 
AFI All Grantee National Conference
Following is the agenda of the 2007 AFI All Grantee Conference, along with key presentations for each workshop and session. Session presenters include grantee leaders, partners and funders of AFI project throughout the nation. Read below for more details, and click on links to download handouts and other information about each workshop and presentation.Advanced Homeownership: Helping IDA Accountholders Find the Right Homeownership Opportunity
Purchasing a home is the major wealth-creation activity for many Americans. It represents the most frequent asset purchase requested by IDA accountholders. Selecting the right home has become increasingly challenging for low- and moderate-income families as housing prices have increased while lenders have begun to offer an array of asset-stripping products, from sub-prime loans to balloon mortgages. This panel will present tools and products that are available to help IDA accountholders make the best homeownership decisions, including strategies for avoiding predatory loan products and preventing home foreclosure. The workshop will feature NeighborWorks America’s homeownership centers and the Campaign for Homeownership. The session will also highlight strong AFI projects in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and Houston, Texas, which are leaders in innovative homeownership strategies. Presenters include:
Materials & Handouts: |
Successful Capitalization Strategies for Business IDAs
This session brings together expert practitioners that offer IDAs and microloans to share their lessons learned and innovative strategies. Also, AFI grantees that do not yet offer microenterprise training or loans will get the inside scoop on how to spot a quality partner for business training and technical assistance. Participants will receive tools and resource materials to assure the best service to their business clients. Presenters include:
|
IDAs for Education: Rethinking Mission, Program Design, Marketing and Partnering Opportunities
IDAs represent an important, underused solution to the problems of access and financial aid for postsecondary education and training. Almost one-third of IDA savers nationally have used their savings to purchase education for themselves or a family member. However, in many cases, education purchases were a substitute goal in response to diminishing affordable housing stocks. While education IDAs are growing in popularity among IDA practitioners and savers, IDA practitioners are recognizing the need for unique IDA program design structures for success. This session will provide tools and strategies for these IDAs, including: identifying your education IDA target market, setting appropriate savings expectations, timing savings and spending over multiple years with multiple withdrawals, financial aid implications of IDAs, building partnerships with educational institutions, evaluating funding for scholarships and education, targeted marketing, and more. Presenters include:
Materials & Handouts: |
AFI Performance Management
AFI grantees often ask: What is the norm for outcomes, such as enrollment, attrition, and asset purchases? This session will provide answers in the context of an overview of the AFI Performance Management Initiative. Grantees and OCS staff have developed targets for key AFI implementation points and tools to help grantees plan and execute their projects cost-effectively and with maximum success. Other project management sessions throughout the day will build on concepts from this session. Presenters include:
Materials & Handouts: |
Retention and Recruitment: Strategies to Identify, Enroll, and Retain Participants in the Saving Process
Successful completion and asset purchase is often a long road for participants. With limited resources for operations, AFI grantees need to target their recruitment efforts to yield the maximum number of eligible and able participants who will complete their savings and purchase an asset. This interactive training session will provide inter-related strategies to focus outreach and recruitment and minimize loss of enrollees. Presenters include:
Materials & Handouts: |
Growing Your Project into an AFI Network
Today, nearly half of AFI projects are network projects that include several organizations and cover larger geographic areas. Networks may experience administrative cost savings, as well as benefits in other ways. Issues to consider when becoming an AFI network project include: network models, partner and staffing selection, data management and reporting, performance management, and asset‑building coalition work. Presenters include:
Materials & Handouts: |
IDAs for Youth: Challenges and Opportunities
The number of organizations seeking to serve youth and young adults with IDAs and other asset-building tools is growing. This session offers strategies to serve youth most effectively. Topics range from culturally and age-appropriate approaches to financial education to what to look for in youth IDA program coordinators. Practitioners will also discuss how to create earned income for youth, coordination with existing youth- or school-based programs and university recruitment, and challenges of working with youth in urban and rural settings. Participants will also learn about funding sources, allowable uses, custodial accounts, and working with the families of youth in IDA programs. Presenters include:
Materials & Handouts:
|
Assessing Participants' Financial and Credit Needs
