On this page:

Learn more:

For more about RuFES

Annie E. Casey Foundation—this link will take you directly to the RuFES Section of the Casey website, but please check out the publications section too.

Recommended resources

Roll Your Change Week

Roll Your Change Week (RYCW) is an event designed to encourage individuals and families to start saving. Community members gather the coins they have saved and found in their homes and carry them to a central event location-where volunteers roll the coins for them. People are encouraged to deposit their rolled coins into existing accounts or to open new accounts. Participants are often offered incentives to save, and provided with financial education information.

Roll Your Change Week can be replicated in your rural community or really just about anywhere. Successful RYCW programs take a basic idea and create significant community impact-helping savers convert the pennies in their pockets and the quarters from their couches into tens of thousands of dollars of savings per year in smaller communities. Organizers have found that many RYCW savers not only save the change that is rolled during the event, but also begin to save more consistently over the long term.

1. A recording of the Roll Your Change Week webinar presented on August 17, 2010.
   Note: Due to a technological problem with our webinar provider, there are 27-second sections of silence every ten minutes of the webinar recording. Please continue watching and listening. The slides are very detailed and the sound will return. We are working with our provider to make sure this glitch does not recur in the future.
2. The accompanying PowerPoint presentation on Roll Your Change Week (used in the webinar).
3. A series of informative handouts:
   • Public relations poster from the Cleveland Roll Your Change Campaign
   • Roll Your Change Week marketing toolkit from the Cleveland Roll Your Change Week Campaign
   • Statistical results comparison from the Cleveland Roll Your Change Week Campaign
   • Roll Your Change Week summary from the Cleveland Roll Your Change Week Campaign
   • Event timeline for New Hampshire Roll Your Change Week Campaign
   • Public relations bag stuffer from New Hampshire Roll Your Change Week Campaign
   • Invitation letter to financial institutions to join New Hampshire Roll Your Change Week Campaign
   • Public relations poster from New Hampshire Roll Your Change Week Campaign
   • Procedure guide from New Hampshire Roll Your Change Week Campaign
   • Letter from U.S. Representative Paul Hodes for New Hampshire Roll Your Change Week Campaign

Rural IDAs

Earning It isn't enough to lift families out of poverty—they have to Keep It and Grow It too. Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) are one of the most successful and tested ways to help families Keep It and Grow It. But there are special challenges and opportunities when you start and run an IDA program in a rural place. The basics of IDA program management and some of the key issues that rural community organizations face when starting and running an IDA program are addressed here:

1. A recording of the Rural IDAs webinar presented on February 26, 2010.
2. An accompanying PowerPoint presentation on rural IDAs (used in the webinar).
3. A page that lists some of the most informative resources for organizations seeking to operate IDA programs.

StimuRuFES...
RuFES: Meet the Federal Stimulus Package!

What does the 2009 economic stimulus package (AKA: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) got to do with—and for—RuFES? What are the top two or three opportunities in the stimulus package that might help RuFES action teams Earn It? And Keep It? And Grow It? How can your community access and influence stimulus funds? What general opportunities in the package might help your entire RuFES effort?

Get some answers in the following materials:

1. A recording of the StimuRuFES webinar presented on May 14, 2009.
2. A PowerPoint presentation on StimuRuFES (used in the webinar). (Select “View” and then “Full screen mode” if you want to project the PowerPoint from this PDF. If you need help, please contact Elsa Noterman.)
3. An eight-page handout on ARRA resources to help you track and learn about the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).
4. An one-page handout on ARRA tax credit programs, and how they can help low-income working families.

The Nasty Nine:
Helping rural families avoid predatory lending practices:

Do the rural families you encounter turn to predatory lenders and products when they need money—and end up in worse financial straits? Here are some resources you can use to guide them to better lending products that can help them stay afloat and get ahead in this economy:

1. A recording of the RuFES webinar on the Nasty Nine presented on March 26, 2009. (Clicking on the link will bring up the video in .wmv format and the audio will play over your computer's speakers. Right-clicking on the preceding link will enable you to download the .wmv file to your computer to play offline. A Flash version of the video is also available, which is a smaller file but considerably lower-quality video that can only be viewed online.)
2. A PowerPoint presentation on the Nasty Nine (used in the webinar). (See instructions in #2 for StimuRuFES, above.)
3. A two-page summary handout on the Nasty Nine to use this with colleagues, customers, partners… and the media!
4. A handout on the RuFES Family-Focused Goals—to underline family Earn It, Keep It, Grow It objectives
5. Avoiding the Money Trap, a 2006 documentary by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, highlights the financial problems that often trap rural working families, including payday loans, high-interest car loans, high debt, poor credit, and more.
6. The Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) has a lot of information on predatory lending practices and policy solutions.
7. The Better Choice Program is an effort by Pennsylvania Credit Unions to offer an alterative to payday loans.
8. Financial education resources:
   • The Beehive is a great place for individuals and families to access online financial education. You could use it with your customers, or refer them to it.
   • The Pennsylvania Office of Financial Education provides individuals with online learning and information on a wide range of financial topics—and has links to financial education curricula.
   • MoneyWise is the money management course Alternatives Federal Credit Union uses to provide its low-income customers with tools they need to confront the financial issues in their lives.
9. Also, feel free to contact either of the two presenters from the RuFES webinar:
   • John Molinaro, Associate Director, Aspen Institute Community Strategies Group, 202-736-5856
   • Brendan Wilbur, IDA Coordinator/Financial Counselor, Alternatives Federal Credit Union, 607-273-4611 Ext 445

Contact Elsa Noterman, Program Associate, Aspen Institute Community Strategies Group, if you have other questions or need assistance finding materials or information on the Nasty Nine.

Rural EITC-related resources

There is a tremendous amount of information on the web about the EITC.  The following sites are our picks for favorite sites:

1. The National Community Tax Coalition (NCTC) website is the premiere source of information about all things EITC.  You can also sign up here for the coalition’s newsletter and for e-mail alerts about training opportunities.
2. EITC Carolina offers a wealth of information for tax sites—much of it especially useful for rural areas.

The Aspen Institute Community Strategies Group (CSG) | One Dupont Circle, NW | Suite 700 | Washington, DC 20036