money Smart complement me at 50-something,
how does Money Smart complement me at 60-something.
So those are some things
that we are having discussions about now.
- Thank you. I have another question.
It seems that you have a wide reach
and plans to expand regionally,
and the question is how do you engage organizations
that are regional to provide additional continued support.
For instance, if you're currently getting support
from one financial institution,
what approach are you planning to use
or you have used as they expand their support to other states?
- Oh, absolutely.
Well, one, we do no exclusive relationships.
That's been kind of our motto,
and the financial service roundtable component
which each of the chambers,
business associations and business roundtables
that are affiliated with our network,
we've shown them how to really build key stakeholders
within their different regions.
So step one before we even bring the Money Smart program in
is that they form that group
of subject matter experts and key stakeholders
before we even begin the train-the-trainer,
and one of the things that we allow
particularly when we have multiple banking relationships
is that we sit down with that particular bank and institution
to go over what are their goals and objectives
in terms of what are they trying to accomplish,
and we do that program with them.
So, for example, we have a partner in SunTrust.
So, SunTrust and the Chamber, we have four programs
that we're doing together for the year.
So, when we sit down with our other banking partner
who is a credit union, you know, we have four programs
that we're doing with the credit union
as it relates to Money Smart
based on their target demographic.
So, when we actually sit down with the different institutions
and financial professionals,
we really customize the Money Smart program
based on what are their goals, what are their objectives,
what are their educational objectives
and what type of client do they want to bring
into their particular business.
So that allows us to really kind of create
a win-win for everyone.
- Excellent. Good question,
and do we still have Josephine on the line
because we have a question for her?
- Yes, I'm here.
- Thank you so much.
It seems there's a number of people
who want a little bit more background
about community development corporations.
Can you explain a little bit more
whether community development corporations
are found everywhere in the United States
or maybe regionally,
or if you're interested in becoming one,
how can you become one,
and we noticed in your slides about all of your programs,
you have a lot of problematic areas
and how do you think other CDCs can incorporate entrepreneurship
into the wide programs they already offer?
Thank you.
- Thank you.
Our community development corporation started
as a result of an initiative by the city of Indianapolis,
and through research I have seen,
I have been able to find
community development corporations all around the US,
and like I said earlier, I think it was to address
a very unique need in the communities
for developing sustainability
within the different neighborhoods.
And so, when the city did CDCs in Indianapolis,
they looked at geography, and so like in my area,
I have a catchment area of 10,000 people.
There's another CDC
that has a catchment area of 42,000 people.
So, it really kind of looks like how your neighborhood
has previously said that my neighborhood association
or my neighborhood is bounded by this border,
that border, and the next border.
So, in other cities around the country,
you'll see where community development corporations
have carved out a specific community
that they want to serve, and so that service can come
in the area of housing, economic development
which we have dropped in our small business component
under economic development.
We feel that economic development,
providing business stability, developing new business
will help stabilize our community
so they can provide jobs,
they can provide service and so on in the community.
Community development corporation.
Just go online.
You can find a number of CDCs around the country.
They have different missions, different structures.
Some may provide only housing and economic development.
Some will go as far as education,
workforce development.
You name it.
It can be any number of things
depending on the need that's in your specific community.
We are a 501(c)3 organization, as I said,
established in 1992 by five of the neighborhood associations
in the Martindale Brightwood community.
- Excellent.
Thank you so much for that background.
- Was there another part to that question?
- Yes, I think you addressed the question
in a very complete way. Thank you for that,
and there's another question for the two presenters,
and it seems some organizations are struggling to figure out
how to offer programs for free,
and I think both of you presented and explained,
but is there any additional piece of advice
that you want to offer
and why you offer the programs for free that may be useful.
So, you can go first, Josephine, and then Mike.
Thank you.
- Well, you know, we always say there's no free lunch,
but we are very well supported by the fact that FDIC and SBA
have put in the time, money, and expertise
in developing these curriculums for us to be able to use.
So, my time at my organization
is spent across all those programs,
and so I'd take it on myself to provide my staff
time and resources that we have within our organization
to make this program available.
