United Way of Westchester and Putnam

As you know, the high costs of housing, healthcare, and utilities in Westchester, coupled with changes in the economy, have left many hardworking individuals struggling to keep up with the ever-rising cost of living and ensure a stable financial future for themselves and their families. One of United Way’s goals is to help residents of our community achieve financial stability.

The United Way has created The Financial Education Program (FEP) to help promote financial stability in our community.  Within this program are 3 specific ways for FPA members to volunteer: Financial Workshops, Financial Coaching, and the Financial Helpline.

Financial Workshops:

• Financial Education Workshops Teach one or more financial workshops (eight workshops from budgeting to debt control, etc.) on topics of your interest to employees and nonprofit clients. Workshop sessions are set up by United Way staff and range from 45 minutes to one hour. These presentations are most likely at lunch time, although some others might depend on when employees can convene before or after their work-shifts.
  
  Volunteer time commitment:  From 2-4 hours per workshop
  
  Training for the Workshops:Before presenting a Financial Education Workshop, some preparation is required. About 2-4 hours (depending on the volunteer’s level of knowledge of the material and presentation skills).  This training also includes a brief overview of United Way and the resources it provides to the community related to financial stability. The training is done at the United Way offices at, 336 Central Park Avenue in White Plains.
  
  Material Provided:  The FEP provides volunteers with a power point presentation on the topic(s) of their selection.  FEP expects the volunteers to read the material, make it their own and prepare real life examples, anecdotes, and other information relevant to the topic and applicable to the audience receiving the presentation.
  
  Presenting:  The actual presentation takes 45 minutes to an hour; however, collecting the materials from United Way, such as handouts for the attendees, audio-visual equipment (for sites that don’t have it), set-up and break-down of the equipment, collecting evaluations, and responding to personal questions may take 2 additional hours with travel time.

Financial Education Coaches: 

• Provide one-on-one assistance for workshop attendees who want to put into practice at least one financial principle learned at the workshop they attended.   Financial coaching is a collaborative, educational relationship that empowers the “coachee” to reach financial goals.  It is not enough to learn the financial principles and tools –the person must take action and use them.  Financial coaching produces that action step towards achieving those desired financial goals.
  
  Volunteer time commitment:  Depending on experience level, some training may be involved. For inexperienced coaches, between 2-4 Financial Coaching Training sessions of 2 hours each are necessary.
  
  The one-on-one sessions with a coachee may vary from 15 minutes to one-hour at a time, one to two times a month for 2-3 months or longer if coach and coachee mutually agree.
  
  Training for Financial Coaching Training:  olunteer coaches will be trained by a partner of the United Way who has financial counseling credentials.  The partner will assess the coachee’s situation and prepare an action plan with specific steps to assist the coachee.
  The coach can reach out to the partner at any time to clarify the action steps and receive support.

Financial Helpline Volunteer:

• Twice a year, in the summer and fall, United Way’s 2-1-1 in collaboration with other partners offers financial counseling  for 4 hours (4-8 pm) by answering calls with questions on budgeting, debt, mortgages, foreclosure, credit, retirement planning, consumer scams, paying for college and similar topics. Bilingual speaking volunteers are greatly needed and welcome.
  
  Volunteer time commitment: Two-hours of in-person training prior to the event and one to four hours on the date of the event.
  
  Training and manuals covering the content as well as a phone system orientation are provided prior to the session (Dates TBD).

NFTE

Our Goals & Programs:

Our goal is to empower young people, many of whom struggle in school, to change their lives through entrepreneurship education. NFTE’s program offices are located in Baltimore, Bay Area, Chicago, Greater Dallas, DC Region, Fairchester (Fairfield County, CT & Westchester County, NY), Greater Los Angeles, New England, New York Metro,Philadelphia, and South Florida.

How NFTE Works:

NFTE programs take place in middle and high schools and via our own summer BizCamps®. NFTE begins with an intensive four-day training for professional teachers that takes them through NFTE’s award-winning entrepreneurship curriculum and provides ideas on how to make the lessons compelling for their students. Once trained, our teachers guide students through the “ABC’s of Entrepreneurship,” including the concepts of ownership, opportunity recognition, marketing, finance, product development and competitive advantage. Our teachers receive ongoing support and training from NFTE staff.  Each NFTE student works toward completing a business plan, and top students are invited to participate in a regional competition. Following their completion of the NFTE program, students have access to our alumni services, which include advanced training, mentoring programs, workshops and access to awards and scholarship opportunities, in hopes that the lessons they learned as NFTE students will carry through in their future endeavors.

Volunteers:

Volunteers play a crucial role in NFTE’s programs. You can share your knowledge and love of business in a variety of ways – by running a workshop in your area of expertise, becoming a business plan coach to help students fine-tune their business plans, or being a judge at one of our business plan competitions. All of these opportunities require minimal time commitments but can make a huge difference in the life of a young person.

Volunteer to sit on a panel to critique high school students business plan.

Girls Inc. of Westchester County

Girls Inc. of Westchester County is a non-profit organization founded in 2007 and dedicated to providing girls-only programs that inspire Westchester girls to be strong, smart, and bold. We are a local affiliate of Girls Incorporated, a 145 year-old national organization with over 90 chapters in the U.S. and Canada. GIWC provides girls with critical knowledge and life-changing experiences that educate, empower, and inspire them to overcome the economic, social, and gender barriers to growing up healthy, educated, independent, and safe.

Volunteer Opportunities:
Currently, we are looking for FPA volunteers for Money Talks—family financial literacy workshops for girls ages 11-15 and a caregiver. They run either on Saturdays or week-day evenings, and we are looking for FPA volunteers to meet one-on-one with caregivers to provide pro-bono financial planning. We expect to run 2-4 workshops a year, please stay tuned for the schedule.