Marisa Walster: Well, hello, everyone. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good middle of the night. Welcome to today’s webinar, empowering financial health, the role of financial education. I am Marisa Walster, vice president of financial services solutions here at the Financial Health Network. I am thrilled that there are so many of you with us for today’s discussion. Financial education has long been considered a staple in how financial institutions support their customer and member financial health. The question we’re going to explore today is, how do we ensure the impact of these programs. While financial education can increase knowledge, knowledge in and of itself is not our end goal. Our goal is financial health, financial resilience, financial wellness, whatever your organization might call it. The goal here is really to have an impact on people’s lives. 

So, joining me today are two experts deeply involved in this work. We have Doug Haehl, Senior Manager of Product Marketing at EVERFI, and Mary Gustafson, Associate, Vice President of Product Marketing at VyStar Credit Union. Both Doug and Mary lead initiatives that aim to bring financial education to consumers that are innovative, accessible, and data-driven. I’m so thrilled to have you both. Thank you for joining us. 

Before we dive deep into today’s discussion, it’s important that we take a moment to reflect on the current state of consumer financial health based on our most recent findings from the Financial Health Pulse report which came out last week. If you haven’t read it, please do. Data shows that only 30% of people in the U.S. are considered financially healthy. That means that only 30% of people are not struggling with some aspect of their spending, saving, borrowing, and planning. This is a really stark reminder of the widespread financial vulnerability that so many face. That’s one in three people who are doing well, and two in three who are struggling with some aspects. 

So, as you look around this virtual room, as you look around your workplace, as you look around your customer and member bases, these are the people that we’re talking about today. What’s even more concerning are the persistent disparities in financial health across different groups and communities. Black and Latine households continue to face systemic barriers that prevent them from building wealth and achieving financial security. According to our Pulse data, less than 15% of Black people and Latine people are financially healthy compared to 37% of White households. And then, financial health for women, or families earning low incomes. Younger generations also lag behind, and there’s a real critical need for solutions. 

So, with that, Doug, I know that EVERFI plays a really unique role in this space and has a really interesting view on customers and their needs. And so, I would love for you to share with our group today a little bit about EVERFI, and what you’re seeing in the market.

Doug Haehl: Yeah, absolutely. Marisa, thank you. And thank you for the introduction to that. You kind of set the stage. You brought up some key data points which, depending on what source you look at, they’re pretty much the same across the board and I don’t really want to use the term or word scary, but I mean the scary thing is, it seems to almost be getting worse. But you brought up the 30% kind of the one-third who are financially sound. Look at it from the opposite side. Two-thirds are kind of in stress, you know, financial stress is kind of what we call it. 

And I was going to bring up the point,  and I think you made it well, that, you know, depending on where you are in the country, or what demographic you look at, that two-thirds a lot of times is much higher. You know, it’s three-fourths, or even, you know, four-fifths or whatever. And you brought up that point. So, we’ve got some data points, and these are from different sources. Again, they tell the same story. Really, I’m not going to go over everything you know, verbatim, but 57%, 74%, 53%. What these numbers speak to, and you can read them on your screen, what they speak to is, there’s financial stress in our country today. You know your customers, your members, they, for the most part at least in some form or fashion are stressed about their finances. They’re stressed about their paychecks. They’re stressed on how far their paycheck will actually last them. 

And not only that, they are in need. They’re in a point of their life where they’re seeking financial guidance. And what we have come to realize is a lot of them are seeking financial guidance through their employer  —you know, their source of income. That’s, you know, who they consider as a source of education for that. So, that’s kind of what this first slide speaks to. If we go to the next one, it kind of gives a stark comparison to those same individuals and the difference between them percentage wise, or I guess, habits of those who have had some sort of financial education and those who haven’t. 

So, that first number on the bottom. You know, “spend less of their income,” 53% versus 35%. That first number is, or that first  percentage are individuals who have had some sort of financial education, 53% spend less of their annual income versus 35% who are not financially educated. We talk about savings and emergency savings funds. We actually have a new tool that helps individuals build and acquire that emergency savings. But you know, 65% who are financially educated in some form or fashion have 3 months of emergency savings versus 42% who don’t. 

And in the open retirement account, you know this kind of speaks to financial institution   customers. This is outward thinking. This is planning for the future. You know this. This is kind of your long term commitment. You know, 70% of people who have some form of financial education open a retirement account versus less than half, 43%. I mean, that’s a huge difference. 

