Number of individual students required: 1-5

Students will analyze the current marketing of financial education programs and develop a written plan for maximizing our future marketing efforts while addressing needs to reach and focus on diverse populations of color, gender, income, and other factors involved in identity. We need to ensure our online financial education programs match our vision, mission, and target audience. Although flexible, we will typically ask the student/team to research a given community for needs our programs can meet. They would then focus on a single webinar or financial education program already designed by our financial education expert but that requires updating, fleshing out, polishing to improve its marketability to that population. Finally, the student/team might research and develop a plan to market these free programs to the populations that can most benefit from them. We will ensure the student has a clear understanding of what these elements are for our organization.

About Money Fit

Money Fit is a nonprofit credit counseling agency founded in 1996, serving adult consumers across the US "to significantly improve the financial well-being of our clients, and assist them in achieving a better overall quality of life through credit counseling, debt management, and credit and debt education programs."

In late 2019, we pivoted our financial education courses to free interactive, learner-paced financial education webinars and online courses. Our annual participation increased from less than 3,000 to nearly 8,000, with 2021 projections over 11,000.

We have 30 employees across our two offices (Boise, Idaho and Bohemia, New York), most of whom work directly in counseling or customer service.

Our Professionals

Students will work directly with our education manager, Todd Christensen, and marketing manager, Rick Munster

• Todd Christensen, Author, Financial Educator, and Education Manager: https://moneyfit.org/todd-christensen
• Rick Munster, Marketing Manager: https://moneyfit.org/media-inquiries

Student Involvement

To improve and build upon our online financial education projects, the student(s) can expect to:

• Develop a top-level view of how the program currently fits and could fit in the future within an identified community or population.
• Become very familiar with one financial education online course, taking ownership of content accuracy, accessibility, and language-suitability
• Review the financial education webinar/course to match the content, graphic design, page layout, and user interface with the target learner
• Develop a marketing plan that might include:

1. A social media (re)launch (YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook) to promote the completed course/webinar
2. Blog articles, email newsletters, and other content pieces that reach target learners and increase interaction with our programs
3. Appropriate data tracking, evaluation, and reporting metrics

• As assigned, research consumer tendencies and provide input into appropriate media and outlets that are most beneficial for growing our program interaction

Ultimately, you will be working with our content (blogs, written lectures, videos, social media, and other collateral) to make them more accessible and more likely to be used by a specific population.

Expected Time Requirements

We expect the review and preparation for the release of each financial education course/webinar to require 5-25 hours per month (15-40 hours total per student) for approximately two to three months, depending upon the chosen course and student availability.

Preferred Skills/Skills Used during Project

• Consumer/Marketing Insight
• Graphic Design
• Oral/Written Communication
• Research/Reporting
• Digital Technology
• Logic/Critical Thinking
• Professionalism/Work Ethic
• Video Design/Editing

If you like the sound of growing your communication and marketing skills while offering some valuable and long-lasting assistance to those in need, we have a challenge for you to tackle. We'd love to hear from you.

Money Fit plans to offer the student(s) direct access to and mentoring by professional managers with nearly 20 years of experience each in the field. Students can expect:

• to join brief, weekly team meetings (if applicable) by Zoom with our education manager and/or our marketing manager to provide overview of weekly objectives
• to join brief, weekly individual meetings by phone/Zoom with our education manager and/or our marketing manager to discuss the week's tasks, expectations, and available resources
• to gain immediate, direct access by phone or email during business hours to our education manager and/or our marketing manager for questions, concerns, or challenges
• subject brief (1-2 paragraph) reports regularly (usually weekly) on assignments, including progress, challenges, and proposed solutions