Support the Institute
There are many ways an individual or private organization can support
the Institute for Financial Literacy and its mission:
- Donate to the Institute’s
Annual Campaign
- Sponsor Volunteer Educators and/or financial education programs
in your community
- Become a patron of the Library of Personal Finance
- Donate financial literacy
education materials to the Library of Personal Finance.
- Sponsor the Annual
Conference on Financial Education
To discuss how you would like to support the Institute and its mission,
please call us at 207-879-0389 and ask to speak with a member of our Development
Team.
2007 Annual Campaign
We Need Your Help!
The Bad News
There was one foreclosure filing for every 510 households in August 2007. That’s
an increase of 36% over July and a 115% increase over August of last year.
Almost 600,000 Americans went bankrupt in 2006. People age 35 – 54
from all economic backgrounds are going bankrupt at a disproportionately
higher rate than any other age group*. These trends clearly indicate a
crisis in how Americans from every walk of life manage their personal finances. The
unanswered question remains: how will the ripple effects touch each of
us through the larger economy?
The Good News
Financial education works! In 2007 alone, nearly 50,000 people from across
the country contacted the Institute for Financial Literacy to create
a fresh start for themselves through online, telephone and home-study
financial education programs. Financial literacy pre-tests (taken before
a financial literacy course) for consumers contacting the Institute in
2006 showed an average score of 65%, meaning they had less than a bare
minimum knowledge of how to manage their personal finances. However,
post-tests (taken after a financial literacy course) of the same group
showed an average score of 80%, demonstrating a significant improvement
in their knowledge of personal finance management.
What We’re Doing
At the Institute for Financial Literacy, financial counselors and educators
are working hard each and every day to help people resolve their immediate
financial problems, better understand their personal finances and start
planning for the future. To do this even more effectively, research is
needed to measure the relationship between improved knowledge and changes
in long term financial behavior. This means we must contact former
clients, collect hard data, and thoroughly analyze that data. THIS RESEARCH
DOES NOT CURRENTLY EXIST ANYWHERE. Without this research, the true personal
and economic impacts of financial education cannot be fully explored.
Why We Need You
To do all this we need YOU, and we need you TODAY. While the Institute
is exceptionally well positioned to conduct this vital research due to
its staffing and unique data set, our resources are not limitless. We
need your help to ensure we have sufficient capacity to continue important
work such as this which affects us all. Please join us for our 2007 Annual
Campaign**. Your gift makes measurable differences in real peoples’ lives
and helps secure our collective economic future.
Thank you in advance for your generous contribution!
Sincerely,
Leslie Linfield, Esq.
Executive Director
Donation
Form
Our 2007 Annual Campaign flyer with donation form. Thank
you for your support!