17 April 2018

LISC's Financial Opportunity Center + An Assessment

 
Financial Opportunity Centers > What LISC is doing:
FOCs provide employment and career counseling, one-on-one financial coaching and education and low-cost financial products that help build credit, savings and assets. They also connect clients with income supports such as food stamps, utilities assistance and affordable health insurance.  The cornerstone of the FOC model is providing these services in an integrated way—rather than as stand-alone services—and with a long-term commitment to helping clients reach their goals.  

Financial Opportunity Centers (FOCs) are career and personal finance service centers that help low- to moderate-income people build smart money habits and focus on the financial bottom line.
LISC has a network of more than 80 FOCs across the country, embedded in local community organizations that are trusted, known for their history of providing quality services, and convenient to where people live and seek out services.

We’ve learned that integrated or “bundled” services lead to concrete gains in net income and job retention.



What LISC offers:
  • Grants that help community organizations establish, staff and run FOCs in neighborhoods that need them, covering everything from start-up to operating costs
  • Technical assistance and training to help FOC staff reach out to potential clients and offer effective coaching and job counseling
  • Data collection tools that help FOCs tailor support for individual clients and inform the work at large
  • Professional networking support in the form of national and regional meetings, collaborative groups and an online library of resources on FOCs and similar integrated service delivery models
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Elements of a Successful Financial Opportunity Center
workingfamiliessuccess.com/.../Elements-of-a-Successful-Financial-Opportunity-Cente...
Financial Opportunity Centers provide an integrated or “bundled” set of three core services: employment services, financial education and coaching, and access to income supports. The. Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) supports a Financial Opportunity Center network that began in Chicago in 2004 and has ...
A Financial Opportunity Center, in its inherent design, requires an agency or organization to provide interconnected programming to clients, which often requires a complex process and organizational structure. These materials and resources can help create and maintain operations in a way that will help clients succeed in ..
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State Farm Announces $4 Million Grant to LISC
Economic opportunity program set to expand outreach in 11 cities
State Farm provides $4 million grant to help LISC grow businesses, jobs, safety
NEW YORK (March 21, 2018)A national effort to boost economic opportunities for underemployed workers and underserved communities got a major boost this week, as State Farm announced a $4 million grant to the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) to fuel work in 11 cities.
Blogger Note: Since 2000, State Farm has provided more than $132 million in grants and investments to support LISC’s work benefitting low-and-moderate income people and places.
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See more stories from
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The new grant will help LISC strengthen its national Financial Opportunity Center (FOC) program, which is proven to help people increase their incomes, build credit, and save for the future. FOCs help people work toward economic stability through education, long-term financial coaching, and employment support, such as literacy and numeracy training needed to secure work and advance in key local industries. . . .
“We know that healthy, sustainable communities are made up of people who have living wage jobs and feel confident about their economic futures,” said Annette Martinez, vice president – human resources for State Farm. “The FOC program offers multiple interventions to help people develop good fiscal habits and skills needed to be financially stable over the long term.”
In select LISC markets, State Farm funding will also help seed business growth and improve safety—both vital to quality of life in areas struggling to attract economic activity—and advance LISC’s model that builds partnerships between law enforcement, community leaders and residents to increase community safety and stability.
READ MORE >  LISC Stories
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RELATED CONTENT: 
Research Report
An Assessment of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation’s Financial Opportunity Centers
September 19, 2016
. . . The results suggest that FOCs tend to have positive short-term impacts on employment and wages, negative impacts on credit score outcomes, and positive impacts on net worth. Cost analysis suggests that FOC services deliver short-term wage-differential benefits to jobless clients that narrowly exceed the costs of delivering the services . . .
https://www.urban.org/research

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