In Review – Year 2020

Acknowledgement

Our thanks to the 3Rivers Federal Credit Union. Adult Life Training, Inc.’s 2020 operation was underwritten by a generous grant from the 3Rivers Federal Credit Union Foundation. If you’re ready to start a lifelong banking relationship with a local organization you can trust, then 3Rivers is for you.  3Rivers is Here for you: here for good!

Overview

Year 2020 started like other years, but challenges arose in March that presented unprecedented opportunity for those willing to adapt and meet the challenge. With government restrictions on businesses ostensibly to protect people from contracting the COVID-19 virus, most in-person contact was prohibited. Businesses that carried debt were extremely stressed or failed. Businesses like us that refuse to carry any debt for any reason were in a far stronger position to weather the storm. We successfully made changes to how we help people (from in-person to teleconferencing) so that the work continued uninterrupted, and in fact increased the number of people served.

Financial Literacy Program

To operate the Financial Literacy and Employment programs we estimated a need of $26,000 to supply FPU memberships at $130 each for 200 participants and trainers plus hospitality, printer, and office supplies. We expected to operate the Employment program through sundry donations and volunteering, the hospitality, office, and printer supplies being a shared resource across programs.

We requested $10,000 from our best underwriter because that was our partner’s limit, but we received $5,000.  What appeared to be a debilitating crisis when we received half of what we expected to be 1/3 of the need changed into a blessing when the Ramsey corporation that sells the FPU curriculum added an unlimited site license to their product line a month later in May. By buying the site license for $2,500 instead of paying $26,000 for individual memberships to give to our participants we freed up $2,500 of the grant that we did receive to support the employment program and shared costs such as printer, hospitality, and office supplies and replacing the refrigerator that failed at year’s end.

A second benefit of the unlimited site license is that we were able to use it to enable other agencies to begin their own financial literacy training programs: Fort Wayne Housing Authority is now in their second series of FPU classes and we will be supporting them in requesting their own grant to buy their own site license this year. We also started helping Vincent Village start their  FPU classes and hopefully they will have their first FPU sessions this year. Some other agencies are in the beginning stages of likewise starting to offer financial literacy training for their own patrons – all from the site license we were able to buy in what at first seemed an impossible situation.

At the end of the year, instead of being closed, we had helped more people with a higher success rate than in the prior four (4) years, had helped two agencies get started using some of our resources, and we were slightly ahead financially.

Employment Program

The SCSEP Senior Aide program in 2020 was severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. In an abundance of caution we sent our aides home in mid-March but many agencies tried to continue using “social distancing” and masks to reduce risk of transmitting the disease. The State of Indiana provided masks and hand sanitizer to us and many other agencies to help. Several Senior Aides subsequently died from COVID-19 and the SCSEP program manager was authorized to pull all Senior Aides from their host agencies and send them home with full pay until it was again safe to work.

Senior Aides come to us for employment training because they have challenges in several areas, one of which is using modern computers, so using Zoom teleconferencing to provide them with computer job skill, financial literacy, and hard and soft skills training would be tentative at best.  The job market during most of 2020 was risky for seniors more so than for young people, and the decision to shelter all SCSEP participants at home was a good call. This year we should be able to resume training SCSEP groups of about eight (8) persons which are with us up to six (6) months: about 1/3 are usually employed by month number three, and the others who are willing to be employed usually have sustained un-subsidized employment before the six months is over. I am guessing the program will resume in the third quarter of 2021.

In this coming year once the COVID-19 government restrictions are removed and in-person training is again permitted, we are again ready to help SCSEP Senior Aides in groups of eight (8) while we continue Zoom teleconference FPU classes and likely add in-person FPU classes. Catholic Charities may have some computer adept patrons that we can help with Employment Training using Zoom teleconferencing, and we are awaiting more information from them, in addition to special resources now available through Catholic Charities. The Employment Program’s only real financial cost is the shared hospitality, office, and printer supplies, and the FPU classes are mostly covered by the site license. Hopefully we will again be successful in getting the site license funded. In addition to applying to the 3 Rivers Federal Credit Union that has underwritten this amazing curriculum in the past I have also reached out to several local business owners.

In Summary

The SCSEP program was dormant but the Financial Literacy program expanded, we are financially better off than in any year in the past, we were able to help two outside agencies start their own financial literacy programs, we have more and different patrons being referred to us now from other agencies, and the coming year appears to be full of possible ways that we can bring value to our community. While 2020 was a year of trouble, we rose to meet the challenge with innovation and flexibility, and we were blessed to serve our community more and better that ever before.

Performance and Operating Budget

Year 2020 Performance

Year 2020 had only 10 weeks of in-person training due to COVID-19 government restrictions. Year 2021 is anticipated to resume in-person training 3Q21. Training for most of year 2020 was via Zoom teleconferencing.

ALTi served 44 persons not in other programs in year 2020, using Zoom teleconferencing. This is a 354% increase over prior four year average. Of those who participated, 46% completed the curriculum vs 43% in prior years.

Year 2020 over prior years average

Number of registrants for Financial Literacy training in year 2020 :  39
Number of registrants for Financial Literacy training in 2016 thru 2019 : 44
Number of persons completing at least 6 sessions in 2020 : 18 (46%)
Number of persons completing at least 6 sessions in 2016 thru 1019 : 19 (43%)
(numbers exclude SCSEP participants and persons w/o a working email address. There were 93 FPU members 2016-2019 including SCSEP and most completed the training)

The total impact from year 2020 should be greater than in prior years, but statistical data could not be collected because of privacy issues. In prior years the following statistics were measured via the Ramsey corporation web site for FPU members of Adult Life Training Inc:

Students were reluctant to send this private information in email and Ramsey Corp did not yet have a way to collect it. Using Survey Monkey (as Ramsey recommended late in 2020) also did not work as almost none of the members would complete the three question survey. In-person classes handled this by passing out slips of paper with the questions and collecting them in class: there was 100% participation during in-person training.

Outcome

Financial Literacy training had many times more participants and a higher rate of course completion than in prior years – 2020 bringing in almost the same number of people in one year as had been helped in the prior four (4) years. The ability to buy the site license was the deciding factor in improving effectiveness of our financial literacy community training.

The site license allowed us to make the classes available to everyone for free. Our average class size the last half of 2020 was 14 registrants vs 4 in prior years, and 4-5 people actively participated in the class vs 1 or 2 active participants. People who register with our annual site license have full access to the material for a year and some use it at their own pace without attending a class.

The site license also allowed us to expand financial literacy training to Fort Wayne Housing Authority to enhance the lives of the people in their housing. We have also started working with Vincent Village but they have not started their FPU classes.

Budget

Adult Life Training, Inc. is an all volunteer organization. There are no administrative or other fees. Any incidental expenses are paid by volunteers or local businesses.

Year 2021 Budget for Financial Literacy Training

Year 2020 Actual Expenses for Financial Literacy Training

Year 2021 Budget for Employment Training

Year 2020 Actual Expenses for Employment Training

Agency had to close in person services March 17, 2020
Due to government restrictions for COVID-19