Now when we talk about space and promotion,
then we're bringing in outside resources
to help market the programs
to make the community more aware that the programs are here.
So, with the banks providing that additional support,
we offer the program free to the participants
because we want them to get their business right
because the end result will be bigger
than charging them $5 or $25 to attend
if they can get their business established and productive
for the community.
Thank you.
- Mike? - Yes.
I would just like to ditto on all of those points.
The way we are all able to offer it free
is because of the relationships
that we've built with the programs.
So, for a person who's starting out,
the first relationship I would advise you to go
develop a relationship with is the bank
because it's a win-win for the bank.
You know, that whole Community Reinvestment Act
is public information.
Do your research.
Look at what your banks are doing in the community.
Are they really fulfilling
their Community Reinvestment obligation?
Then those banks that aren't,
this will be a great complement for them
to be able to fulfill those obligations.
It's not that they might not necessarily want to.
It may be that they don't have the time or capacity to do so.
So, the Money Smart program is an excellent way
for the banking institution to get out in the community,
to brand itself with your organization.
So that's how we'll begin the conversation in terms of
who can help me underwrite our program.
Other things that if you look at each of the modules,
each of the modules presents an opportunity
for a subject matter or industry expert
to underwrite that for you.
So, we didn't just go to the bank.
We also with the insurance part, hey, let's go to State Farm,
let's go to Nationwide or whatever insurance company.
So, they're very open to be a part of this program, too,
and by bringing in those subject matter experts,
it creates a win-win.
So, you don't have speaker's fees to absorb
because all of our speakers tend to be our members
or our partners and as a service industry.
So, it's a great win-win
if presented right to the right relationships.
So that's what I would advise.
- Thank you very much, Mike,
and I want to fill the last two minutes of our town hall
to address a couple of questions that we received
during the registration, and most importantly
one that came through the Q&A about how to provide feedback
for the updates of the credit and banking modules.
So, if you have any ideas about how to improve
the credit and banking modules,
this is the right time to provide the feedback
even though we're always open and eager to hear any ways
we can improve it,
at this time we're working on redeveloping the product
and it would be very timely if you're able to submit
any ideas that you have to improve the credit
and banking modules directly to me,
and my email is provided on the screen.
For those who are maybe having visual difficulties,
it is pdiaz@fdic.gov
and it will be very timely if you can send those along
before the end of April or hopefully by mid-May.
We would appreciate that.
I also had another question in the registration process
about when can we book train-the-trainer classes.
So, as it was explained earlier when I opened up the program,
we have made the train-the-trainer curriculum
available for any organization to use
and host their own train-the-trainer program.
Because we have limited resources,
usually we have at least one community affairs specialist
that covers every state, but that clearly is not enough,
and the first thing you should do
if you're interested in hosting a train-the-trainer program,
to prepare your instructors of Money Smart for Small Business
is to contact your community affairs specialist
and determine whether they can provide support,
and depending on their schedule and also the number of people
that you're expecting,
please know that we do give priority to events
where the expected attendance is over 30 people,
and if we're able to provide the support
in a way that meets your needs and your schedule,
we will do so.
But we're also happy to provide partial train-the-trainers
or shorter train-the-trainers via webinar.
So, we can use the same technology we used today
in order to fulfill more of those needs,
but for any of those cases, it is always best to contact
your local community affairs specialist.
Another question that I had
was whether we're going to have a curriculum for youth.
We do not currently have a curriculum for the youth
specifically on entrepreneurship,
but we have a Money Smart for Youth program
that you can check out at www.fdic.gov/moneysmart
which you have on the slide right now,
on the closing slide,
and you can see all the programs that we have.
We also have Money Smart for Older Adults,
and we have a version for adults.
So, as you heard from Mike,
he usually combines Money Smart for personal finance
with the Money Smart for Small Business
and it seems to work well.
Well, at this time, we are one minute past the hour,
and we appreciate your participation today.
Thank you for the questions you submitted,
and until next time, operator, you can end the call.
- This concludes today's conference.
Thank you for participating.
You may disconnect at this time.
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