Asset Development and Financial Education VISTAs, Campaign for Working Families

Posted by on April 20, 2009

[emailed 04/14/09]

VISTA Positions: Asset Development and Financial Education

FOUR POSITIONS available to build and preserve wealth and assets in communities through financial education, free tax services and fairly-priced financial products.

Description:    These VISTAs will work with the Campaign for Working Families and the Community and Economic Development Program at the Greater Philadelphia Urban Affairs Coalition (GPUAC) to help low wage families build assets, avoid predatory financial goods and services and build capacity at GPUAC to provide these services in the most cost-effective and productive manner.  We will create a team of four VISTA’s who will together accomplish the following tasks.  Team members will rotate among programs in order to have maximum exposure to skills and work.

1.    Do outreach to support the recruitment of volunteers for free tax sites in Philadelphia; this includes developing partnerships with service-based learning programs at colleges and universities, as well as businesses, government, nonprofit organizations and churches.
2.    Assist in the development of an Individual Development Account (IDA) program that will help people receive financial education and save money for college that will be matched by a federal grant.
3.    Assist the Campaign for Working Families in capacity building for a new model of providing free tax services that will increase impact and conserve resources.
4.    Assist in the development of mobile asset development teams that can provide free tax assistance, benefit screening, and financial education at community based sites throughout the year.
5.    Support the expansion of the FAN club financial education model including developing a chapter model allowing replicability regionally and nationally.
6.    Provide outreach and education services for anti-predatory loan products and other fairly priced financial goods and services.
7.    Provide outreach and education for all services currently provided by the Campaign for Working Families and CED, including any new programs developed during the course of the year; maintain outreach data base to track all outreach activities
8.    Work with Immigrant and ITIN Working Group to promote tax sites and other activities in immigrant communities throughout Philadelphia.

Qualifications:
– Associate Degree or B.A. preferred; will consider equivalent experience
– Strong written and oral communications skills
– Comfort doing door-to-door outreach in Philadelphia neighborhoods to inform residents about foreclosure prevention resources
– Willingness and ability to design and present educational information to community groups
– Strong organizational skills
– Computer literate in word processing, spread sheets (data base desired but not required)
– Comfortable in diverse settings of Philadelphians including different language communities, economic groupings and racial and ethnic communities
– Drivers license preferred; if not available, candidate must be willing to travel extensively throughout the city on public transit
– Strong team player, flexible, responsive, able to change plans and work in a constantly shifting work environment
– Commitment to the mission of the Campaign for Working Families.

VISTA Benefits:  VISTA is a federally-funded Americorps program in which participants work full-time for one year.  VISTAs earn $11,388 in salary and enjoy health insurance and transportation assistance.  Child care assistance is also available to those who qualify.  An education award of over $4,000 is provided at the end of service that can be used to pay tuition or student loans at qualified institutions.

Report to:    Director of the Campaign for Working Families

To apply, please send resume and cover letter to Jean Hunt at jhunt@gpuac.org.