Skip to main content

Past Activities

2018 – A Year In Review

We know two important facts about personal savings -- one, it can mean the difference between surviving a financial shock or not, and two, very few Americans have enough emergency savings to last them a month in the event of a crisis.  This is particularly true of low-income individuals and families. While we hope to assist our clients with long-term financial planning and goals, the peer learning committee recognizes that helping our community build any kind of emergency savings is an essential first step towards greater financial stability.

For that reason, we focused our efforts in 2018 on how all organizations can work together toward the goal of savings.  The CT ABC integrates partners who target different areas of need among low-income residents.  Although as organizations we may train our sights on food access, housing, financial literacy, employment, transportation, heat assistance, and other social determinants, our clients experience all of these issues at once.  Therefore, it is incumbent upon us to join forces with a singular purpose and what better goal than to help individuals through our areas of expertise and in partnership to build an emergency savings fund. 

CT Asset Building events and activities in 2018 included:

February 21 Peer Learning discussing “Why Savings?”

October 31 Peer Learning exploring how to better integrate social services with financial empowerment services.

November 8 Greater Waterbury Regional Meeting

Regional Meetings

Greater Waterbury Regional Meeting

November 8, 2018 at Naugatuck Valley Community College sponsored by United Way of Greater Waterbury 

ALICE data for CT, ALICE data for Greater Waterbury

View full agenda here.  

Greater Fairfield Regional Meeting

October 18, 2017 at Housatonic Community College sponsored by Fairfield County's Community Foundation, Fund for Women & Girls

View full agenda here.  

Greater New Haven Regional Meeting

April 6, 2017 sponsored by the United Way of New Haven

To view the agenda follow this link.

Creating Better Financial Futures  -- Greater Hartford Regional Meeting

October 18, 2016 sponsored by Farmington Bank

Charles Botts, Workforce Development and Innovations Act

Tracey Ariel, Advanced Manufacturing Technical Centers, CT State Colleges and Universities (presented by Michael Kozlowski)

To view the agenda follow this link.

Peer Learning Sessions

State of Financial Coaching in CT

December 7, 2016

The CT Asset Building Collaborative conducted a survey and follow up Peer Learning event to assess the current status of financial coaching programs in Connecticut as financial coaching continues to grow and develop throughout the country as an important tool for helping clients improve their financial well-being. 
The survey answers some of the following questions:
  • Who's active in providing financial coaching?
  • What types of clients are you working with currently?
  • What training and resources are you using?
  • What outcomes are you tracking?
  • What barriers do you face in your program?
  • How can we learn from each other to improve our programs?
The results of the survey were discussed at a Peer Learning event held on December 7th, 2016. Materials here

Video from the June 9 Financial Coaching Peer Learning here.

Policy Academy

Monday February 29, 2016 Materials here.

The Hidden Financial Lives of Low-Income Americans

Tuesday January 12, 2016,  with Jonathan Morduch  Materials here

Role of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in Fostering Asset Building and Community Economic Development

Friday September 25, 2015,  - with Corey Stone  

Behavioral Economics:  Practical Strategies for Financial Success

January 29, 2015  Follow-up materials here

Lessons Learned:  VITA and Financial Education Best Practices 

October 23, 2014

Applying Results Based Accountability to the Work of Achieving Better Results 

led by Phyllis Rozansky  May 29, 2014

Video from the June 9 Peer Learning Session 

Brett Theodos, from the Urban institute, talks about a pioneering randomized trial on financial coaching and its effectiveness. This webinar was part of the Connecticut Asset Building Collaborative peer learning series.

 

2018 – A Year In Review

We know two important facts about personal savings -- one, it can mean the difference between surviving a financial shock or not, and two, very few Americans have enough emergency savings to last them a month in the event of a crisis.  This is particularly true of low-income individuals and families. While we hope to assist our clients with long-term financial planning and goals, the peer learning committee recognizes that helping our community build any kind of emergency savings is an essential first step towards greater financial stability.

For that reason, we focused our efforts in 2018 on how all organizations can work together toward the goal of savings.  The CT ABC integrates partners who target different areas of need among low-income residents.  Although as organizations we may train our sights on food access, housing, financial literacy, employment, transportation, heat assistance, and other social determinants, our clients experience all of these issues at once.  Therefore, it is incumbent upon us to join forces with a singular purpose and what better goal than to help individuals through our areas of expertise and in partnership to build an emergency savings fund. 

CT Asset Building events and activities in 2018 included:

February 21 Peer Learning discussing “Why Savings?”

October 31 Peer Learning exploring how to better integrate social services with financial empowerment services.

November 8 Greater Waterbury Regional Meeting

 

Fall Conference 2015

Our Fall Conference was held on November 5th, 2015 at the Solarium, Page Hall at CT Valley Hospital.  You can get to the program, presentations and some photos by clicking here.  Check back as this will be updated over the next few weeks.  

 

Report on Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund (CFEF)’s conference on ‘The Professionalizing Field of Financial Counseling and Financial Coaching’

The City of New Haven is considering creating a Financial Empowerment Center with a professional financial coach or counselor at the Opportunity Center, 316 Dixwell Avenue.  Annie Harper of Yale University, Cynthia Brown-McLaurin of the City of New Haven and Jim Horan of the CT Association for Human Services attended the conference at Bloomberg, LP in New York.  Notes from the May 5, 2016 meeting are here.

 

Asset Building Launch November 7, 2013

 Link to the agenda and associated materials

 

launch.jpgConnecticut Asset Building Collaborative Launch an Outstanding Success!

An essential ingredient in improving economic security for Connecticut families is building assets, including savings, housing, and business ownership.  Connecticut Voices for Children, along with the Connecticut Association for Human Services, Strategic Directions and the United Way of Greater New Haven, joined by a Steering Committee of many others, are proud to have been key to a successful launch of an ongoing statewide collaborative working on asset building issues and policies.  We’ve posted several handouts and presentations from the event below.

The November 7th event attracted over 120 participants, including public officials, bankers, funders, service providers, advocates and consumers, who spent the morning listening to panels, presentations and speakers before engaging in small group roundtables and discussions.  The day led off with remarks from Connecticut State Treasurer Denise Nappier and a welcome from Dr. Esther Howe, Associate Dean of the School of Health and Human Services at Southern Connecticut State University. 

This was followed by a panel of consumers who spoke about their experiences trying to build their financial worth.  This panel was followed by a keynote speech from Jonathan Mintz, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs and Co-Chair of Cities for Financial Empowerment.  After an introduction from our event sponsor, Citi Community Development, Commissioner Mintz spoke about the experiences of New York City and how investing in asset building efforts on the front end saved public sector funds at the same time as building individual capability and self-reliance.  The Commissioner also spoke about the ability to get a range of partners, including from the private sector, invested in the work.

The next section, “State of Assets in Connecticut,” was led off by a presentation from Ethan Geiling of CFED with a national perspective on asset building policies and a look at strengths and weaknesses in Connecticut’s asset policies.  Orlando Rodriguez of CT Voices then presented an overview of Connecticut data on poverty, racial isolation and youth unemployment, with a call to build incomes and reduce disparities to help build family assets.  This was followed by a panel of leaders of state and provider agencies discussing how a Connecticut collaborative might be able to address some of the issues presented. 

After a welcome by lunch sponsor Liberty Bank and comments from New Haven Mayor John DeStefano, Jr., participants joined regional groups to discuss how they might better work together locally.

For more information, see these selected handouts from the presenters:

 

Donate Find an Event

Visit us on social media:

@CTAssetBuilding