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Table of Contents Problem Statement Situation Analysis SWOT Analysis Key Publics Research Objectives Research Methodology Appendices References
Page 3 Pages 4-7 Pages 8-9 Page 10 Page 11 Pages 12-15 Pages 16-20 Page 21
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Table of Contents Executive Summary
Page 3
Problem Statement
Page 4
Situation Analysis
Page 5
SWOT Analysis
Page 8
Key Publics
Page 9
Research Objectives
Page 10
Research Methodology
Page 11
Research Results and Analysis
Page 15
Summary of Results
Page 18
Recommendation
Page 21
Appendix
Page 23
References
Page 28
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Executive Summary: Center of Hope International is a nonprofit organization based out of Syracuse, NY aiming to empower the local community. However, since the organization wants to reach multiple fields, and it's mission statement encompasses both mission and vision, COHI seems to have a lack of a clear focus and specific direction. This report was commissioned to present how COHI will find target group, the media usage, and community perception of key terms of financial literacy and youth program. The Summit Seekers conducted primary and secondary research to identify target audience of COHI would be middle school students, their parents and school administrators. Through quantitative and qualitative research and methodologies such as online survey and focus group, we have reached our target audience and obtain the current status of middle school students and their familiarity of youth program and financial literacy. Based on these facts, our objective is to draw more attention to the organization and bring the organization to a broader scope.
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Problem and Opportunity Statement The Center of Hope International, created in 2014, is an organization that empowers underrepresented people and youth in the Syracuse community. The Center of Hope International would like to expand the reach of its current programs. There is a lack of clear focus due to a vague mission statement which considers the bigger picture rather than focusing on specifics, thus the organization is being pulled into numerous directions and awareness of programs is currently low. It may not be thoroughly impacting the lives of the people that it intends to help. Research will be conducted to better understand how underrepresented families in the Syracuse area perceive financial literacy and to identify the best ways for the organization to reach more key people with a clearer focus.
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Situation Analysis Analyzing the Situation The Center of Hope International, Inc., (COHI) is a not-for-profit organization established to assist the most needy and vulnerable members of the Syracuse community with solutions for empowerment. COHI engages in providing mentorship, coaching, networking and entrepreneurial advancement to minority groups and enables individuals to move from dependency to self-sufficiency through services such as job readiness and referrals and placement assistances (Client Backgrounder, 2015). Starting its business in 2004, COHI has developed several objectives which include reducing poverty, increasing financial and educational literacy, and providing entrepreneurial opportunities for advancement. The CEO Bishop Ronald B. Dewberry has been involved in the Syracuse community for a long time. With Bishop Dewberry’s experiences and position in the Syracuse community, the organization has been working on empowering underrepresented people, especially African Americans, Latinos, and small business owners. Given the current social and economic climate of Syracuse, COHI is going to hold a Summit titled "The Greater Syracuse Economic Summit for Minorities and Business Owners" this September, which will create more job opportunities for the target audience (Client Backgrounder, 2015). Problems to Consider While promoting the inaugural Summit, it is important to consider some problems within this newly established organization. One of the biggest difficulties regarding COHI is the lack of clear focus for both the audience and mission. Thus, the organization is pulling itself in numerous directions. Based on the purpose and the final goal of the upcoming Summit, we have found that the minority groups, African Americans and Latinos, will be impacted most directly.