So, let’s go to the next slide. I know we are all familiar with the OCC and who they are. They are in the news quite a bit. They give a lot of findings and stuff. So this is something the OCC’s Community Development Insights. It is. It is fresh and somewhat new from June, and this is a direct quote from them. You know The OCC encourages financial institutions to consider how they support customers’ financial health. And if you think about that a minute, it’s not just about, you know, years past a bank or credit union. They had customers and members opening accounts. They, you know, apply for loans. It’s not just about that. There’s a responsibility now that the OCCis encouraging. And again, encouraging. You know they’ve got that split into three different kinds of categories. And that’s stability, resilience, and security. 

So, when I read something like this, or see something like this actually put into print, I know that there’s something coming down the pipeline. There’s going to be, you know, a best practice. There’s going, you know, when a bank gets an audit or so, you know, there’s going to be a finding or a best practice or encouragement on well, what are you doing to encourage or to financially educate your customers?

Just kind of give a brief background on me: You know the EVERFI world. So, I’m kind of on the vendor side of things now with financial education. I spent 12 years on the community banking side. So, I was sitting on the opposite side of the screen, as many of our registration members are now. So, I dealt with the OCC. I dealt with CFPB, you know, on the auditing trail and everything else. So,it’s something that is, it is gaining some steam. It’s piquing some interest. And you know that’s a question, too, that I think every financial institution needs to not only ask themselves, but really be able to understand where, you know., their continuity is. And everything with that subject is what is our responsibility to the members and staff that we serve, even the community,  in providing some sort of financial health, financial wellness, financial education. You know, we can’t just be a transactional point. It’s got to be something more than that. 

This slide kind of speaks volumes. So thisdata is actually from EVERFI. This is an internal survey that we send out to all of our customers. We had over 500 participants in this survey. So, across the bottom: opening a credit card, buying a car, retirement, buying a home. These are the subjects that we typically define as financial education. You know, these are some of the hot button topics. And what this graph kind of speaks to is that there is only one topic that just barely hits over 50% of customers that feel confident about making a decision. And that’s opening a credit card. Everything else is below 40%. Actually, just about everything is under 30%. So you know, you brought up that 30% number. This is kind of using that two-thirds number. So you know, two-thirds of your customers and your members do not feel confident in making the majority of these financial education decisions.

Marisa Walster: Yeah, super helpful, Doug. I mean, you speak my language when we’re talking impact measurement and trying to understand outcomes. And I love the sort of work that you all are doing in understanding: What are the key needs of customers? And what’s the potential of financial education? Mary, I would love to turn it to you. VyStar is a credit union serving the Jacksonville Florida area, a beautiful area, but one that is currently facing down a potential hurricane. So, we’re sending you all the best of safety and dry wishes. I would love to hear what are you seeing within your VyStar community in terms of the key challenges, or the stressors and needs in your community.

Mary Gustafson: Thank you, Marisa, I think, for us, and yes, we are located in Jackson, Florida, and we are serving Florida and Georgia now as well. For us, we faced quite a challenge this year. Most of our members are located in Jackson, Florida, and we have recently been named one of the top 10 most financially struggling cities in the United States. And when we read that article we were like, I think we need to do something. We have a lot of members here. We need to help them. This is our responsibility, and honestly, it is. You know it will benefit us if our members, financially healthy if they can, you know, thrive financially, and you know, and in general it’s our community, and we like to support it. 

So, we knew right away we needed to do something. And we got into this mindset of, okay, we actually need to do some financial education and financial resources. But I think, like any other financial institution there, or you know any other company, you do a little bit there and a little bit here, and you know it’s not all coordinated. We had an HR Department who goes to support all our employees. We had a community. We donate so much time and so much resources, and try to rebuild different areas. But you know, what does it really mean? So, we had to come together and create the whole holistic program for financial fitness. We call it financial fitness because it is hard work you need to do there. 

So, we came together. And we were like, okay, we need to coordinate all these, you know, initiatives and everything we do, especially for those underserved communities. Because we are there, we need to help them. So, we did a lot of research. We went to our senior team, which was one very fun thing to do to actually say, ‘Hey, we need this.’ This is why I can answer questions on that, too. That is quite a journey. And then we implemented and thank you, EVERFI, a lot because they were able to provide us with very interactive resources for different groups. It’s very easy to say, ‘Hey, this is financial education.’ This is financial resources. Go do something with them. but nobody really wants to go and study all the time. 

