The City of Columbus has been selected to receive over two years of funding and technical support to develop and launch free financial empowerment programming for Columbus residents.
Columbus will receive support from the national Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund to implement a plan for investing in free, one-on-one, professional financial counseling as a public service for residents, particularly those who have been financially impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.
“The global pandemic exposed the depth of the racial divide in our community, and we know that we will only recover if we do so equitably,” said Mayor Andrew Ginther in a press release. “Which is why financial counseling is so critically important at this time and why I am committed to moving this work forward as part of my Equity Agenda.”
Columbus is one of five municipal governments selected to receive a grant and technical assistance to launch a local plan for financial counseling access through the national Financial Empowerment Fund Public platform, which “promotes scale and sustainability for the growing movement of professional, one-on-one financial counseling as a free public service.”
Thirty other local governments are already working to offer FEC’s services, which are said to work for residents with even very low incomes and other complex financial challenges.
“This grant is a natural next step as we work to level the playing field for every family in our community through last year’s release of the Financial Empowerment Roadmap and the previous launch of the Financial Navigator program,” said City Council President Pro Tempore Elizabeth Brown. “We continue to be motivated by the fact that women and woman-headed families—particularly women of color—experience the greatest financial vulnerability of all Columbus residents.”
For more information on the Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund, visit cfefund.org.