Analyzing the Organization In 2015, Syracuse was ranked with the highest poverty rate concentrated among African Americans and Hispanics in the nation (Rubin, 2015). With such a high poverty rate, COHI has the opportunity to play a role in the city. There are various corporations and other nonprofit organizations that have started getting involved with the community to provide education and resources to combat this high poverty rate. COHI has created various programs aimed towards teenage boys and girls, financially underprivileged youth, mentors of business owners, and minority entrepreneurs. Examples of these programs include Girl Talk, Boys II Men, Excel, Dream Achievers, Kingdom Business Alliance, and Digitalks Unlimited. Competition
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The competition that COHI faces specifically includes nonprofits such as North Side Learning Center and Northside Up. There are many local nonprofits in Central New York, but not many are strictly focused on financial literacy for middle-school aged children. These competitors also provide financial literacy education, and some provide consulting to youth as well. The North Side Learning Center, a nonprofit in a heavily refugee populated part of Syracuse, aims to empower the community through education and entrepreneurship, and is often written about by the Post Standard’s online site. It is supported by the Gifford Foundation (North Side Learning Center, p. 1). Northside Urban Partnership (UP) is a program of CenterState Corporation for Economic Opportunity (Erickson, 2011). It aims to empower entrepreneurial spirit in Syracuse while providing existing entrepreneurs with the resources to help them through the challenges of financing and sustaining a small business. Northside UP is sponsored by a local health center and the Catholic Charities of Onondaga County (Erickson, 2011). Thus, they have available resources, along with a dedicated staff of at least four people. The competitors’ programs and resources offered have more focused mission statements and are supported by the community with either national recognition or a boost from local foundations. These competitors have a bigger platform than COHI, allowing them to gain more influence in Syracuse. Barriers There is not much opposition to financial literacy and business empowerment within the Syracuse community. It is more of an opposition from within the institution of poverty and the current state of education in Syracuse schools. The schools’ curricula does not consist of financial preparedness and literacy or business empowerment. The largest impediment for COHI is funding and awareness that need to be accelerated, but regulators have to deem COHI focused enough to fund and provide a platform. Analyzing the Publics The customers for COHI are the people who directly come into contact with the organization's products and services. Specifically, they are the underrepresented middle school students who use services through COHI’s youth programs. With the help of our research and strategies, COHI will likely increase its reach to students outside of Clary Middle School Dr. King Middle School and church members to parents of the students and youth, as well as to other schools and organizations. Additionally, COHI looks to provide financial literacy and helpful resources to small business owners in the Syracuse community. This too will expand its publics to small business owners. The leaders of our publics are individuals who have influence over the youth population that COHI aims to target, which includes parents, teachers, principals and community leaders. Parents and teachers act as regulators over our public, the youth, and have helped increase the number of students in COHI’s programs in the past three years. They have done this by allowing their children and students to attend youth programming hosted by COHI.
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In the future, COHI should look into partnerships and sponsorships with third party sources, but the organization currently only has agreements with Clary Middle School and Dr. King Middle School. Some enablers of COHI are Bishop Dewberry and the volunteers who help with his programming. These individuals have not changed in the past three years, but have helped to sustain the success of the organization. In the next three years, however, it is the hopeful that COHI will expand upon their enablers and grow with more leadership and voluntary help.
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SWOT Analysis Strengths 1. Bishop Dewberry’s personal network in the Syracuse area will help COHI gather funding and volunteers. 2. Personally owning a church in Syracuse can help provide funding to COHI and help form relationships with various partners in the Syracuse area. 3. Bishop Dewberry began working on COHI’s publicity by connecting with media platforms, such as local radio stations, and television channels, which aids in COHI’s marketing and advertising strategies. Weakness 1. The organization lacks resources, which may prevent COHI from developing, implementing, and holding regular activities. 2. Lack of employees, assistants or volunteers increases the difficulties of program implementation regarding logistics, branding issues, and financial resource seeking. 3. COHI uses only traditional media outlets such as radio, television, or word of mouth, which prevents COHI from becoming more widespread. 4. Social media platforms, such as Facebook, do not show updated information about COHI and COHI does not utilize other influential social platforms such as Instagram or Twitter. Opportunities 1. Poverty awareness has increased in recent years, which widens the market and creates more opportunities for nonprofit organizations to develop. 2. There are several media platforms in Syracuse that COHI has not reached out to yet for advertising and promotion, so the organization has the chance to create new media relationships with people who may be interested in financial literacy and youth empowerment. 3. Companies that chose to partner with nonprofits in order to promote a positive image to customers. This may help create more funding opportunities for COHI. Threats 1. Other similar local nonprofit organizations such as North Side offer similar services and compete for some of the same audiences and funding. This nonprofit competition gives customers more opportunities to choose and compare programs. 2. Compared to federally-funded organizations, COHI is less competitive in terms of funding and employees, which prevents it from offering more programs and services to more people. 3. The lack of financial education in middle school curriculums may lead to a push back in cooperation from students.
