The City of Lansing created its Office of Financial Empowerment and launched its Financial Empowerment Center (FEC) in early 2013, thanks to the financial and technical assistance of the Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund through support from Bloomberg Philanthropies.

 

Nearly three years later, we have learned a great deal and assisted thousands of people in achieving their financial goals. Each year, we host a celebration for our clients where I hear first-hand about their experiences with our program:

 

“When I met my counselor, I was living in my truck with my dog, and now I have a place of my own.”

 

“When I started coming to the Financial Empowerment Center, my mother had just passed away. It was the most difficult period of my life, and they were there for me.”

 

These are powerful statements that speak to the positive impact our financial empowerment program is having on our citizens.

 

Everyone Must Benefit

As free financial counseling in Lansing transitions from being private grant-funded to publicly-funded, accountability is more important than ever. Beginning in 2016, the city’s taxpayers will be footing about 25 percent of the bill for our Financial Empowerment Center, and the county has provided another 20 percent. That’s why the service must not only be valuable to our clients; it must create a more financially stable Metro Lansing in order to create value for all residents. This could mean reducing reliance on other public and social services, reducing homelessness or impacting local businesses. We know that financially stable employees are absent less often for reasons that include lack of reliable transportation or health issues brought on by financial stress, more present when they are at work, and less likely to ask for pay advances. Quality financial counseling is an explicit and critical component of Metro Lansing’s economic development strategy.

 

Public Programs are Accountable for Accurate, Appropriate Information

As a government entity, the city must hold itself to the highest standards of accuracy in the delivery of financial counseling. Counselors must receive the training necessary to connect clients to community resources; know the difference between offering the client options and helping them identify the pros and cons of each versus giving financial advice; and know and understand the impact of each choice the client might make on their overall financial stability.

 

To provide this level of service delivery, standardized counselor training is crucial. In Lansing, we have chosen the AFCPE (Association for Financial Counseling and Planning Education) as our training partner, and their Accredited Financial Counselor certification as our training pathway. Our counselors are also dedicated to enhancing their training through continued learning, particularly by inviting local nonprofit organizations, financial institutions and attorneys to their weekly staff meetings as guest speakers. In these meetings, they might learn about a new financial product, a change in consumer protection law, or how to help a client access health insurance. A great counselor has both the understanding of financial topics and the desire to become informed about any resource that may drive their clients’ successes.

 

Financial Counseling Can Identify Community Issues That Need our Attention

Accountability also means keeping the lines of communication open between front-line counselors and the Mayor’s office in order to capture broader policy issues that affect our community. For example, one in 13 of our financial counseling clients has taken out a payday loan at some point in their lives; one in 35 has a payday loan in default when they come in for their first counseling session. These are the types of issues that I and my leadership need to be aware of in order to better protect Lansing’s residents.

 

“Without data you’re just another person with an opinion.”
—W. Edwards Deming

Professional, trained counselors are one part of our commitment to quality. Another is adherence to the Financial Empowerment Center model and its metrics. A national movement is building around this model, and we are “all in.” As the number of FEC communities grows, our ability to share best practices, identify successful integrations, and create lasting change depends on fidelity to the model and the resulting opportunity to make “apples to apples” comparisons.

 

On the ground, this data and the reports it allows us to generate give counselors a clearly defined way to measure their own success. Each of our staff members know exactly how many sessions they should deliver, and how many outcomes their clients should achieve and can seek assistance from their teammates, their supervisor or their peer support network in the other FEC cities if they begin to struggle.

 

As Mayor, I know that when a resident contacts my office due to financial issues, I can trust they’ll be in good hands with our Financial Empowerment Center. This can be credited to the detailed, well-maintained data systems required by the model, the professional training and ongoing education of our counselors, and the fact that well-trained counselors are on alert for trends that indicate a broader community issue. And of course, it doesn’t hurt to have a passionate, driven team of “rock star” counselors who are dedicated to making Lansing the best it can be for everyone.