Connecting With Students in Underserved Communities—What We Learned From the President of NuJourney Foundation

We recently had the wonderful opportunity to hear from Caroline Dennis—founder and executive director of NuJourney Foundation—at our latest Professional Development Webinar. And, wow, what a trove of information she delivered! Caroline offered a full course of amazing strategies she uses to connect and teach underserved communities—strategies that everyone should strive to implement while teaching or working in finance.

Before we get into it, we’d like to give a shoutout to NuJourney and its founder, Caroline, for everything they do as a non-profit organization to promote financial literacy in underserved communities. Leading Friday’s discussion, Caroline introduced the importance and impact of financial literacy in underserved communities by stating how she “recognized a definite disparity in financial education across the society board,” thus prompting her to start NuJourney.

Watch the webinar below to learn the valuable information Caroline gives to anyone seeking to teach financial literacy to those who might see finances and budgeting as a negative thing rather than a positive aspect of life:

Once you’ve watched the video, click this link to fill out a survey and receive your professional development certificate.

Caroline’s 3-Step Approach

“Everybody’s experience and backgrounds are different,” Caroline recounted. “As educators, we know we want to get to the budgeting, we know we want to get to the savings, we know we want to get to the investing, we know we want to get to the student loans, we know we want to get to the actual meat of financial education. But you can’t get there, if you don’t know the value of money for people. You have to meet people and teach the value of financial education where people are.”

Caroline teaches that, when connecting with students or entrepreneurs, it’s important to recognize the lack of information and resources in many communities. To connect as an educator, it is crucial for your students to understand the value of what is being taught. Here are the three steps Caroline suggests for forming that connection with students:

1. Define the Value: Our job as educators is to acknowledge that the value of money changes based on background, points of reference, experiences, and the influence of external environments. Caroline offers these three questions to help understand a student’s perception of the value of money: What is the importance? What is the use? What is the worth?
2. Engage: Find engaging resources to help students learn the concepts you teach.
3. Serve: Most of all, serve your learners by teaching them concepts that help them meet their individual needs rather than the curriculum you think they need. Start there, then build upwards.

Identify the Need

For some learners, their perception of a budget is negative because a budget only exists to limit them rather than expand their opportunities. To combat this, start with a need, not a topic. Ask your audience what their goals are and from there, show them how to implement financial concepts to meet that goal. This way, a student can start to understand the value of the financial principles they’re learning as you begin to retrain their perception of money.

Once again, we extend a special thanks to our partner, NuJourney, and its founder, Caroline, for sharing her expertise and generously donating her time to lead this webinar discussion!