Financial and credit issues represent major obstacles to succeeding as an IDA participant and acquiring and maintaining assets. How can we evaluate these issues as part of the intake process and most effectively address our participants' needs? What are alternative ways of improving participants' credit scores? And how can we organize and advocate in our communities and States to mobilize resources for participants? Presenters include:
Materials & Handouts: |
Tour of the New AFI²
The New AFI² is now available for all AFI grantees! Come to this presentation to learn about the totally redesigned system’s features and functions. This presentation is especially for grantees that are eager for a quick, high-level look at the New AFI². Participants will receive a temporary ID/password so they can “test drive” the system with a trainer or on their own. |
Managing Your AFI Project: Tools and Tips (Basic)
This hands-on training workshop will help you meet your AFI project goals and understand where you can expect to be during the course of your project period. The session provides a framework to help you achieve your desired outcomes. Learn basic AFI project planning and management principles, including setting realistic benchmarks, best practices for effective program procedures, practical techniques for monitoring program progress and successes, and avoiding common pitfalls and misconceptions about managing an AFI project. Participants will receive an electronic workbook. If you are bringing your laptop to the AFI University, please bring it along with you to this interactive session! Presenters include:
|
New Partnerships with Federal Agencies: Part I
This session features several Federal programs that can work in tandem with an AFI grant or that can be used to leverage participant IDA savings. Panelists will provide information about each program as well as “How To” steps for accessing them to strengthen your program and enable more participants to succeed. This session will provide an opportunity for AFI grantees to learn about various Federal agencies’ efforts to help families and individuals obtain self-sufficiency. The session will also include a moderated dialogue on common issues, challenges, and needs faced by local AFI communities. Presenters include:
Materials & Handouts: |
IDA Programs and the Workplace: Emerging Asset-Building Partnerships
Community-based IDA models are proving attractive to employers, often with little or no modification or adaptation. Programs that offer IDAs and related asset-building products can fill a need for employers to foster financial stability among their employees. Learn about examples from throughout the country, including a highly acclaimed comprehensive asset-building program in San Antonio, and some key operational features. Additionally, learn what the United Way of America discovered in a survey of 50 employers concerning factors that affect their decisions to support or not support IDAs, their relationships to other asset-building products, and favorable views toward community-based IDA models. Presenters include:
Materials & Handouts: |
Introducing a New AFI Resource Center Publication: Building Assets * Building Stronger Families
This interactive session will introduce a new Office of Community Services and AFI Resource Center publication, Building Assets * Building Stronger Families. Hot off the press, this publication is a compendium of 50 financial education curriculum modules that focus on vital money matters for families and couples. The modules are designed to highlight the importance of planning as a family for long-term economic success. Each module includes trainer notes and tips for incorporating the modules into your existing financial literacy training schedule. Presenters include:
Materials & Handouts: |
Measuring the Impact of Your Financial Education Courses
Financial education is often viewed as the most transformational aspect of an AFI project. Most of our knowledge about the success of financial education comes from anecdotal accounts and pre- and post-training knowledge tests. While this information is important, there are other approaches to determining whether your financial education is likely to have long-term, positive effects for your participants. This session will feature emerging effective practice examples from practitioners, as well as the latest research on this important topic. Presenters include:
|
Managing Your AFI Project: Tools and Tips (Advanced)
Building on information that has been shared through the series of AFI project management conference calls between July and October 2007, this hands-on workshop will bring a full AFI IDA project plan together. Included are topical discussions about forecasting quarterly project needs, when and how to collect pertinent data, managing multiple IDA delivery sites, and how to use data to improve program performance. Participants will receive an electronic workbook. If you are bringing your laptop to the AFI University, please charge it up and bring with you to this interactive session! Presenters include:
|
Partnering for Successful AFI Outcomes
Justine Petersen Housing & Reinvestment Corporation (Justine Petersen) began its IDA program in 1998 and has opened over 1,200 IDA accounts, helping over 600 participants to access $1.5 million in matching funds. These success stories would not have been possible without strong partnerships. Panelists will give an overview of Justine Petersen’s IDA program, including its bank partnership. Two IDA participants will discuss their experiences. Presenters include:
|
New Partnerships with Federal Agencies: Part II
