The Issue: How to cover finances in a series of relationship classes – but in a way that’s fun enough to feel like a date.
Who: Kylee Miller is a project manager at Marriage Matters Jackson, in Jackson, Michigan. The relationship education organization is housed at the United Way and was originally supported by a federal Healthy Marriages grant. It aims to strengthen marriages and families and decrease divorce.
What: Marriage Matters Jackson runs a variety of relationship education programs. Its major offering, “Five Great Dates,” is a five-week series of relationship classes for couples who are seriously dating or engaged.
How:

• Marriage Matters Jackson holds its series of couples’ relationship classes weekly at different date-like locations throughout the city. “We go to venues where they can have their own table. We go to a different place each week so it really feels like you’re going out on dates,” says Miller.
• Each premarital class is two hours. The evening begins with an hour-long presentation by a speaker on a topic of importance to premarital couples. This is followed by a dessert or an appetizer break. Couples then have another hour or so by themselves to talk and work together on an activity.
• The goal of the relationship classes is make them seem more like date nights than workshops. By combining food, locations like restaurants, and a more interactive format, they are designed to be fun and upbeat. Attendees should not feel that they’re going to just another classroom.
• Couples pay $75 for all five relationship classes.
• The relationship classes cover topics like communication, goal setting, and finances. Money Habitudes cards are the foundation of the money class.
• Marriage Matters Jackson promotes its series of relationship classes in a variety of ways. One important way is to let people experience shorter, standalone workshops (including one using Money Habitudes) that are fun and non-threatening. “Getting attendees to show up has not always been easy, but once we proved to people that we’re not scary, we’re not going to make them do something that’s uncomfortable, they come to associate our name with something that’s safe, fun and entertaining,” says Miller.
• In the money class, the format is the same as the other relationship classes: an hour-long presentation on money and finances, a break for food, and then couples do the Money Habitudes activity together. Couples go over their results and read the interpretation cards together to understand their money personalities.
• “The goal of that night isn’t to make a budget. It’s to get the ball rolling so they they’re able to communicate better and learn more about each other,” says Miller.
• Some organizations that use Money Habitudes cards in classes want to encourage large, group discussion. However, Miller says that their relationship classes forego a group conversation in favor of couples learning to talk about money on their own.
• In many respects, the class is proactive. It helps couples establish a pattern and practice of having good conversations about money.

Why:

• “Finances are not easy for couples to talk about, but a simple card game makes it not so scary. And, from a facilitator’s standpoint, we don’t have to stand up in front of people and tell them, ‘You’re doing this wrong!’ or ‘You need to do this!’ The participants can come to those conclusions on their own. We want to keep things as light and fun as possible and this card game does that. That’s the beauty of the Money Habitudes cards.”
• “When you talk about finances, especially with the engaged couples who are in that la-la phase of venues, dresses and a wedding cake, it’s hard to bring up serious conversations about what the future is going to be like. What’s really nice about the Money Habitudes cards there is that it’s easy and it feels like a game, but you can have a conversation – and a serious conversation – about what your future is going to look like.”

The Issue: How to cover finances in relationship education classes. In addition, how to attract new people and increase attendance in relationship classes.
Who: Kylee Miller is a project manager at Marriage Matters Jackson, in Jackson, Michigan. The relationship education organization is housed at the United Way and was originally supported by a federal Healthy Marriages grant. It aims to strengthen marriages and families and decrease divorce.
What: Marriage Matters Jackson runs a variety of relationship education programs. Among these is a lunch class on Money Habitudes.
How:

• The core of what Marriage Matters Jackson does is multi-week relationship classes. Their short, stand-alone sampler classes, serve to introduce people to the organization and get them involved in a fun, low-risk atmosphere.
• “The financial workshops we run are still geared to helping your relationship and the Money Habitudes cards are just wonderful for relationships,” says Miller.
• The hour-long midday relationship class is held at a downtown library. This is close to businesses, allowing people to attend on their lunch break.
• Marriage Matters Jackson promotes its classes via its Facebook page, direct mail postcards and through email blasts to its mailing list. The organization relies a lot on positive word of mouth advertising from people who have previously participated in its programs.
• When promoting the relationship class, they use this verbiage:
  • Start great conversations about money and finances. Money is one of the most difficult subjects for people to discuss. As a fun and engaging conversation starter, Money Habitudes makes talking about money easy and approachable.
  • The financial personality quiz aspect of the tool provides important insights about money issues.
  • Couples can use the cards to understand where they complement and conflict with each others’ habits and attitudes, which gives them a strong foundation to talk about important financial issues
• Both individuals and couples (married, dating and engaged) attend the relationship class. Individuals who attend may be single or part of a couple.
• Although the grant requires that the class be free, Marriage Matters Jackson offers the option for people to buy lunch. (Attendees can also bring their own lunch.) “In our history, we have learned that if there isn’t a financial commitment, people aren’t as invested. So we charge if they want us to provide lunch for them,” says Miller. Lunches cost $7-10.
• Setting up, handing out lunch orders and getting people settled mean that the actual teaching time in the relationship class is more like 45 minutes than an hour.
• The lunch class starts with a short introduction and then an explanation about how to use the money management games. Attendees get about 15 minutes to sort their Money Habitudes cards. They then have a chance to use the interpretation cards to better understand their own money personality. The remainder of the class covers how one’s money personality manifests itself in one’s life, finances and relationship.
• Attendees get to keep their deck of Money Habitudes cards. They can go home and use the cards on their own or with a friend, spouse or partner. This helps people talk about money, spending habits, investing, etc. at home.
• The midday seminar serves as a feeder to Marriage Matters Jackson’s other relationship classes.