So, we had to do it interactively and provide those resources that really matter to those communities. And sometimes you don’t really know what it is until you talk, and you really listen to what those communities need. So, we had to partner with those community organizations and ensure that our resources will be accessible and culturally relevant for those groups. We recently opened a financial center in one of our smaller communities because we knew that they need support and not just a branch that gives you ATM and transactions, but somebody to sit down with people and say, ‘Hey, this is how credit cards work. This is how you get your credit report, how it all works.’ So we, you know, actually go to those communities and try to create this foundation for financial stability. And we like to start from a young age, because, like, we do a lot around like high school, we have high school branches, high school programs where we educate children because it’s one of our key initiatives. We go and partner with these local schools, with nonprofits, and we try to integrate this financial literacy at a very early age. providing that foundation that can help to break that cycle of financial instability. I think that’s something that I’m very proud of, that we can start, you know, from a very young age, and get you where you need to be.

Marisa Walster: Yeah, you mentioned just so many different aspects of the programs that you have in place. Financial education means a lot of different things to different organizations and different people, right? Everything from articles on the Internet, through these much more holistic programs, even all the way to like one-on-one coaching with professionals. And financial education itself has received some criticism that in and of itself it is not moving the needle. And so I would love to hear both of your perspectives on this spectrum of what financial education could be like, what needs to be in place to make it work, and what’s really critical, to be part of a financial education program.

Doug Haehl: Yeah, wonderful question. I’ll go ahead and jump first and I’ll touch on a question that was in the topics, too: What is financial education? I want to make something really clear. And Mary talked about it. I know Mary and I know VyStar, and kind of what they do. They do outstanding work, really, really, really good work. something that has kind of set them apart. And I think that we can all learn from it, and it kind of leads into this question you asked: they have defined the goals that they want. They’ve defined the KPIs. They’ve defined what structure their financial education workshop or program is going to look like. 

So, you know, so many times, we see an organization, they’ll just put financial education webinars or content on their  website. Well, just doing that does not serve the purpose, you know, you know, Mary said, and most of us have been at least in some sort of school, if not college or whatnot, you know, studying and stuff. It’s kind of, you know. We tend to refer to that at EVERFI is what we call just in time. So just in time, education, and that is the financial education when it means the most to you. It’s when you get in a journey or a customer process applying for an auto loan. Well, before you’re applying for an auto loan, you’re probably not going to take any sort of auto financial education. But while you’re sitting at a loan officer’s office and sitting at a desk across from, you know, if they could give you a three to five minute, you know, program webinar online sort, of course. Then that’s gonna really hit home. 

The way we kind of define and or and or judge or grade. That is what we consider like a pretest and a post-test pre-assessment post assessment. And then, if you’re familiar with EVERFI at all, you know, at least especially with the K-12 programs that we do in schools. It’s all about that kind of knowledge gain. You know, it’s got what we call an impact report. So, that’s where you really judge is what we’re doing having an impact, is it showing an increased knowledge? As far as you know, financial education across the board? 

So, with California, they are now the 26th state that is requiring financial education in terms of high school graduation, and have to have some sort of person, some form of personal finance credit in order to graduate. I think it’s great. I think that the other 24 States need to jump on board, you know, 26 States. So, we’ve got just over half those States, and I live in one Tennessee. We’ve had that mandate for I don’t know 8, 10 years or so. And it has made a difference. It’s made a change, unfortunately, in America today. You know, Mary talked about starting younger. Starting with that, you know adolescence, group and stuff, you know, when their mind is still very sponge like, and they’re taking in everything. 

Unfortunately, the norm today is that parents are not home. Both of them are working. If there’s two parents at home. So any form of education, especially financial education today, typically comes from either friends, school, or like we showed in one of the earlier slides, the employer, you know. They look to the employer as far as a source of guidance when it comes to financial education. So you know, there, there’s  a lot to be said as far as where we need to go. There’s still a whole lot of room to be made. But you know, like I said, the 26 states that have kind of somewhat made it. That mandate, I think, has probably got a little bit of a jump start on the others. but that’s kind of my thoughts on it.

Marisa Walster: I want to double click on what you’re calling just in time. Right? This idea of, how do you provide the information and the education and the support, like in the moment where it’s most relevant. I saw a comment in our chat about offering classes at a public library, and I think that this gets to a bit of why it can be hard to engage people. Mary, how do you think about this advice at VyStar? Sort of packaging the educational content and the rest of the products and services and experiences that you have available.

Mary Gustafson: I think there are two parts to it. So, we have all these resources, right and amazing resources that we can customize for different segments and different target audiences. Sorry marketing talk. But for us, it’s not just providing those resources, but also to have the risk question over there. It’s making it accessible and also fun like, yes, I have all these resources. But why would anyone sitting after a long day of work come home and want to go and read about how to get a credit card, how to improve their credit score, how to set up emergency savings. Maybe they need to, but they don’t really want to. 

