Three ways to use the scale in your program

Evaluate and improve programs

The Financial Well-Being Scale, and the scores it generates, can help you design effective programs. Many practitioners periodically reflect on what they learn from using the scale and use this knowledge to inform their programs.  You can:

• Develop coaching prompts or materials for people based on their responses to the scale questions
• Review educational materials to see if they align with what you have learned about the financial well-being of the people you serve
• Reflect on how individuals’ financial well-being has changed over time based on program activities

Measure and compare programs

Program managers, funders, and individual financial educators use the scores to compare people in different kinds of programs. Financial well-being scores can be compared across individuals and over time, which can yield insights about people in different programs. You can:

• Discuss scores in peer networks to understand how the people you serve compare with those of other organizations providing similar services or working with similar populations
• Compare scores and responses of people being served by different programs within an organization – for example, participants in different workshops
• Compare scores to survey data, such as the FINRA Foundation’s National Financial Capability Study, the Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking (SHED), and the National Endowment for Financial Education (other surveys and data could also be helpful)

Integrate the scale with other data collection

Practitioners often collect a range of data about their clients to understand their circumstances and progress. The Financial Well-Being Scale was designed to be a complement to, not a substitute for, other program metrics and outcome measures.

Some practitioners develop their own tools, while others base their data collection on suggestions from a funder or network.

If you use the scale as part of a longer data collection process or an existing questionnaire, keep in mind a few tips:

• Use all the questions, in the same order and with the same wording, as developed by the CFPB. Altering the wording of question items or responses means losing the ability to accurately calculate a Financial Well-Being Score and use it for comparisons. If you make changes to the questions, the score results are not comparable to national survey data or to data collected by other programs.
• For a shorter questionnaire, consider the five-item scale. If the standard version of the questionnaire is too long, or if you wish to leave out individual items, consider using the abbreviated five-item version of the Financial Well-Being Scale. Again, the five items should be used exactly as worded.
• Consider calculating a score. Calculating a score lets you compare financial well-being for people over time and to others. All you need to calculate a score is the client’s responses and the scoring worksheet.
• Consider adding the score to your information systems. Many practitioners have added fields in their databases and client management systems to store scale responses and scores securely, so that coaches and program managers can review a client’s financial well-being along with other client data.