Financial Links


About the FLLIP Coalition and Financial Education Program

Financial Links for Low-Income People (FLLIP) was a statewide coalition of banks, credit unions, advocates, government agencies, bank regulators, adult educators, private industry, and sponsors of Individual Development Account (IDA) programs. 

FLLIP was administered by the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law from 2000 – 2006 and in 2006, was transitioned to the University of Illinois Extension and renamed the Your Money & Your Life financial education program. 

The FLLIP Coalition honored nonprofits and partners in the 2006 Catalyst Awards Luncheon held November 2006.

The Your Money & Your Life Curriculum

Your Money & Your Life differs from other financial literacy programs in the following ways:

  • All students work from a core curriculum that allows for site comparison.
  • The Your Money & Your Life curriculum, developed by University of Illinois Extension and the FLLIP coalition, stresses the active engagement of participants in learning activities. It is written at a fifth-grade level and in a manner that takes into account the often-limited education of students.
  • Your Money & Your Life classes include real-life money management exercises that help students connect what they learn to their day-to-day lives.

Instructors in Your Money & Your Life financial education program’s nonprofit partner organizations receive four days of curriculum training as well as guidance on how to administer the evaluation.

Order the Curriculum

All My Money

 This comprehensive curriculum is designed to help staff and volunteers of community agencies and social service organizations teach limited-resource clients important skills in money management. Hands-on activities make this kit a practical and effective tool. Topics include envelop budgeting, understanding credit, handling credit problems, managing a checking account and more. Kit contains 40-page trainer's manual, lesson-planning guides, handout masters and budgeting cards, as well as other teaching materials.

Your Money & Your Life

This CD-ROM, train-the-trainer teaching resource is designed to help you meet the needs of people just entering the workforce or trying to improve their job situation. Works well with Individual Development Account participants and others of limited means. Participant curriculum materials are interactive and relevant, specifically developed to meet the needs of low-literacy audiences.  Topics include managing debt, using financial institutions, choosing insurance, learning about job benefits, prevent identity theft, and learning about immigrant issues.  Each lesson includes participant handout and activity masters, teaching guide with activity answer keys, background information, and content sources.

Financial Education Instructor Training & Resources

The University of Illinois Extension offers the Your Money &Your Life financial education instructor comprehensive four-day training, which is usually spread over several weeks. Most training classes are held in Chicago at Extension and SSNCPL offices, but they also offer occasional trainings in downstate Illinois. Persons outside of Illinois are welcome to attend trainings. Please contact University of Illinois Extension.

Hundreds of instructors have been trained in the Your Money & Your Life curriculum. We believe that the successful results of the evaluation of the FLLIP programs are due in part to our effective training of instructors.

Financial Education Tool Kit - A Guide to Recruiting and Retaining Participants: Recruiting and retaining participants for financial education classes can be a challenge. This Tool Kit offers information gathered from our FLLIP Financial Education Program (FEP) sites, partner organizations, and research and policy agencies.

Financial Education Research Results

FLLIP Training Participants Report Better Understanding of Finances, Changes in Financial Behavior Following Training

Professor Steven G. Anderson of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign directed a two-year evaluation of FLLIP. According to Professor Anderson’s first report, students in FLLIP’s Your Money & Your Life Financial Education (FEP) and Individual Development Account (IDA) programs achieved significant knowledge gains. 

Professor Anderson’s second report  found that FLLIP served an economically disadvantaged and ethnically diverse training audience that had very limited financial knowledge before training. After completing the FLLIP program, participants reported better budget and expense management and using mainstream financial institutions more. FLLIP graduates reported saving more, tracking their spending better, opening bank accounts, and participating in employee and public benefit programs that they previously did not utilize.

In his final report Professor Anderson found that incentive programs helped graduation rates, and general knowledge of banking increased.

Comments on Financial Literacy and Education Commission National Strategy

In October 2004, the Shriver Center filed comments with the Department of the Treasury on the Financial Literacy and Education Commission National Strategy (the FACT Act). The Center asserted that the three most important issues that the national strategy should address are (1) inclusion of financial education opportunities at all states of the life cycle; (2) public and private funding of financial education initiatives; and (3) evaluation of financial education initiatives.