So, when we reintroduce all these financial fitness programs for us, we sit down and think about it, how can we make it fun? So, what did we do? We actually did the approach before we even introduced all of those resources we set up the foundation of. Let’s check how our community is doing. We have all these resources and all this information from you guys and other research. But truly, how our members are doing. So, we actually utilize your financial health network. Quiz the questionnaire with eight questions. And we asked the community, hey, do you want to take this eight question quiz, and you can enter to win $4,500. And we were like, let’s make it fun. Somebody can win. We will make it fun. You can get this, maybe go to some game as well, you know. Let’s make it like a contest. 

So, when we did this, we saw, I think it was over 34,000, just in 2 months, over 34,000 people who just took the quiz. Just so they can enter and also check their financial health. That is also one of our KPIs. By the way, because we now know this is how our community is doing right now what we can do. And then, based on these questions, we knew what we should serve. What is the most relevant problem there? Maybe it’s emergency savings. It’s actually this emergency savings or building credit or something like that. So, we made it fun. We created videos. We went to the community. We did different contests. Just so people know that we have these resources, and if you take them you might win something. 

And I think that was like the first part of it. And then, when we were introducing resources, we also made sure that it just does not end there, that we do not provide you with resources and say, Okay, good luck. I know, we said, ‘Hey, we see that you are struggling with this. We see that you took some of the, you know, steps to actually get better. But let’s check on you. Let’s do that one-on-one counseling. Let’s go to your community with this financial center thing.’ We will, you know, check on you all the time and do initiatives every quarter. So, we now treat financial fitness as a product line. So, I’m part of marketing. We have, you know, initiatives, like how we sell credit cards, how we sell mortgages. But also, how do we ensure that our community, our members are financially healthy because it will help us in the long run as well, and how we make it fun and interactive. 

And I like a lot, EVERFI, what you’re doing and what we can accomplish, because it allows you to be incentivized to, actually, you know, do those fun things with the community and talk to them. And before I finish on this thought, I want to say, it’s also different for different segments. While the younger generation wants more interactive things, we notice that we have other communities where we need to be there. We need to talk to them at the event, one on one. It’s not something we can do. Hey? This is, you know, on your phone, you can take this quiz. You can take this module. Some people do not have phones so we will like to be very mindful of trying to make it as accessible as it can be.

Marisa Walster: Yeah, I love so many things about what you said, they are really compelling. We’ve seen success with what we call sort of prize linking and for building savings and for getting consumers to take all sorts of actions. And so I think it’s a really interesting way to think about how to encourage financial education, and then all the way to financial health. 

Another thing that you were just mentioning at the end was this idea of how do you really tailor to different communities, and even personalize content? And I would love to hear from both of you. How do you think about that personalization and really sort of community focus in the realm of how do you also scale right? Oftentimes creating personal solutions or really tailored solutions? Different communities are not easy. And so you know, how can someone really sort of take on the task of doing it in a scalable way, but also being as relevant as possible.

Doug Haehl: Yeah, very good question. And I’m trying to keep track of some of the comments on the Comp. The notes and the comments are wonderful, and I’m hearing a lot of questions about engagement, which kind of, you know somewhat goes along with what you’re saying. Mary mentioned that Vytar kind of looks at their financial health financial wellness program as a product. And I think that’s really important. Again, it kind of goes to defining what your outcome or what your goal is. You know we most everybody. It pays for Netflix Disney plus Costco, whatever you know. So, we pay for benefits or kind of usage. So, if you think of financial education, a program as something of a product like a value, add to an account or a financial wellness of human resources for small business, you know. Think of it! 

What I mean there, is that there’s so many different ways to think outside the box. But you have to take a multipronged approach with delivering the message. You can’t, you know a little goes a long way. All the stuff that we look at all of our products with EVERFI are very data backed. You know, we look at surveys, we look at customer feedback. We look into data. most people. Very, very large majority of adults like to take in education in small 3 to 5 min increments, you know. And that’s kind of where we are as a nation today. That’s where we are. As a culture, as society, you know. We’ve been geared and groomed to,, you know, want instant gratification. You know you want something. You download the app, or you know I order from Amazon, and it’s not even the next day to the delivery. If I’m in a metropolitan area. Sometimes. It’s a, you know, two to three hour delivery, you know. So, that’s just kind of where we are. 

