Annie’s Project: Making financial classes for women more rewarding

Annie’s Project is a risk management program for farm and ranch women. It aims to make its financial classes more engaging and welcoming while delivering valuable skills for handling money. Emily Adams, an agriculture and natural resources educator with Ohio State University Extension Service, runs Annie’s Project and a follow-up financial education program for women called Moving Beyond The Basics. Because the women’s financial education classes are designed to be hands-on rather than a series of lectures, Money Habitudes aligns well with the larger objectives of the Annie’s Project program.

Outcomes

Using Money Habitudes as part of the Moving Beyond Basics curriculum has:

• Made for a fun, engaging and hands-on first activity to get participants involved in the classes.
• Broken down the wall for women to talk about finances.
• Allowed for easier sharing and talking among participants.
• Helped participants understand their own financial habits and attitudes.
• Allowed women to gain insight into how to talk confidently about money and farm finances with others involved in the business who may think differently about.

How They Use Money Habitudes

• Moving Beyond the Basics – Farm Financial Education for Women is a supplemental program to Annie’s Project risk management curriculum that focuses on finances and recordkeeping.
• Adams uses the Money Habitudes cards as a one-hour activity during the first topic on financial habits and attitudes.
• Each participant gets a deck of Money Habitudes cards to sort and interpret their money personality results. Participants with the same money personality are grouped together, based on their dominant Money Habitudes types, to answer group questions.
• After working with the Money Habitudes cards, the first night’s class covers financial recordkeeping practices and vocabulary, as well as how financial statements work together.
• Participants can borrow the cards and do them at home with other people after the first class.
• Later classes build on the first night. These cover balance sheets, accrual adjustments to income statements, cash flow estimation, electronic recordkeeping, standard financial ratios and benchmarks.