I live in Washington, DC, but most of my family lives in Texas. So I
rely on technology—Facetime, Instagram, constant group texting—to stay
in touch. I’m incredibly grateful that this technology allows me to see
and speak with people I love, but no amount of instant messaging can
replace my trips back home when I get to spend the day sitting around
talking and really connecting with my family and friends.
At CFED,
we also rely on technology to facilitate learning groups and stay in
touch with our partners across the country. These virtual meetings have
many advantages—but there just isn’t an app that can duplicate the power
of connecting face-to-face.
That’s why, from April 22 through June 24 of this year, our team traveled
to seven states to facilitate day-long workshops
on financial capability integration. While these in-person workshops
took more time and resources to put together than a conference call or
webinar, the results were well worth the extra effort. Here’s why
face-to-face convenings are so powerful:
They provide the ever-elusive time and space needed for reflection and planning.
In the face of day-to-day demands on our time and attention, most of us
struggle to find enough time to reflect on our work and plan new
initiatives. Attending these full-day workshops—free from the
distractions of an office, email and meetings—gave attendees the time
and mental space to think creatively about their work and develop ideas
for improving or expanding their efforts.
They create opportunities for connecting and collaborating with local partners.
When we asked participants what they liked most about the workshops,
the Number One response was the networking. Organizations were able to
meet new people and explore new opportunities for collaboration. Even
partners that knew one another well and collaborated often appreciated
and took advantage of the opportunity to sit down with partners, learn
about their work and strategize new ways to work together. Organizations
may be more digitally connected than ever before, but there’s nothing
like a plain old conversation to spark a true partnership.
They facilitate sharing new resources and ideas. Workshop attendees had the opportunity to get hands-on experience with the planning tools in the recently-released Integration Planning Guide.
They also got to learn about and discuss innovative practices from
organizations around the country and in the room. Another bonus was that
CFED got to learn about new practices we can share with attendees at
future workshops, and we got to expand our Network and learn about new organizations we plan to partner with in the future.
Asking
people to take a full day away from their work is a big request.
Knowing this, we carefully designed and facilitated learning activities
to make the most of these opportunities:
Visualizing a Financial Capability Theory of Change:
For our purposes, a theory of change describes the current state of
clients’ financial lives, what the desired future state is and what
services will help to bring about this change. At the workshops, we
organized attendees into small groups to illustrate a theory of change
for financial capability integration. First, each group drew what their
clients’ current financial insecurity looks like. These drawings
depicted the stress, confusion and hopelessness clients face every day
along with overdue bills and unstable housing. Then, clients drew what
financial security would look like for their clients—smiling faces,
comfortable homes, peace signs and bloated piggy banks. Finally, we
asked each small group to list the financial capability services that
could help their clients move from their current state of insecurity to
greater levels of financial security. Grounding the selection of
services in the realities of clients’ lives—including the feelings of
hopelessness that are hard to capture in needs assessments—helped the
groups prioritize the most meaningful services and keep in mind why they
are doing this work in the first place.
Who’s Doing What:
This exercise was designed to help familiarize participants with the
other service providers in their state. We hung 10 pieces of flip chart
paper around the room, one for each financial capability service we
discussed. Then we asked representatives from each organization to put
their organization’s name on post-it notes and hang them on the flip
chart papers to indicate which of the services they currently provide.
Attendees conducted a gallery walk to review who’s doing what in their
state and identify organizations they wanted to connect with.
Organizations learned about new services for their clients and about the
span of financial capability services across their state.
Financial Capability Speed Dating: In
this activity, attendees paired up with a potential partner to ask
questions about their financial capability services. Attendees used this
time to learn about partners’ services they knew their clients needed,
from free credit counseling services to statewide tax prep sites. Not
only did attendees learn more about these services, they used this time
to ask in-depth questions about eligibility and tailoring to figure out
if the partner’s services were a good fit for their clients.
Interactions were limited to 15 minutes or less so organizations could
move around the room and meet with a variety of partners, and then they
made plans to follow up after the workshop with good matches.
I
will continue to utilize technology that connects me to people across
the country. But when it comes to envisioning new solutions and building
lasting partnerships, nothing can quite replicate in-person meetings.
We at CFED are looking forward to continuing to convene our partners so
we can continually learn from each other and make progress toward the
goals we share.
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