And that’s where we kind of come into the again what we call kind of the just-in-time delivery system, or you know, if you think of it from a financial institution perspective. If you know, I’m wanting to change checking accounts or change banks, you know. That’s always kind of a difficult process, and there has to be a pain point in order for me to end up changing. Well, then, the bank or the credit union that I go to is normally first of mind, or what we call top of mind. That’s a lot of marketing dollars spent in order just to continuously be top of mind. If you take that same aspect and put it into financial education. You know we have all the data, every financial institution, every bank credit union if you’re Jack Henry, if you’re financial services, or you know, somebody said, they work for a local library. You know we have all the data as far as the cookies on what you search, what you’re looking at, what you’re you know, at the time and place. I’m right now looking at buying a new truck. So, my data has been collected. I have already started getting text messages and emails and stuff. How convenient would it be for my financial advisor, the place that I put and invest all of my money to give me some sort of auto loan type, financial education when it’s pertinent to me when it’s important in, again, kind of top of mind. 

So, that’s kind of what we consider that just-in-time education, as far as it gets into you know, being personalized and also scalable. all of our products. You know we’ve got a vast library, the customers that we see that utilize, or that we would consider best practices don’t just blanket everything. They are very intentional, you know, and Mary brought up different, you know, different segments. Whether it’s age segments, whether it’s different locations, whether it’s a metropolitan area or rural area. Are you speaking to a first time home buyer? Are you speaking to somebody who’s looking into retirement? So, that’s where you kind of have to – you know, it’s scalable in that you have that whole vast library. You have all the different modules and all the content, all the education it’s personalized on how you deliver it in the time you deliver it. 

You know, Marisa, I’m not going to send you an email with our whole vast library of, you know, 80 something modules, you know. It’s information overload. I might send you one or two we see examples, too, of best practices, and you know the bank that I worked at. We were rural Tennessee, you know, so a high majority of the LMI community. Most of the schools were free and reduced lunch. What came with that was that you had a lot of overdraft, or NSF. Fees are a very high usage of people who live paycheck to paycheck. So, you know, we got to the point that when we would see what we called a high usage of NSF. Or overdraft, we might send them a credit module or an overdraft module as a redemption tool, in order to get a return or a refund on that $25, $26, $28 fee. 

So, then it was just-in-time for them. It was pertinent to them, it was important. It was a qualifier for them that they took that in order to get a refund. So, it helped them, but then it also helped us, and also helped, you know, when we would go through audits and stuff. We’re not only providing a resource as far as the educational piece, but then we are doing that return on investment and stuff for the customer itself.

Marisa Walster: Anything you would add, Mary?

Mary Gustafson: Yeah, I think on personalization, the key really is like three components for us. It’s like choosing the right segment location and then timing. So, I like how you talked about timing, and I think there is some conversation in the chat as well about Christmas, and that maybe somebody doesn’t want to hear something before holidays. We want to go and buy all those things on black Friday. But we actually like even thinking about this time for us as a financial institution. We do not want to run the big campaign of debt consolidation in the beginning of the year, because everybody will be in that after Christmas. We want to make sure that we get more financially, you know, right decisions made by our members. So, there are things you can do. There are things you can do. Christmas is coming. How about giving the right segments information about right spending habits? You know. How do you make sure that you do not overspend, or you save enough before Christmas. 

And for us it’s those three components that allow us, you know, segment, location and timing allow us to give the right personalization. But also, I know there are different sizes of different companies and resources. I’m very aware that you cannot personalize everything for every single person, so you can be really mindful of how you determine your segments. For us. It’s very general. I feel like we have, like, the military, we have people who are working segments. We have youth, we have, you know, like retirement segments as well. And they have specific needs. But it’s quite general. You can just more personalize with digital tools that are extremely helpful. Right now, there are so many marketing tools and free tools that you can utilize to personalize and not get yourself burnt out before Christmas.

Marisa Walster: Yeah. I think that’s spot on. There’s so many great questions and comments in the chat, we appreciate all of this and I’m gonna do my best to get to as many as possible. I want to start here. Those. You know, we start talking about what’s important to include in a program, you know, are there things that are just insufficient? what does a program look like that shouldn’t count and how to make sure you’re not doing that.

Doug Haehl: As far as a program that doesn’t count or insufficient. You know anything that is anything. And I’m speaking from a financial institution perspective. Anything today that’s not going to provide an ROI. You know, it’s at the end of the day. It’s in marketing. Anything. Marketing is difficult. I lived in that realm, you know, so marketing, unfortunately, is often seen as an expense and it can be an expense, but it should be so much more. It should be a return on investment. 

