Financial Capability

Finan­cial capa­bil­i­ty — built in devel­op­men­tal­ly appro­pri­ate ways — pre­pares young peo­ple to make finan­cial deci­sions that are crit­i­cal for the tran­si­tion to adult­hood. The Casey Foun­da­tion’s Jim Casey Ini­tia­tive offers two inno­v­a­tive, test­ed tools that help young peo­ple tran­si­tion­ing from fos­ter care to achieve greater eco­nom­ic secu­ri­ty: the finan­cial lit­er­a­cy cur­ricu­lum Keys to Your Finan­cial Future and the Oppor­tu­ni­ty Pass­port® pro­gram. Learn about these tools to sup­port young peo­ple in prac­tic­ing the skills to save, bud­get, use main­stream finan­cial prod­ucts, build cred­it and acquire assets.

Fea­tured Resources

Keys to Your Finan­cial Future
This com­pre­hen­sive cur­ricu­lum helps young peo­ple ages 16 to 26 who are — or will soon be — fac­ing adult respon­si­bil­i­ties build the finan­cial skills they need and empow­ers them to make informed finan­cial decisions.

Oppor­tu­ni­ty Passport
Learn­ing finan­cial capa­bil­i­ty dur­ing young adult­hood can help ingrain habits of sav­ing, mon­ey man­age­ment and main­stream bank­ing for a life­time and build a path­way out of pover­ty. The Oppor­tu­ni­ty Pass­port helps young peo­ple improve their finan­cial capa­bil­i­ty when tran­si­tion­ing from fos­ter care or nav­i­gat­ing oth­er youth-serv­ing sys­tems. Resources include:

• The Oppor­tu­ni­ty Pass­port: A Path­way to Eco­nom­ic Secu­ri­ty for Youth in Fos­ter Care
  This doc­u­ment delves into what the Oppor­tu­ni­ty Pass­port pro­gram is, the suc­cess rates when the pro­gram has been imple­ment­ed and how to poten­tial­ly scale it.
• Build­ing Finan­cial Capa­bil­i­ty for Youth Tran­si­tion­ing From Fos­ter Care
  This report — pub­lished 13 years after the Oppor­tu­ni­ty Pass­port was launched — pro­vides read­ers with par­tic­i­pant sur­vey results, strate­gies for expand­ing the pro­gram frame­work and how pol­i­cy mak­ers can help strength­en finan­cial lit­er­a­cy and expe­ri­ences among youth in fos­ter care.
• Youth and Cred­it: Pro­tect­ing the Cred­it of Youth in Fos­ter Care
  This guide pro­vides a step by step process for adults work­ing with young peo­ple in fos­ter care to imple­ment the cred­it check require­ment autho­rized through fed­er­al leg­is­la­tion in 2011.
• The Oppor­tu­ni­ty Pass­port: Build­ing Assets for Youth Aging out of Fos­ter Care
  This report shares select sta­tis­tics and sto­ries from the program’s first five years.
• Endur­ing Assets: The Finan­cial Lives of Young Peo­ple Tran­si­tion­ing From Fos­ter Care
  This report exam­ines the finan­cial habits, per­spec­tives, strug­gles and suc­cess of pro­gram participants.

The Eco­nom­ic Well-Being of Youth Tran­si­tion­ing From Fos­ter Care
This research brief exam­ines employ­ment data from Oppor­tu­ni­ty Pass­port par­tic­i­pants who were at least 16 years old and com­plet­ed at least three sur­veys since 2008.