Financial Health, One Step at a Time
Wykea is one of the 91 million Americans struggling with money. She lives in a multi-generational home with her grandmother, two daughters and a handful of other family members, doing whatever she can to earn a living and manage household expenses. She enrolled in trade school to become a medical assistant a few years ago, but dropped out two months before graduation to take care of her sick mother — left with a mountain of debt and no degree.
It’s been 6 years since then, and she’s getting by working short-term gigs — from temping at a pharmaceutical company to hair-braiding and selling home-cooked meals. All in all, she’s making about $7,000 per year. “I feel like I need to go back to school,” says Wykea. But until she pays off her existing student loans, taking on more debt for community college isn’t really an option.
She’s tried to improve her financial situation, but it’s hard to know where to start. “There are so many different opinions online,” she says. “It’s really hard to filter…where do I start?” Her credit score is low (below 600), and she’s depositing all the money she earns into a savings account or prepaid debit cards. It’s hard to imagine she’ll be out of debt anytime soon.
Like Wykea, millions of low-income Americans are in survival mode — struggling to make ends meet, get out of debt, and manage mounting bills. Stagnant wages, rising costs (food, education, housing), and lack of time make managing household finances a constant juggling act.
For most people, help feels out-of-reach. A simple online search of any financial topic reveals millions of results littered with financial jargon and unrealistic suggestions. Many come with high fees and predatory schemes, creating more problems than they solve. The odds are stacked, keeping many Americans stuck in a cycle of poverty.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. At IDEO.org, we believe everyone deserves to have the information they need to make good financial choices and build the future they want.
We’re building a suite of digital tools, called Steps, that helps anyone build a realistic plan to address their financial problems and gain the courage to take action.
For low-income Americans, Steps is a digital coach that diagnoses and recommends solutions to a variety of financial challenges — from managing debt and prioritizing bills to registering for housing benefits. It starts with a set of interactive guides that help anyone assess their financial health, get help paying bills, or understand how to improve their credit. Through a few simple questions, each guide is able to produce an individualized action plan and help a customer prioritize their next steps immediately — linking directly to the key resources needed and providing targeted guidance. Currently being distributed in partnership with NerdWallet, our guides are the first step in what will become an interactive tool that is holistic, personalized, and grows as you use it.
To ensure Steps has the greatest possible impact on the lives of low-income Americans, we’ve also convened a set of 18 organizations from across the country — from local nonprofits to fintech companies and a leading financial institution — whose expertise has helped shape the Steps tools. In turn, we also make every tool we create for Steps freely available online.
Over the next year, we’ll be evolving the existing Steps tools into a more robust content platform that is comprehensive and accessible to all. We’ll be piloting with nonprofit providers across the country to better integrate Steps tools into the day-to-day experience of both financial coaches and their clients. We’ll also be launching a guide builder to allow any organization serving low-income Americans to add or customize their own content — starting with translations that will make the guides accessible to new audiences and then building on them to create a rich library of guided content spanning all important financial topics.
We envision a world in which millions of Americans can move from financial distress to financial freedom one step at a time, and we’re just getting started. Email steps@ideo.org to learn how we can support financial coaches at your organization, and don’t forget to follow our journey at steps.ideo.org. We’d love to chat.
