Hi there, credit union friends,
Do you know what day it is? If you guessed Wednesday, or, as Money Mammals pal Clara J. Camel and I like to call it, Hump Day, then you’re correct. But I bet you didn’t know today is also Manatee Appreciation Day!
This event was created to raise awareness for the manatee’s status as a threatened species. (Fun fact: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service removed our sirenian friend from the endangered species list in 2017. 🙌) However, I figured we could celebrate with a special edition of “Marketing Manatee Musings.”
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Our Growing Money-Smart “Community”: Let’s kick off today’s festivities by welcoming a new partner! Iowa-based Community Choice Credit Union has 8 locations in the Des Moines metro area. This institution has been helping families in The Hawkeye State for over 70 years and, as a result, boasts a membership of over 50,000.
On March 7th, Community Choice launched The Art of Allowance Project financial wellness program featuring The Money Mammals for young children and Adolescent$ for tweens and teens. This robust family platform not only engages kids of all ages but also empowers parents to be their children’s guides on the money-smart journey. And what’s more, it helps further amplify the credit union’s UNbanking approach, which is “a personality, an energy, a whatever-it-takes mentality to exceed […] members’ expectations.”
Here’s what Marketing Manager Bryce Verlinden had to say about our partnership:
“After our first meeting with […] Money Mammals, we were blown away by the amount of resources and support they offer their clients. Money Mammals is a true game changer in our marketing strategy and will help us strengthen our youth account program and our credit union as a whole!”
And Bryce and his team are hitting the proverbial ground running with promotions to support their program’s rollout:
- Hosting launch events, which they announced in their Money Mammals quarterly newsletter, at their branches 🚀
- Taking Money Mammals mascot Joe the Monkey on the road to a food truck park season opening 🚌
- Partnering with a local influencer to spread the money-smart message 🤳
- Entering all Money Mammals account holders into a drawing for a trip to a Central Florida theme park 🏰
If you’re not yet a partner and, like Community Choice, you’d like to engage kids and empower parents with The Art of Allowance Project, then let’s chat! Our nationwide network of credit unions recognizes that financial wellness solutions such as ours benefit both members and employees. So book a time here if you want to learn more about how we can help you help these individuals on their money-smart journeys.
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From Money Disaster to Money Maven: The Manatee Appreciation Day celebration continues with this month’s episode of The Art of Allowance Podcast. In it, Chief Mammal John Lanza is joined by Stacking Benjamins Podcast co-host Joe Saul-Sehy.
During the discussion, Joe shares how he approached money with his kids after his own financial faux pas. Here are some highlights:
👉 Optimizing your allowance system so your children can make low-stakes money mistakes
👉 Working your own financial failures into conversations with your kids
👉 Using the “circling back” technique to improve consumer behavior
For more on this last topic, watch the following video short. Joe recounts how his “circling back” strategy helped his twins learn from purchases that might not have been the best choices:
You can stream Joe’s full episode here. It is a must-listen for anyone worried that their past money mistakes could prevent them from being effective guides for their kids. (This Marketing Manatee included!)
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Get with the “Plans”: What party would be complete without gifts? Below you’ll find some financial learning favors for you!
We’ve long offered Money Mammals materials that can be used in the elementary classroom or the community at large. (Think after school programs, civic groups, and libraries!) These educational tools include Reading Guides, which pair with the picture books in our “Share and Save and Spend Smart” trilogy, and a Teaching Guide, which works in conjunction with our award-winning movie, Saving Money Is Fun!
After numerous requests for instructional content for tweens and teens, we’ve developed lesson plans that correspond to the first three shorts in our Adolescent$ program’s “Good Money Habits” video series:
1️⃣ Save Your Money Instead of Spending It
2️⃣ Weigh the Costs of Every Purchase or Decision
3️⃣ Set S.M.A.R.T. Financial Goals
These resources, designed for use at the middle and high school levels, feature discussion questions, in-class activities based on real-life scenarios as well as extensions and reflections that can be completed at home. All of the relevant prompts and worksheets are included, making these lesson plans valuable tools for engagement with Gen Z and Gen Alpha.
If you are already an Art of Allowance Project partner, then you can access these materials through the “Adolescent$ Lesson Plans” folder of our support drive or share them with educators and community leaders via the teacher portal of your program’s site.
Otherwise, reply to this email so we can discuss your leveraging these resources at your branches or in your community.
And as a heads up, we’ll be updating the lesson plans’ content periodically based on instructor feedback. So please encourage any teaching professionals to fill out this form once they have utilized these tools.
Well, friends, this Manatee Appreciation Day party may be over, but the money-smart fun is just getting started! Credit Union Youth Month is right around the corner, and I can’t wait to hear all about the celebrations you have planned for your young members and their families in April. I know they’re going to be “manatee”-rrific!
Until next time, here’s to putting our best fin lit flippers forward!
Erin Prim
Marketing Manatee
