Meet a TAP client - My Money Workshop

Working with TAP

A successful not-for-profit organization often starts with the vision of one person. In the case of My Money Workshop, Dick Yaffa noticed that young people were entering the working world without any understanding of personal finance. These young adults had no idea about budgeting, saving for retirement, or the dos and don’ts of using credit cards.

Personal finance is just that – it’s personal and it affects each one of us. And yet, for many of us, it is is complex and overwhelming.

So in 2009, Yaffa created a financial literacy workshop and tested it with one group of seniors at Sarah Lawrence College.

Almost 10 years later, with its team of  tremendous volunteers and partnerships with high schools, colleges, and community organizations in the tri-state area, My Money Workshop has introduced thousands of people to the world of personal finance. But despite the number of people who have taken the workshop, Rob Yaffa, chairman of the Board of Directors, was frustrated by the pace of growth. As the founder’s son, he was deeply committed to his father’s vision and he wanted My Money Workshop to be able to reach more individuals.

The problem was that like many nonprofit organizations, My Money Workshop’s nimble staff wore many hats and handled all of the workshop scheduling, client outreach, volunteer coordination, fundraising and social media. The overwhelming daily workload prevented the organization from focusing on long-term growth strategies. In spring 2018, when Rob Yaffa reached out, TAP was ready to help.

What did TAP do?  We listened. And we learned. We learned that My Money Workshop needed help developing their corps of volunteer instructors. They wanted a better way to get feedback from the people who participated in their workshops. They wanted more people to know about them.

TAP helped My Money Workshop by thinking about how they could accomplish these goals with their limited staff and budget. TAP provided research on how My Money Workshop could target new volunteers and wrote a Volunteer Handbook to help bring them on. TAP also created survey templates that My Money Workshop could then develop for use with their participants and identified tools to help them understand the survey data. Finally, TAP recommended ways to reach more people through social media and by using the expansive network of My Money Workshop’s board members. Net result?  My Money Workshop is positioned to continue Dick Yaffa’s legacy well into the future.