And again, it’s how you quantify that, you know, to Mary’s point. They, you know, very well defined what goals they had. They set out KPIs, they judge those, they measure those ongoing. I think that’s extremely important. So, anything that’s gonna kind of go against that you don’t want to give your customers members today any sort of extra work, you know. Think of them as hurdles, you know, and I think back to you know, open an account, or you know, you get $200, or, you know $300 to open an account, but you have to do 15 things, you know, in order to qualify for it. I might have got 12 of them, but I never did get to, you know, finish it out. You know that that to me is almost borderline kind of deceiving the customer. So, anything that kind of falls in that realm. Leave it out. I mean, you’re gonna save your time. You’re gonna say, save your employees time. And you’re gonna provide a better customer journey by not having those things in.

Mary Gustafson: I think that you’re spot on. If you do not have a very clear goal, why you’re doing something, it will not be successful, I mean in life. But in terms of financial I keep saying financial fitness, because that’s how they programmed me right now to say my financial wellness. I think if you do not have a goal and clear understanding of what you’re trying to do for your client, for your member, for your community. It will end up being a campaign where you show different resources to your customers. And that’s where it ended. And you’re like, okay. It was great engagement. Yeah, yeah. That’s it. But you want to measure. Did it do what you wanted to do? Was there an impact? Did they start doing something? How many started doing something different? How do you measure it? It is a bit easier being a financial institution, because you actually can see their credit habits and savings habits, but also some of the engagement metrics do matter. Do they keep coming back and engaging and learning more and measuring all those things? I think that that’s very, very important.

Marisa Walster: Let’s go. Let’s go there. Let’s talk. KPIs, how do you know that a program is working? What are you looking at?

Mary Gustafson: Well, as I said before, we do look at that quiz that we did. It’s like a financial score. It is. It is on the 8th question, but it really gives you at least a general idea of how they were before, and how they will be in 6 months, like in a year. Did they improve? Did anything that you’ve done? Did it have any impact? And maybe it didn’t. Sometimes there will be things happening in the market or in the country that you cannot control. But you need to help them, and then maybe compare, how is it with national levels? I think for us, it’s also obviously spending habits. You know, if they start spending more on their credit card, do they pay it off? Do we have the same percentage of the transactors, you know, or not. And then engagement and coming back, it’s loyalty. 

And for us it’s also cross-sell. I mean, sorry I am a marketing person. But obviously we’re doing it because we want to help our clients and members. But fun like everywhere you look. And I think it’s actually your stats. Financial health network statistics that you know those members and clients who engage with financial wellness, with financial wellness. They are three times more loyal. They will refer your friends, their friends, to your financial institution. They will get more products from you. And I mean, in general, we do actually look at our retention numbers and see those people who stay with us engaged with our financial program. And the answer is, yes.

Doug Haehl: Three important words she said were engagement, loyalty and cross sales and I love this question —, how do you measure your ROI? How do you measure your KPIs? And it all comes back to really your defined goals and your ability to track them. Sometimes in the financial institution world, you spend money, and you know that you’re not going to get a quantifiable return. But what you can get is good PR, you can get customer loyalty. You can get an engaged customer, you know. 

So, that goes to, you know, when we talk about well, how do we measure our KPIs? and it’s using financial education, or some sort of educational platform like Mary mentioned what they do. They use it as a product, you know, it’s kind of an add on, it’s a feature we all want. You know what, we’re all loyal to certain products. I’m a poster child for Apple, you know. I like it because it’s cutting edge. It just works. There’s no user manual, you know, and we all have those products and or companies that we are vastly loyal to. They may cost more. We’re still loyal to them, and that’s what we want our customers and our members to be and if they’re purely just transactional, that’s not gonna happen. 

So, we have to step a little bit above and beyond in their customer journey. And that’s providing that financial guidance, that is, you know, I saw a question in here. Well you know, how do we? How do we keep from cross selling them to where? It’s almost, you know, detrimental to them, you know, maybe getting too far deep into credit, and everything that’s kind of the responsibility of the individual loan officer or the relationship manager, you know, that’s stepping into building a better relationship and actually watching out for the customer. Not just another product or another cross-sale. That’s internal. We used to call that, you know, we’re building ambassadors. We’re building ambassadors for our product. They may not be the best, most profitable customers, but you know, as far as a PR perspective, absolutely they are. 

Those are some of the things that you know you get your foot in the door at certain places, we look at the EVERFI, our K-12 product, you know. That’s hard to quantify as far as a financial return, because you’re speaking to typically anywhere from 14 to 18 year olds. Some open an account, some don’t. But you’re able to get your foot in the door into a school district, a school with principals and teachers and school board members that may enable you to at a certain time bid for a loan. for an expansion on a school for a payroll account. you know, and then you look at the adult products and stuff. If you set those up in a way that you know, maybe it’s an HR benefit for small business, and you can compete with a competitor across the street on gaining small business. 