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Key Publics: One of our key publics is school personnel, such as teachers and administrators, that work in inner-city school districts in Syracuse, New York. This public has influence over COHI’s target audience, middle school minority students. We will reach out to them in order to gain insight about middle school students’ social media usage and perceptions of financial literacy. We anticipate using social media to identify how race plays into perceptions of financial literacy and youth empowerment. In Syracuse city schools, 53% of students are African American and 12% of students are Hispanic/Latino (Swift, p. 3). Another one of our key publics is minority students at Syracuse University. We chose this group to gain insight into how minority students in high school perceive financial literacy and youth programs. At Syracuse University, there is a 10.6% Hispanic/Latino population and an 8.8% African American population. The male to female ratio is 55.2% female and 44.8% male (College Factual Editors, p. 1).
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Research Objectives: 1. Identify the perceptions of financial literacy of K-12 minority students in Syracuse, NY. 2. Identify the media usage and patterns of minority middle school students, their parents, and teachers/administrators. 3. Determine what conversations are occurring online regarding associations between youth empowerment and finances.
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Research Methodology and Methods In order for COHI to reach more people with a clearer focus, research on both a qualitative and quantitative level were imperative to find out attitudes and associations about financial literacy and youth empowerment. In order to establish whether COHI is working in the right areas to make the impact it wishes to, research into existing sentiment and attitudes via secondary research via social media monitoring on Sysomos MAPS. Quantitative methodologies, such as social listening analysis and surveys of sample populations, are also key in order to explain and predict key publics’ attitudes to COHI’s initiatives. Methods employed include social listening on Sysomos MAPS and online surveys. Another method used to gain a more in-depth understanding of humans’ perceptions was qualitative research, for which we utilized a method of two focus groups.
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Method 1: Social Listening Analysis Sampling Frame: Tweets generated by Sysomos MAPS with key words “middle school AND Syracuse” “financial education” and “financial planning” AND “high school” from January 1, 2016 through April 10th, 2016. Social listening will help us understand social conversations of Syracuse youth and their parents about parenting, the awareness of both financial empowerment program and mentorship programs in middle schools, and overall financial literacy. The online habits can be illustrated by Sysomos MAPs with regards to the quantity and content of the tweets generated through keywords pertaining to the research objective. Execution: ·
Recruiting Method: None
·
Location: Sysomos MAPS
·
Length: 10 hours
·
Incentive: None
·
Number of Social Media Posts: 30
Data Analysis Method: Content Analysis and Manual Coding of the Data
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Method 2: Online surveys Sampling frame: Middle school parents and school personnel in Syracuse, NY, as well as minority Syracuse University students. Using online surveys as a method for reaching our research objective will provide us with information on our target audience’s time spent online in order to understand how to reach them in the most effective way. Teachers and administrators will help us gain further insight on our target audience as middle school children are unable to participate in the survey. Minority Syracuse University students will be able to provide insight about whether or not COHI’s intended audience would positively respond to financial literacy education and programming in high school or middle school. Though COHI works with middle schoolers in a mentorship capacity, these sampling frames could indicate whether COHI is targeting the right population, or whether the organization has the opportunity to expand its reach and have an impact if it re-evaluates the target from middle schoolers to high schoolers. Execution: Recruiting Method: Syracuse University Office of Multicultural Affairs, Local Syracuse area Middle and High School administrations via email and phone contact Location: Online Length: 10 questions ·
Incentive: None
·
Number of Participants: 106 students, 6 school personnel and parents
Data Analysis Method: Qualtrics Data Analysis
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Method 3: Focus Group Sampling frame: Minority students attending Syracuse University, and middle school administrators in Syracuse, NY. Using focus groups as a method will allow us to understand the public's perception of nonprofit organizations and youth programs that target the youth in the Central New York area. We will have an idea of who Bishop Dewberry should target and if Syracuse youth is a good sampling frame to be effective in his approach and growing his business. It will also give insight into potential competition for The Center of Hope, Inc. Lastly, the responses from the focus group about financial literacy will give specific ideas about the key public's personal views on financial literacy education to help Bishop Dewberry design content for his youth programs. Execution: · Recruiting Method: Office of Multicultural Affairs at Syracuse University and calling middle schools with programming or mentorship ties to Syracuse University, such as Clary Middle School. Location: Syracuse University Length: 7 questions Incentive: Pizza Number of Participants: 8 people Data Analysis Method: Manually coding the data.
