Across the country, a number of local governments are increasing the availability of youth savings opportunities for families, with the goal of improving the likelihood that students of limited means enroll and persist in higher education. This brief details why city leaders are investing in youth savings initiatives, provides details on how these programs operate, and highlights how cities have gotten started doing this critical work.
Location Category: san_francisco_ca
San Francisco, CA
CFE Coalition City Expert Topics: Youth Savings Initiatives
Across the country, a number of local governments are increasing the availability of youth savings opportunities for families, with the goal of improving the likelihood that students of limited means enroll and persist in higher education. This brief details why city leaders are investing in youth savings initiatives, provides details on how these programs operate, and highlights how cities have gotten started doing this critical work.
Expert Topic: Offices of Financial Empowerment
Across the country, many local leaders have launched Offices of Financial Empowerment (OFEs) or similar municipal offices that serve as a home for financial empowerment programming efforts. Check out these resources to learn from CFE Coalition city experts about why city leaders invest in OFEs; what OFEs do; and pathways to launching OFEs.
Financial Empowerment Center Replication Initiative
Financial Empowerment Center (FEC) clients receive free, one-on-one professional counseling assistance with money management, budgeting, reducing debt, establishing and improving credit, connecting to safe and affordable banking services, building savings, preparing for legacy planning and protecting their assets, and referrals to other services and organizations. In partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies, and additional generous support from Principal Foundation and the Wells Fargo Foundation, the CFE Fund is promoting FEC replication through cohorts of local leaders who are developing, launching, and implementing financial counseling as a free public service, along with strategic research projects to enhance the success of financial counseling. Get in touch to join as a supportive funding partner.
The CFE Fund is supporting cohorts of new cities or counties interested in launching a Financial Empowerment Center through FEC Academy, an expanded entry point to the FECPublic movement. The CFE Fund’s FEC Academy guides government partners through each step of planning to launch the FEC model of professional, one-on-one financial counseling as a local public service. FEC Academy includes significant CFE Fund technical assistance, access to planning resources and information, and participation in a robust learning community. Upon completion of the FEC Academy, partners will be equipped to mobilize the building blocks to launch the Financial Empowerment Center initiative in their community, including through leveraging federal funding streams like the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).
The Financial Empowerment Center Model
Financial Empowerment Center clients receive free, one-on-one professional counseling assistance with money management, budgeting, reducing debt, establishing and improving credit, connecting to safe and affordable banking services, building savings, and referrals to other services and organizations. Professionally trained counselors support their clients in navigating complex financial challenges and choices, helping them identify and meet present challenges and future ambitions. Local governments offer FEC financial counseling as a free stand-alone public service, but also via integration into other social services including housing and foreclosure prevention services, workforce development, prisoner reentry, benefits access, domestic violence prevention, and more.
Financial Empowerment Center Evaluation Findings
In 2013, the CFE Fund awarded its first grants to replicate the model in five cities through a $16.2 million, 3-year investment by Bloomberg Philanthropies. An Evaluation of Financial Empowerment Centers: Building People’s Financial Stability As a Public Service, demonstrates the success of the 5-city implementation, drawing on data from 22,000 clients who participated in 57,000 counseling sessions across the first 5 city replication partners.
Summer Jobs Connect
Summer Jobs Connect is an ambitious initiative spearheaded by seed funder the Citi Foundation and the CFE Fund to support young adults seeking summer employment, enhancing these municipally-led programs by integrating structural linkages to safe and appropriate banking products, services, and education. To date, the CFE Fund has worked with 25 city governments and their local Summer Youth Employment Program partners to provide additional job positions to local residents of predominantly low incomes between the ages of 14 and 24, as well as connect them to appropriate bank and credit union products and meaningful financial education.
The CFE Fund supports cohorts of new cities or counties interested in learning how to integrate banking access and financial education into their Summer Youth Employment Programs (SYEPs), through Summer Jobs Connect Academy. Summer Jobs Connect (SJC) Academy guides cities and counties through each step of planning out their SYEP programming to improve youth financial outcomes and includes significant CFE Fund technical assistance, access to planning resources and information, and participation in a robust national learning community. Mid-way through SJC Academy programming, partners have the opportunity to qualify for a grant of up to $15,000 to launch banking integration partnerships in their community.
Through the CFE Fund’s leadership, our city partner’s efforts and the Citi Foundation’s seed support of almost $40 million, Summer Jobs Connect has provided over 15,000 young people with summer work experience and connected financial empowerment services. Other supportive funders include The Skillman Foundation and the PNC Foundation. Beyond a seasonal paycheck, Summer Jobs Connect positions early job experiences as entry points for lifelong success in the financial mainstream.
Please reach out to Matt Trombley, Senior Associate, at [email protected] with any questions about Summer Jobs Connect.
Bank On
Bank On coalitions are locally-led partnerships between local public officials; city, state, and federal government agencies; financial institutions; and community organizations that work together to help improve the financial stability of unbanked and underbanked individuals and families in their communities. In addition to connecting people to safe and affordable accounts, Bank On coalitions also work to raise public awareness, target outreach to the unbanked, and expand access to financial education.
The CFE Fund’s Bank On national initiative builds on this grassroots movement, supporting local coalitions with strategic and financial support, as well as by liaising nationally with banking, regulatory, and nonprofit organization partners to expand banking access, including through the first-ever Bank On National Account Standards, updated for 2025 – 2026. The CFE Fund announced an online Bank On account validation and certification process; banks and credit unions across the country, at no cost, can submit for validation products they believe meet the national Standards. The list of financial institutions offering such products continues to expand across the country.
CFE Fund and Capital One Announce Winners of Multi-City Hackathon to Support Financial Empowerment
The CFE Fund and Capital One announced the winner of the Multi-City Financial Empowerment Hackathon, a national effort to create software applications (apps) focused on financial inclusion. Representing San Francisco, MEDAPulse, in partnership with the Mission Economic Development Agency, won the national competition with a tool that helps financial counselors better engage with clients by using technology to remind them of the goals that clients committed to achieving between sessions.
Through a grant from Capital One, the CFE Fund provided funding and technical assistance to Chicago, New York City and San Francisco to host regional hackathons. Combined, hackathons in these cities had over 110 participants who worked in teams to create numerous apps, including budget trackers, goal-setting applications, financial achievement badges and financial action plans.
The CFE Fund and Bloomberg Philanthropies Award Technical Assistance Grants to 7 Cities Replicating the Financial Empowerment Center Model
Financial Empowerment Centers offer free, professional, one-on-one financial counseling to enable residents to address their financial needs and plan for their futures.
In this February 2014 press release, the CFE Fund and Bloomberg Philanthropies announce a second wave of In-Kind Technical Assistance grants to seven cities: Cleveland, OH; Hartford, CT; Hawai’i County, HI; Los Angeles, CA; Miami, FL; San Francisco, CA; and Seattle, WA. Participating cities raised private funds or redirected public funds to support direct program costs. To supplement these city efforts, the CFE Fund will provide robust technical assistance and capacity building resources to each city, fueling the expansion of the model and helping the cities to replicate and customize the public counseling model to meet local needs. The technical assistance grants come in response to overwhelming demand for Financial Empowerment Centers following the success of the expansion of the Financial Empowerment Centers to five cities in March 2013.