You know, your two checking account products are probably pretty similar. Your two payroll accounts are probably very similar, but what you could have is a ledge up on, or a step up on, is that you go into a meeting and say, you know ‘Hi business owner, small business owner, we can offer you this financial education or this financial wellness. It’s a Human Resources benefit for all of your employees, because we know statistics tell us that they are looking to you for that financial advice.’ That’s gold, you know. That’s one of those things that you know, again, It’s only as good as your tracking. But if you’re able to track the opportunities, 9 times out of 10 it pays for itself.

Marisa Walster: ***Yeah. you said a few keywords and things that I wanna go deeper into. One is responsibility, and we had a question in the chat around financial institutions. What is the responsibility of supporting customers and members and improving their financial health? But I also hear you talking about there being a real business case. And so I’d love to hear you both talk about, you know, sort of this idea of responsibility and the business case and need. Like, what’s the driver of providing these types of programs and services?

Mary Gustafson: I think it’s not even just responsibility. You don’t have any other choice at this point. It’s not something. If somebody makes you do it because it’s directly benefiting us. If our members are financially healthy, especially in this market, I mean, honestly, I want deposits. Okay. I want deposits in the Credit Union. I want my members to be financially healthy, you know, paying on their loans in time, not overwork employees who need to call on collections, and you know, so on, so on. So, I don’t think it’s even a question of responsibility. It’s like, I don’t think we will survive if we don’t do it. It’s a necessity, not a responsibility at this point. 

And I think I like what Doug said when he also talked a little bit about that. It’s a way of stepping in the door, because there are also so many things, you know, we are all trying to grow and maybe try to connect with some communities that nobody really was able to connect before, or they are, you know, underserved, you know. They do not have any financial institutions. And you’re trying to get, you know, awareness there about your financial institution. And maybe even in that market. That is one of the ways, because you come in as a leader of financial wellness. You know somebody who can help, not somebody. Hey, open that checking account we are here to help, and that is also one of the ways to grow and benefit. Obviously community, but also benefit the Fi as well.

Doug Haehl: Mary, you mentioned something, too, that you know, if it’s a responsibility, and you almost have to do it to survive. And that’s spot on. I mean that that’s good business sense. But you know, 12 years in the banking world I went through three acquisitions, and it’s pretty common that you know in that workplace you’re either looking to buy or you’re looking to sell, you know. That’s one of those things. And competition today isn’t brick and mortar you know. That’s something that over the 12 years that I was in banking, we’ve really had a shift and change of the way we thought it wasn’t. You do have your brick and mortar across the street, across town, whatever in a competing town, that is competition. But I look at my kids, they’ve got more money in a Venmo account than they do their checking account. They have $20-$40 bucks on a Starbucks card that isn’t sitting in any bank or credit union earning interest, or, you know, giving us the ability to loan that money out. 

Competition is everywhere. You know it’s with Apple and Amazon and whatnot. So, you have to be more than just convenient. You have to be more than just transactional. It has to be more on that customer journey. It’s got to be more of an educational, a coaching-type aspect. They need to look at you as a value, and not just a hurdle, you know. ‘Oh, I’ve got to go to the bank to do this transaction,’ you know. You don’t have to anymore, you know. So, you’ve got to set yourself as a financial institution in a position that you’re sought after, not looked at as a hurdle to do business with.

Marisa Walster: And that’s spot on. We had a question in the chat about how do you suggest financial institutions go about determining what KPIs to look at and to use as they go on this journey? How can they go through that process and figure out what’s right for them?

Mary Gustafson: Well, for us it was. Obviously there are goals as a credit union, strategic goals, that you set up every year. I think at first we actually looked at those and kind of went backwards a little bit because we wanted to feed in financial wellness. But in general, when you’re looking at those you’re trying to see, what are the goals of the credit union, for us? We need to retain more customers. We need to cross sell more products. It might be completely different for you. Maybe you want more deposits. Maybe you need more loans, whatever that is depending on your goals, maybe you just need more customers. It can be anything. And even if you’re not a financial institution, maybe you just need more members, or maybe you need more awareness. 

And so what is the most important thing for our credit union, and that actually helped us build a case, what I’d be focusing on and what you know, what programs and how we go about it, and how we personalize things, and so on. also depending on where you are. As I said for us, Jackson was one of the financially struggling cities with emergency savings. So, it kind of was. Hey, here’s how we help the community. And here’s our goals and based on those goals, we determine how we’ll build our program. 