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Research Results and Analysis Social Listening: Sysomos MAPS generated 30 sample tweets over 4 search queries all pertaining to financial literacy or planning, and youth empowerment. Of these 30 tweets, 23 were authored or retweeted (RT) by individuals, and the other 7 were on behalf of organizations. Each tweet was coded according to sentiment: positive, neutral, or negative. A positive tweet encompassed anything from a RT to a clear statement about a specific program, or how financial planning or youth empowerment serve communities. Of the 30 sample tweets, there were 11 negative sentiment coded tweets, and of these, only one was authored by an organization, thus 10 were authored by individuals. The search query that generated the most negative sample tweets was that of “financial planning” and “minorities”, garnering 8 negative tweets of 12 total. The search that received the least negative sentiment tweets was “youth empowerment” AND “financial”, where of 9 tweets, none of them were negative, and 7 were positive. From this sampling, it can be gathered that when finances are addressed in the context of youths, there is a more positive sentiment than when discussed in regards to minorities. Demographics on the 30 sample tweets were minimal, as there was missing data on the age range of all tweets authored by individuals and and the tweets from organizations were coded as not available. Of the 30 sample tweets, 27% were by an author that was Black or African American, tied with the exact same amount of tweets were Caucasian tweet authors, followed by 7% of tweets authored by Hispanic or Latino authors. 17% of tweets did not have data or profiles where the author’s race could be determined, and 23% of tweets were authored on behalf of an organization. Of the 11 negatively coded tweets, a breakdown was conducted to see overall negative sentiment, and identify who was having more negatively-toned conversations about these subjects. We found that there was an even split between Blacks and Caucasians’ number of negative sentiment tweets in this sample, with each having 36% of the conversation. No other race coded was recorded as having a negative tweet in this sample, and the remaining 27% of negative tweets were from missing data or not applicable codings. Online Survey 1 – Middle school personnel We had 112 total respondents across two surveys. We reached out to various middle schools and asked administrators to distribute our survey to coworkers and teachers. However, we only received seven responses. Respondents all use social media in their classrooms and found that 86% of their students use social media platforms for information-seeking purposes. The most popular social media platforms used were Facebook and Twitter, each equaling 71% of respondents. Other findings showed that all respondents use social media to read other people’s posts. Thus, even if they are not engaging with posts that they see, they are interested in what their peers post. The first survey found that middle school administrators thought their students depended on social media as avenues for information, and the graphs below show that
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administrators also use social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter frequently, though perhaps not for information seeking the way students may.
Survey 2- Syracuse University Students Our online survey for Syracuse University Students reached respondents of various ethnicities and we had 107 people complete a survey. 55% of our respondents fit COHI’s target audience of African American or Hispanic. We also had Caucasian, Asian, American Indian, and Native Hawaiian respondents. Our data revealed that almost half of the target audience (46%) was interested in gaining financial literacy education and about half of our respondents (45%) were involved in youth empowerment programs in high school. Also, most of our respondents (70%) agreed that their parents were influential in their involvement in youth programs in high school. We found that 64% of respondents had not received financial literacy information from a nonprofit organization. When asked about agreeance to certain statements, our results show that 46% of respondents strongly agree that in high school, they would have benefitted from financial literacy programs and youth empowerment programs.
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Focus Groups: Theme #1: An individual's specific situation should dictate whether they should have mentorship programs or not. Students in college consciously believe that the color of someone’s skin should not dictate whether or not they deserve or should be given access to youth and mentorship programs. The sentiment on the topic were unanimously towards having mentorship programs that do not specifically target towards a specific demographic. Many participants felt as though involvement in mentorship programs should be dictated by need. Students seemed to feel similarly that mentorship deals with guidance, leading and building a relationship with the mentee. These traits are all characteristics that the students looked for in mentorship programs, thus these are characteristics COHI should mirror in their programming for the students they serve. Theme #2: There is little sense of financial literacy and students believe they should have learned about financial literacy through a program in high school or at least prior to college. Students in college unanimously admitted that they were unprepared for financial concerns they received in college. Realities such as paying bills, tuition and loans, were concepts they learned about once getting to college and having to deal with it once the problem aroused. Additionally, students mentioned that if they were not forced to acknowledge financial literacy in college by living off campus or directly paying bills, they did not have a sense of financial literacy or knowledge about their finances in college.
