Your Money, Your Goals: Resources to help build financial empowerment

Collection of tools from "Behind on Bills" This compact, curated booklet of tools is designed for frontline staff (such as case managers and social workers) to use with clients to help address financial issues. — **Collection of tools from "Behind on Bills"** This compact, curated booklet of tools is designed for frontline staff (such as case managers and social workers) to use with clients to help address financial issues.

Finances affect nearly every part of life in the United States. But many people feel overwhelmed by their financial situations, and they don’t know where to go for help. In social service organizations, frontline staff and volunteers are in a unique position to provide that help by sharing information and tools that build financial empowerment.

The challenge:
The CFPB created "Your Money, Your Goals" resources to empower these staff and volunteers—who may feel hesitant about their own financial knowledge—to initiate basic discussions about personal money management, and connect clients to qualified financial counselors and coaches. However, the existing materials were so robust, it felt overwhelming to many of these staff members, who may have as many as 40 clients at a time.

Participant during a training session: User research sessions began by introducing participants (primarily frontline staff) to the booklet of tools and then evaluating how they used the tools during a series of role-playing and other scenario-d… — **Participant during a training session:** User research sessions began by introducing participants (primarily frontline staff) to the booklet of tools and then evaluating how they used the tools during a series of role-playing and other scenario-driven exercises. This screenshot from the "Behind on Bills" video shows a participant during training.

Case manager using the tools with a client: After multiple rounds of testing with frontline staff across the country, our iterative approach paid off! This screenshot from the "Behind on Bills" video shows the interaction between client an… — **Case manager using the tools with a client:** After multiple rounds of testing with frontline staff across the country, our iterative approach paid off! This screenshot from the "Behind on Bills" video shows the interaction between client and case manager that the booklet helps to facilitate. The video also shows the life-changing benefits that the booklet has had on this client's life.

The solution:

A smaller, curated set of financial empowerment tools: I joined the team just as they were launching a pilot project of a small-sized booklet containing money management tools. I interviewed the frontline staff (and analyzed the tools they and their clients completed) to understand how clients perceived these tools, and to learn what changes needed to be made to the structure and wording. The final booklet was composed of eight tools that were easy to introduce and complete, easily photocopied (the primary way it is shared with clients), and small enough to be taken on client visits.
A new focus for a comprehensive suite of materials: The success of the booklet quickly led to the creation of more booklets. However, more materials do not always lead to better experiences, so I worked with the team to map how all of the "Your Money, Your Goals" pieces fit together. This mapping exercise helped identify opportunities to improve the existing materials. It also united the team in the idea that success would not come from creating more materials, but rather by finding ways to incorporate key elements of the booklet's success (simplicity and graphic appeal) into the rest of the materials.
An improved web presence: These mapping workshops also led to insights for a new "Your Money, Your Goals" website. It has more visual appeal and differentiated sections to address the needs of its multiple audiences (administrators, trainers, frontline staff).

Mapping the journey of an organization incorporating "Your Money, Your Goals": The booklet is just one piece of a larger ecosystem of "Your Money, Your Goals" materials. My team and I undertook a larger effort to understand how the booklet fit … — **Mapping the journey of an organization incorporating "Your Money, Your Goals":** The booklet is just one piece of a larger ecosystem of "Your Money, Your Goals" materials. My team and I undertook a larger effort to understand how the booklet fit into this ecosystem and how we could incorporate some of the key elements of its success (simplicity and graphic appeal) into the rest of the materials. This mapping exercise also revealed opportunities for alleviating some frustrations (of both end users and CFPB employees).

My role:

Planning and executing user research; conducting interviews with frontline staff.
Capturing feedback from staff and analyzing client-completed tools, and turning this feedback into a list of recommended changes. Prioritizing and updating this list as necessary to make sure critical revisions were addressed as time (and supporting research) indicated.
Facilitating participatory stakeholder workshops to establish the scope of future work. Synthesizing workshop findings into recommendations for simplifying and improving materials.
Creating wireframes that defined the structure and layout of a revised set of webpages. These pages have clearly differentiated sections to address the needs of multiple audiences.
Acting as scrummaster of a distributed agile Scrum team during the redesign of the large (300+ page) "Your Money, Your Goals" toolkit. A key component of the team's work is ensuring materials are 508 compliant and meet accessibility requirements.

The results:

Within 8 months, almost 100,000 copies of the "Behind on Bills" booklet were ordered. Over 500 people have been trained on how to use the "Behind on Bills" booklet.