So, I would look at the overall goals of the credit union first, and then determine your KPIs based on that. And usually it’s very fun exercise to do. And I would really recommend having a financial bonus committee if you have enough people. That’s what we’ve done. Because sometimes yes, it’s great. We have great ideas, but a lot of departments do a lot of things that you have no idea what they’re doing. Honestly, you will be surprised. And talking to those people you can come up with very, very great KPIs and ideas, as well.

Doug Haehl: You know, Mary, you’re spot on, and it’s that’s one of those things, too, that you know, determining your KPIs or your, you know, your goals. You almost have to start in. That differs for every organization depending on where they are, and what their culture is. You almost have to start with the end goal. What is your endgame? What’s the end product that you want? What do you want out of what you’re doing? And then kind of back into that, you know, and have those discovery meetings. 

And it’s important, too, and I’ve heard this, and I firmly believe it, you know you always need to have the right people in the room if it’s going to affect them. If it’s a decision maker, you know, whatever it is, you have to have the right people in the room, but also invite someone else who has no stake in it. you know. And that was to Mary’s point, and it’s spot on, because that’s where you start to get that outside the box, thinking in the financial institution world we get strapped into. Well, it’s, you know, a lot of them are accountants, and, you know,, numbers and everything else, and I kind of come from the marketing world. How do we think kind of outside the box? 

You know, your organization may not really care about members or customers, but they want more engagement on their social media site. You know, so that could be a KPI. You know, it could be that we want to expand our footprint. But we can’t really do that financially with brick and mortar. How do we do that? Maybe it’s getting into the school systems. Maybe that’s partnering with the Libraries or the Chamber of Commerce, or, you know, the local realtors. you know, in providing some of these webinars, or, you know, using our engaged product and doing workshops, local workshops on first time home buyers, you know, there’s so many different avenues and aspects. And that’s what I think is really brilliant about the EVERFI products, the whole product suite K-12 and Achieve, and the adult engagement. You know, they can be used in so many different ways and avenues, and you know it again, it depends on what your end goal is.

Marisa Walster: Yeah, I mean, I plus one, all of that. We’ve got a few minutes left. I want to stay on this just for another minute and ask, you know, to that end, what do you do for those who don’t have these more robust programs? How can people think about creating the business case and getting engagement internally? So that they can build these robust programs within their organizations.

Doug Haehl: Well, you’re stuck. Sorry you’re starting specifically listening to what we would consider a best practice Guru, which would be Marion VyStar. You know there’s others so reach out, and everybody in the Fi world normally is part of some sort of forum. If you’re looking at a vendor or reaching out to somebody who may or may not be a competitor, depending on your relationship with them. Ask them what their best practices are. You know, sometimes the most difficult thing is to actually start. 

So, once you once you get a grasp — and I’m a firm believer of not reinventing the wheel — If I’m a bank in Texas, and I’m talking to Mary and her team, who’s a credit union in Florida. and they do something that we could implement and be successful with, absolutely. We’re going to do that. you know, and then keep that communication, keep that forum, that community involvement, you know, back and forth. I would say, that’s probably the best way to start. And it, you know, if all else fails, start small. But again. It’s just it’s that initial first step of actually starting a program like this. That’s normally, the major hurdle. Mary, what do you have?

Mary Gustafson: I agree. And I’ve been in different credit unions, and one smaller than another. But you know, starting is the most difficult part, I think. I agree with you, Doug. Ask questions, be curious. Reach out for help. and it doesn’t have to be huge. It doesn’t have to be a major financial program. It will be major, even if you just choose one focus. One thing, that one problem that you’re trying to solve. I’m guaranteeing you when you put the right people in the room, you, even if you are one person there, ask other departments, other people. Just maybe you have a friend in the contact center. I mean, just put the right people in the room, and I guarantee you you’re already doing something right. You just need to direct it in the right direction, you know. Get engaged, I guarantee you, you’re already probably doing everything you should. You just need to amplify.

Marisa Walster: Amazing. With just a couple minutes left, I’m going to give you both a huge thank you for sharing your insights and the important work that you are doing to improve the financial health of your members, your communities, and your customers. And a huge thank you to our audience for joining us today. I encourage you to keep pushing for really meaningful solutions that are going to drive lasting improvements in financial health. We hope that you all will join us in June, in person, for EMERGE 2025, where we will be in San Diego and focused on sharing what we are calling “Voices of Change,” hearing from the people that we are all talking about today, about how we support and improve their lives.