The FEC Movement

Financial Empowerment Centers offer professional, one-on-one financial counseling as a free public service to enable residents to address their financial challenges and needs and plan for their futures. Nearly three dozen local governments across the country are already deploying more than 150 trained financial counselors to support clients’ banking, credit, debt, savings, and legacy planning goals. In partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies, and with additional generous support from Principal Foundation and the Wells Fargo Foundation, the CFE Fund supports cohorts of local government leaders through FEC Academy to develop, launch, and implement financial counseling as a free public service, along with fielding strategic pilot and research projects to enhance program success.

The FEC Model

The Financial Empowerment Center model has operated municipal free services for fifteen years, and across nearly three dozen operational FECs has worked with more than 201,000 clients, helping them reduce debt by more than $344 million, and increase savings by $69 million.

The core tenets of the FEC model are:

  • Financial counseling is provided as a no cost public service, with counseling delivered one-on-one to empower clients to address complex financial challenges.
  • Counselors are professionally trained according to the CFE Fund’s rigorous FEC Counselor Training Standards and a Code of Ethics and Professional Practices.
  • Counseling services are managed through rigorous data; the central FEC database collects over 200 client data points, and impact is measured against specific financial behavior change outcomes.
  • Because financial instability impacts the need for, and success of, other social services, strategic FEC partnerships with other services such as housing and foreclosure prevention, workforce development, prisoner reentry, and benefits access are critical.
  • Financial counseling serves a critical public need, and local government oversight provides for credibility, accountability, scale, and program sustainability.
Financial counselors are highly trained professionals who will work with you to identify goals and create a customized action plan to build your finances. Counselors can work with you on managing your money, creating a budget, paying down debt, increasing savings, establishing and building credit, opening a safe and affordable bank or credit union account, preparing for legacy planning, and protecting your assets. You can meet with your financial counselor as many times as you’d like; counseling is available at no cost and confidential, regardless of income or immigration status. FEC counselors can work with you to:
  • Budget: Counselors can help you build a realistic budget to achieve your goals, such as building emergency savings, planning for a new apartment, or buying a car.
  • Improve your credit: Counselors can pull your credit report for free and file disputes for you to improve your score.
  • Pay off your debt: Counselors can work with you to create a plan to pay down your debt and resolve any delinquent accounts.
  • Manage student loans: Counselors can review your loans and help find repayment and refinancing options that make sense for your individual situation.
  • Plan for college: Counselors can provide guidance on safe and affordable options to pay for college, including budgeting, savings, and student loans.
  • Navigate bankruptcy: Counselors can help you understand the bankruptcy process, what to expect, and how it might impact your financial situation.
  • Purchase a home: Counselors can help you set up personalized goals that will bring you one step closer to becoming a homeowner, including improving your credit and paying off debt to get an affordable mortgage, and building your savings to cover costs and fees.
  • Prepare for legacy planning: Counselors can help you identify assets and prepare to take action to protect and/or transfer assets.
  • Protect assets: Counselors can provide resources to help you create formal documentation of asset ownership and/or asset transfer instructions.
  • Plan for retirement: Counselors can help you to understand common retirement vehicles and how to find a financial planner to learn more about investments.
Click on your city or county below to learn more and make an appointment with the Financial Empowerment Center.

The FEC Counselor Training Process 

Each FEC Planning Partner trains their financial counselors in accordance with the requirements and competencies detailed in the CFE Fund’s FEC Counselor Training Standards. The Standards delineate the breadth and depth of the financial content areas, counseling and coaching skills, practice and experiential learning, code of ethics mandates, and socio-economic and cultural context setting necessary to serve the diverse needs and backgrounds of FEC clients.

FEC Partner

FEC Partners

Planning Partners

By attending FEC Academy, local governments and their partners work toward launching a public financial counseling program using the FEC model.

  • Buffalo, NY
  • Charleston, SC
  • Clarksville, TN
  • Cuyahoga County, OH
  • Evanston, IL
  • Howard County, MD
  • Leon County, FL
  • Los Angeles, CA
  • Nashua, NH
  • Norfolk, VA
  • Phoenix, AZ
  • Salinas, CA
  • Salt Lake City, UT
  • Santa Fe, NM
  • South San Francisco, CA
  • St. Louis, MO
  • Tempe, AZ
  • Tucson, AZ
  • Waco, TX

Implementation Partners

FEC Public Funders

Join the FEC Public Movement

The CFE Fund’s FEC Public partners are supporting the scaling and growth of this impactful, innovative public service.

Join us!