Why:

• “After that hour, we hope we’ve moved the bar in terms of their understanding of their financial lives. That’s the major goal, but we also want to keep them involved in what we’re doing and bring people back to another workshop and hope they tell their friends that they had a good time. That word-of-mouth marketing is so important. If someone has a good time doing the Money Habitudes workshop, they’ll tell their friends and they’ll spread the word about what we’re doing,” says Miller.

The Issue: How to include personal finances in a relationship skills curriculum that stresses fun, interactive activities that lead to people really understanding and changing their behaviors.
Who: Kara Shade is the Director of Adult Programs at Anthem Strong Families in Dallas, Texas.
What: Anthem Strong Families provides relationship education and life skills in the Dallas area. The organization focuses on vulnerable and at-risk populations including teens, single parents and low-income groups. Anthem Strong Families is partially funded by a grant from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families.
How:

• Anthem Strong Families serves couples, individuals and teens. It works with engaged and married couples and also does workforce development.
• It offers three levels of classes for individual adults (this may include singles, parents, etc. who are not attending in a “couples” context).
• The Level I class is a six-hour block that covers basic relationship skills. This includes some financial management and financial goal-setting. The cornerstone of this introductory level is Kelly Simpson’s Active Relationships Program.
• After completing Level I, participants can enroll in Level II classes. These include:
  1. “Strength Training” – What makes you a good parent; learning how to build on those strengths.
  2. “Anger Management” – Constructive ways to express anger.
  3. “Parenting Piece by Piece” – Understanding and managing parental stress.
  4. “Money Habitudes” – Money habits and attitudes.
• These Level II relationship skills classes are usually offered in pairs, typically for six hours on a Saturday. The series of relationship skills classes is offered monthly.
• Most attendees sign up for the relationship skills classes after being referred by partner groups. The partners may be other social service and non-profit organizations, Child Protective Services, etc. Many couples come to Anthem Strong Families through the Twogether in Texas program, the state’s healthy marriage initiative.
• In describing the finance class, Anthem Strong Families uses this language: “Nobody enjoys starting the money conversation. Come learn what your money personality is and how to discuss money with someone who has a different personality!”
• Money Habitudes classes usually have 10-20 participants.
• Anthem Strong Families takes a behavioral approach to relationship education and life skills. Participants look at their formative environment, attitudes and emotions as a component of making real behavior change. The classes are all interrelated; for example, the topic of “emotional triggers” will be discussed in the anger management class, the parenting class and the finance class. “There is so much overlap between the classes, it’s constantly reinforcing the basic principles all day long so people leave and feel a lot more confident that they understand their situation and have new tools to decide what they can do differently,” says Shade.
• The Money Habitudes activity occupies the majority of the 3-hour Level II finance class.
• The class begins with quick ice breakers and discussion about the money messages people receive. One quick ice breaker is to share “What would you say to money and what would money say to you, if it could talk?”
• After the facilitator asks the class some quick money personality questions and introduces the idea of different money personalities, each participant gets a deck of Money Habitudes cards and does the basic sorting activity. Students then get to see and interpret their own money personality.
• This then leads to group discussion about how people see and use money. Group discussion and sharing life experiences play a large role in all of Anthem Strong Families’ classes. The curriculum stresses activity and engagement over lectures.
• The goal of the Level II finance class is that students will have a sense of self-awareness about their finances and the financial habits and attitudes that underlie their financial behaviors. After that class, some students ask for and receive referrals to other resources and agencies that may be able to help them with specific financial issues.
• The Level III COATS Program is available to those who have completed Level I and II classes and meet additional pre-screening criteria. This program is geared toward workforce development and overcoming barriers to employment, including: criminal records, homelessness, addiction or substance abuse, etc. Anthem Strong Families’ Level III Program also offers TYRO Champion Training and Job Ethics Training, best practice programs from The Ridge Project. The Level III program provides ongoing case management to participants, as well as referrals and access to additional resources.
• Data from the last six months of finance classes shows:
  1. 77% of attendees felt “more confident” in making “decisions about family finances” after taking the class.
  2. 63% of attendees said they became more aware that their “spending habits affect their children.”

Why:

• “If something is an ingrained part of your personality, we want people to have a real understanding about it. You don’t just wake up and that’s the way you are; we’re looking at how people develop over time and how they form their beliefs and behaviors,” says Shade.
• Shade added, “We could write you a prescription and we can tell you ‘do this, do this and do this’ but unless you understand why you need to do it, and why it’s valuable to you, and what the benefits are of doing it another way, we find that people will probably just go back to the easy, default pattern they’ve established. We want to help people expand their thinking so they’re not stuck in the same old mentality.”
• “People come away from the finance class with a better understanding of themselves: of their money personality, of their spending habits, what their financial habits are, why they are the way they are with money and whether that will help them reach their goals,” Shade explained.
• “Everything we do is geared toward activities and group discussion; it’s not just someone standing in front of a room lecturing to you for six or eight hours. We try really hard to make sure that everything we do is interactive and hands-on. And we want it to be fun too. We know participants are giving up their time to be there and we want it to be an enjoyable experience. For us, Money Habitudes has been a really fun way to drive the points home and people get excited about it. People really get into it and it infuses energy and enthusiasm into the rest of the class. On the feedback forms for the finance classes, what we always get back is, ‘Loved the cards,’ ‘The cards were my favorite part,'” Shade noted.