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Summary of Research Results This social listening also addressed our third research objective of exploring whether there is an association between youth empowerment and finances through our four queries that evaluated financial literacy in terms of conversation by kind of education and in relation to minorities, as well as youth programming. Financial planning was often spoken about more positively when in the context of empowering youth through programming and education, as associations between the two were made when searching “financial planning�. Financial planning held more positive sentiment when approached from an educational eye than from a systemic race point of view. From this sampling, it can be gathered that when finances are addressed in the context of youth, there is a more positive sentiment than when discussed in regards to minorities. In addition, there was no difference in the number of social media conversations about these subjects by Black tweeters or by Caucasian tweeters, nor a difference in their share of the negative sentiment tweets about these subjects. While an association between youth empowerment programming and financial education could be established from these sample tweets, and some tweets did explicitly mention that minorities could be further empowered by financial education and planning, the conversation did not belong overwhelming to a certain demographic through our qualitative methodology of monitoring social media on Sysomos MAPS and quantitative methodologies of social listening analysis, online survey, and focus group, we went through both primary research and secondary research and got sufficient results to reach our research objectives, proceed with further analysis and be able to help COHI to choose the most suitable direction. The majority of our target audience have the familiarity with financial literacy, youth program and financial planning. The majority of our key public agrees that financial planning and youth empowerment programs are beneficial and that receiving help in these avenues would be impactful. The social media conversations sample generated by Sysomos MAPS were mainly positive about high school and finances and youth empowerment, and on the other hand, the tweets about financial planning sentiments were generally more negative. Our research objective in identifying perceptions of financial literacy in this age group was addressed in our sample tweets. Though not only sourced from Syracuse, NY, for lack of data, the international conversations about the financial literacy of k-12 aged minority students is that those types of services are lacking. The associations made in these conversations surrounding financial planning or financial education were largely about extending financial literacy and the positive effects of expanding financial literacy in high school and middle school, and there was some discussion about high school being the best time to do so. Associations about finances in regards to education were positive and encouraging, and though from the samples generated, few discussed financial literacy programs in a middle school setting, there was sentiment that it would be best to have them in order to have a better quality of life. This shows that there is widespread conversation about youth empowerment and financial planning, across demographics, so the opportunity to empower youth in any community, of any race, would be appreciated.
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Results from Survey 1, middle school personnel, stressed the importance of COHI becoming more digital. It is crucial to consider that the most popular social media platforms used by our respondents were Facebook and Twitter, and COHI does not actively use Twitter. If they created and kept up with a Twitter account, it could aid in targeting their key publics. Also, results showed that respondents use social media platforms frequently to read other people’s posts, so if COHI can target the right people and get their content reposted, they can ultimately reach a wider audience. Since we found that 71% of students had smartphones or computers, we can figure that it would be wise for COHI to focus on creating digital content to appeal to this audience. Results showed that 86% of students used social media for information-seeking purposes which truly shows the importance of COHI distributing information through popular social media channels. Results from Survey 2, Syracuse University Students, show a variety of things. Our respondents were fairly diverse and fit COHI’s target audience as we reached an African American and Hispanic demographic. 70% of respondents agreed that their parents were influential in their involvement in youth programs, this could be an indication that students would join more youth empowerment programs, if they had their parents influence to do so. Thus, COHI may wish to target parents more effectively. It is interesting to find that many participants believe there are benefits to financial literacy programs and youth empowerment programs, yet 46% of the respondents were not involved in these programs in high school. It may be inferred that with more of these programs successfully implemented, participation would increase. This would correlate with the sentiment we found in our social listening analysis where there were less than 10 financial literacy programs targeting youth within Syracuse that were sample tweets or RTs, which could represent a serious lack of programming in this arena. As a result, the association between financial planning and youth empowerment that seem to be two tenets that COHI has its pulse on, are active subjects on social media, and a program that bridges the gap between the two concepts in Syracuse is missing, and could be a great gap for COHI to fill. The focus groups we conducted also echoed this, as only a couple of the participants had partaken in youth programming, and even so, all participants agreed that youth programs can contribute to minority group’s empowerment. Our focus groups showed us how perceptions of financial literacy and the associations between youth empowerment and finances can be addressed through multiple populations. The majority of college-aged students in Syracuse, NY, have a general sense of financial literacy and agree it is important to know about financial planning. This same sample also largely saw the responsibility of financial education as that of parents. Of the 7 college students in our focus groups, 6 felt financial literacy was important to learn about. 4 our participants were in the mentorship programs before and all agreed that youth programs were beneficial for all students, not just students of color. For all participants who were in mentoring programs, they identified that these programs not only help with their educational issues, but also with after-school care, relationship with parents, and psychological counseling. For both our focus groups, all participants stated that race is not the determinant for running youth program and financial literacy; instead, personal circumstance is the most important condition that determine whether the person should be involved in youth program or not. We received most of our feedback about perceptions of financial literacy from parents. Participants give suggestions that high schools
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should cooperate more with local non-profit organizations and put more effort into informing students financial literacy.
