Financial Coaching

After EARN Savers reach their goal, we help them keep moving up and achieving their next goals. Our Alumni can enroll in EARN Wealthcare, our unique financial planning and coaching initiative. EARN has a team of six professional financial coaches and is the only nonprofit organization in the U.S. with a full-time financial coach dedicated to serving low-income clients. Wealthcare participants get a 12-month, one-on-one engagement with an expert coach for the individualized support they need to develop sound money management habits and maintain their upward financial trajectory. We also provide training to other nonprofits that want to incorporate coaching into their services for low-income families.

EARN’s coaching model begins with a session in which clients establish a long-term outline of their goals, vision, and steps to follow on their journey toward financial security.

This plan is a crucial starting point, but getting there requires behavioral change – and that means making different day-to-day choices.

So, EARN’s six professional financial coaches work with our Wealthcare clients over the course of 12 months as they save money, decrease debt and build wealth over time. The coach’s role is to partner with clients to help them realize their dreams. A coach is many things – a sounding board, accountability partner, motivator, and success partner, among others. In essence, coaches hold a flashlight, helping individuals to see where they want to go and to articulate how to get there. Coaches walk the path with the client, lighting up rocks and trees and other obstacles, until the destination is reached.

EARN’s clients are low-income people experiencing upward mobility for the first time. They often have few peers, family members, or other resources that they can turn to for guidance and direction in reaching additional financial goals after completing the EARN matched savings program. In 2007, EARN developed our Wealthcare financial coaching program to meet this need. Because there was no coaching model that met the particular requirements of our particular target population of low-wage workers, we independently developed a unique coaching system based on our on-the-ground experience and gold-standard research and expertise.

We also use our Wealthcare coaching curriculum to train other nonprofits, and we carefully evaluate the impact of coaching in order to advance the growing field of financial coaching for low-income people. Our comprehensive, 3-day training curriculum incorporates 4 key components: personal finance content, coaching fundamentals, communication and facilitation skills, and client sensitivity.