Organizations that provide financial literacy programs now have a tool available to help them evaluate their program’s effectiveness thanks to a partnership between the Toronto-based Canadian Bankers Association (CBA), Prosper Canada, also of Toronto, and the Ottawa-based Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC).
The free “financial literacy outcome evaluation tool” consists of evidence-based financial literacy outcomes and indicators against which individual organizations can compare their programs. The tool is available online to public, private and community-based groups engaged in financial education.
“The banking industry has long supported efforts to improve the financial literacy of Canadians and the work done by financial education organizations in communities across the country,” says Terry Campbell, president of the CBA, in a statement. “With this evaluation tool, financial literacy educators will now be able to evaluate the outcomes of their programs to ensure they are having the desired impact.”
The CBA provided funding for the tool while Prosper Canada, a non-profit organization, led its development in consultation with financial literacy practitioners and an advisory committee with representatives from the CBA and the FCAC, other international financial literacy evaluators and key stakeholders.
“We’re very excited to be launching this tool and offering financial educators rigorous metrics and practical help to evaluate their programs,” says Elizabeth Mulholland, CEO of Prosper Canada, in a statement. “Having a shared pool of evidence-based indicators will also enable us to begin using some common measures and, over time, to start exploring the comparative effectiveness of different financial education approaches.”
The tool, which is available in English and French, can be accessed online at http://www.outcomeeval.org/home.
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