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Recommendation: Our overall recommendation for the COHI is to increase its social media presence, to target high school students and target parents of middle school and high school students. These specific demographics believed that financial literacy and youth programs were necessary to the development of students to becoming active members of society. We recommend engaging with social media and multiple digital platforms such as Twitter and Facebook as a tactic to engage a new audience. COHI should engage its audience to learn more about the benefits of COHI to the Syracuse community. Twitter, according to our research is the most frequently used social media tool amongst school personnel and parents of students in high school. As our major demographics and influencers of our target audience utilizing the COHI Facebook page to highlight the benefits of COHI by posting photos of programs which have taken place and potentially student testimonials of their experience in the mentoring programs offered by COHI will be beneficial. Secondly, increasing the Twitter presence of COHI has the potential to get our second target audience involved in conversations regarding the programs. Participants can send photos of themselves in session, tweet at the organization and spark engaging conversations to the general public about financial literacy and youth programming for research purposes. Leveraging both of these social media platforms can help COHI propel itself into future for sustainability. Additionally, we recommend partnerships with Syracuse University and multicultural groups on the campus to engage with volunteers for the programs. Offices such as The Office of Multicultural Affairs and The Office of Program Development will be beneficial as hubs of information for the center. Additionally, partnering with Fraternity and Sorority Affairs, NAACP, NABJ and NAHJ on campus will give a broader audience to the center from the University. Furthermore, we recommend a strategic communication and public relations plan to COHI to leverage its support with the University, bridge the gap between financial literacy and youth and mostly gain brand identity by focusing its message. Focusing on brand identity will also increase exposure and awareness of the organization to its target public. The overall goal is to change the behavior of the company’s target audience to use the services provided by Center of Hope International. Targeting an older audience will eliminate the middle man, as high school students have the ability to go to programs themselves and are more likely to want mentorship to assist them with getting into college and other large life decisions. Hopefully, this will assist the COHI in their pursuits to better their organizational brand.
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Sample Twitter Post:
Center of Hope, Inc SAVE THE DATE! COHI Financial Literacy Summit coming THIS FALL!
Sample Facebook Post:
Center of Hope, Inc COHI volunteers at our today→(http://cohi-inc.org)
signature
program
Girl
Talk.
Register
your
daughter
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Appendix Appendix A Social Listening: 30 tweets generated by Sysomos Maps using 4 search queries generated the following information represented by these two groups:
Appendix B Focus Group Focus Group Questionnaire Welcome (2 minutes)
Welcome. Thank you for agreeing to participate in this focus group. My name is Sonya Mattis, and I will be the moderator for today’s group discussion. I would like to talk to you today about your attitudes and opinions about youth programs and financial literacy for youth in Syracuse, New York. The purpose of this focus group is to help a local nonprofit organization to better market its organization and center its needs to students of color in the local area.
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I am going to ask you a few questions; I ask that only one person speaks at a time. There is no right or wrong answers. But please do respect each other’s answers or opinions. I will be tape recording the discussion today because I don’t want to miss any part of your comments. I will treat your answers as confidential. We are only going to use first names and last initials during the discussion but will not use names in the study. We also ask that each of you respect the privacy of everyone in the room and not share or repeat what is said here in any way that could identify anyone in this room. Finally, this discussion is going to take about 20 minutes. If at any time you want to stop, please let me know. Does anyone have any questions before we start? Ice Breaker
[START TAPE RECORDER NOW]
(2 minutes)
First, let’s go around the room and say our first names & last initials and your favorite non-profit organization. Thank you. I ask that you say your first name & last initial before giving an answer.
Opening Question
If you could design your own youth program, what would it be and why?
(3 minutes) Group Discussion – Topic 1
Let’s talk about youth programs in general.
(5 minutes)
Probe: why does this word/phrase come to mind?
Group Discussion – Topic 2
Now, let’s talk about youth program structure. 1. Do you feel you were adequately prepared for any college financial pressures?