This session features different Federal programs that can work in tandem with an AFI grant or that can be used to leverage participant IDA savings. The presenters will provide information about each program as well as “How To” steps for accessing them to strengthen your program and enable more participants to succeed. This session will provide an opportunity for AFI grantees to learn about various Federal agencies’ efforts to help families and individuals obtain self-sufficiency. The session will also include a moderated dialogue on common issues, challenges, and needs faced by local AFI communities. Presenters include:
Materials & Handouts: |
Strategies for Strong Collaborations with Community Tax Prep Centers and EITC Campaigns
The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is the Federal government’s largest anti-poverty program, and communities nationwide are mobilizing to make sure that low-income households claim the money to which they are entitled. Community tax centers and AFI projects can work together to recruit savers and maximize the use of tax refunds. This session will discuss how AFI-EITC partnerships work and some of the innovations making it easier for low-income households to save. Learn how to participate in local EITC campaigns and how to help participants make the best choices in using their refunds, including IDA savings. Presenters include:
Materials & Handouts: |
Telling Your Agency’s IDA Story
Every AFI project has a positive message to tell—to share with the public, with funders, with partners, and with potential participants. Come to this hands-on session to learn good practices for sharing your message as effectively as possible. Need suggestions for strong presentations and speeches for supporters and funders? Come to this session and receive a template you can customize for your audience. Need ideas for one-page “updates” for funders? Come to this session for strong examples. Need to freshen up your perspective on highlighting your good work? Come to this session! Presenters include:
|
Strategies for Serving People with Disabilities
People with disabilities are proportionally the largest population living in poverty. Although some AFI grantees are already serving individuals with disabilities, and other grantees are considering how to reach out to this population, much work remains to be done. This session will focus on assisting AFI grantees to identify the systems currently in place in local communities to support them in their efforts to serve people with disabilities. AFI grantees currently participating as pilot sites in the AFI Family Support 360 IDA Initiative will share information and their perspectives on key topics: initial and ongoing challenges to expanding services to people with disabilities, their experiences in partnering with Family Support 360 Centers and other disability service providers to achieve outcomes, and suggestions for targeting outreach and education to the disability community to optimize access to needed information and supports. Presenters include:
|
Using Diverse and Innovative Financial Institutions to Benefit Your AFI IDA Accountholders
IDA accountholders have diverse needs, and it is essential to form partnerships with financial institutions that will offer financial services and products to help accountholders succeed. The last several years have seen the growth of an array of financial products and services that directly benefit IDA accountholders. This workshop will explore how AFI projects can work with diverse financial institution—from community development credit unions to America Saves initiatives to conventional banks—to meet the needs of their IDA accountholders. Attendees will learn how to identify and partner with different financial institutions and to evaluate the best products. We will also discuss how to assist accountholders to avoid becoming victims of predatory lending practices so that they can maximize their assets and wealth-creation potential. Presenters include:
Materials & Handouts: |
The AFI Financial Literacy Enhancement Initiative
|
Special Focus on the HHS Anti-Trafficking in Persons Program
This session will highlight an important HHS initiative that addresses a growing issue in communities across the nation. AFI grantees and their partner organizations can help deal with this problem. Find out more about this topic, and what your organization can do about it! Presenters include:
|
Fundraising and Resource Development for AFI Projects
Creating sustainable AFI projects includes raising cash and securing non‑cash resources. This session will highlight sources used by current grantees and sources available to AFI projects. Making the case, using arguments and information that both tell a story and demonstrate a return on an investment will be highlighted. This session is designed for those who are not participating in a Fundraising and Resource Development Academy. Presenters include:
Materials & Handouts: |
Hints and Tips for Completing the 2007 AFI Data Report
The annual season for providing information for the AFI Data Report is under way! Come to this informal discussion to meet the special team the AFI Resource Center has assembled to support grantees in completing this year’s reporting requirements. Come for a refresher and general walk-through of the Data Report. This session will also introduce participants to effective techniques for ensuring that the data collected is accurate, as well as tips and hints for keeping up with data collection needs throughout the year. We will also facilitate informal discussion among grantees about how they use data throughout the year to manage grants and refine their programs, as well as any lessons learned or challenges of data collection. Presenters include:
|