(5 minutes)
(potential follow up: did any person or entity play a role in how prepared you felt?)
What associations do you make when you hear the word “mentorship”?
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2. When you were in high school, how aware of finances were you? Were you very aware, somewhat aware, neutral, somewhat unaware, or very unaware? 3. By a show of hands, how many of you believe financial literacy is important to learn about? 4. In your opinion, do you think it is important to have mentorship programs for students of color? Final Thoughts
In closing, I would like to pose one last question.
(5 minutes)
If you could give advice to any k-12 school administrator about adolescents’ attitudes about finances apart from college financial aid, what would you say?
Review and Wrap-up
[Provide summary of discussion] Did I correctly summarize your comments in today’s discussion?
(2 minutes)
. Thank you for coming today and sharing your opinions with me. I hope you enjoyed the discussion.
Appendix C Qualtrics Surveys Student Survey- Syracuse University Students We, a group of Syracuse University students, are conducting a survey on nonprofit organizations. Please help us by completing the survey below. Respondents for this survey will remain anonymous. The survey will take approximately 2 minutes to complete. Thank you. Please specify your ethnicity. White African American American Indian or Alaska Native
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Other_____
Asian Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander Hispanic
Please select your level of agreement to the following statement: In high school, I would have benefited from financial literacy programs. Strongly agree Somewhat agree Neither agree nor disagree Somewhat disagree Strongly disagree Please select your level of agreement to the following statement: In high school, I would have benefitted from youth empowerment programs. Strongly agree Somewhat agree Neither agree nor disagree Somewhat disagree Strongly disagree How influential were your parents in your involvement in youth empowerment programs? Very influential Somewhat influential Not influential How influential were your high school teachers or administrators in your involvement in youth empowerment programs? Very influential Somewhat influential Not influential Were you involved in youth empowerment programs in high school? Yes No Unsure Have you ever received financial literacy information from a non-profit organization? Yes No Unsure Did you find the financial literacy information helpful? (only if yes is selected) Yes No
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Unsure
Survey for middle school teachers and administrators We, a group of Syracuse University students, are conducting a survey on non-profit organizations. Please help us by completing the survey below. Respondents for this survey will remain anonymous. The survey will take approximately 5 minutes to complete. Thank you. Does your school have social media accounts? If so, which ones? (Select all that apply.) Facebook Twitter Instagram My school does not have social media accounts. Other account used From your observations, do most of your students have their own smartphones or computers? Yes No Unsure Do any of your students use social media for information-seeking purposes? If no, please explain why. Yes No, please explain why Unsure How many times per week do you use social media? Never Check or post on social media 1-5 times per week) Check or post on social media 6-10 times per week) Check or post on social media 11-20 times per week) Check or post on social media more than 21 times per week) What is your age? Under 18 18-25 26-35 36-40 41 years old and older Are you a parent?
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No
Yes
References Dewberry, R. (2015). Client Backgrounder College Factual Editors, (2013). Syracuse University Diversity. Retrieved April 13, 2016, from http://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/syracuse-university/student-life/diversity/#
Dewberry, R. (2015, November 11.) Potential Client Informational Form. Blackboard. Retrieved March 28, 2016, from https://blackboard.syr.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-3964960-dtconte Erickson, S. (2011). Who We Are - Northside UP. Retrieved March 28, 2016,
from
http://northsideup.org/about/ North Side Learning Center, Middle and High School (n.d.). Retrieved March 28, 2016, from
http://northsidelearning.org/middle-and-high-school/
Rubin, D. M. (2015, September 6). Syracuse must confront its 'shameful' No. 1 ranking
in
poverty. Retrieved March 28, 2016, from http://www.syracuse.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/09/syracuse_must_confron ul_no_1_ranking_in_poverty_david_m_rubin.html
t_its_s hamef
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Sklar, Bonnie. (2013, March 12.) CORE FCU Receives Second National Youth
Financial
Literacy Award. CUNA. Retrieved March 28, 2016, from http://www.esmns.com/pdf/second-nyfl-award.pdf. Swift, Stephen. (2012, May 24.) Syracuse City School District, Transformation through Collaboration. Syracuse Teachers Association, Syracuse City School District. Retrieved April 13, 2016 from http://www2.ed.gov/documents/labor-management-collaboration/presentations/syracuse.pdf