Grant to allow library to teach financial planning to community

Young adults will soon be able to receive financial guidance through a new two-year program at Monroe County Public Library.

MCPL has been awarded a $79,582 grant from Smart investing@your library, a partnership between the American Library Association and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Investor Education Foundation.

The money will be used for the library’s project “It’s Your Money,” which will educate residents ages 15 to 29 to use financial education resources to manage credit, save and investment, create a budget and make good consumer decisions, said Sarah Bowman, adult and teen programming coordinator at MCPL.

“My personal goal is the library’s goal to increase awareness that the library is a place to go to get unbiased financial information,” Bowman said. “We hope to be the destination for this information and streamline all the information.”

The project will involve the Monroe County community immediately, said Margaret Harter, community relations coordinator at MCPL.

“We have 10 community partners who are organizations in the community,” Harter said. “We want people to start to think about the library as a place to get financial information.”

The library was invited to apply by the ALA, MCPL Director Sara Laughlin said.

“That was a wonderful compliment in and of itself by just being invited,” Laughlin said. “We worked really hard on the application because financial literacy is not something that we have focused our attention on previously.”

Library staff members will be trained in how to use the new materials and how to refer
people to quality sources when they have financial questions, Laughlin said.

“We are hoping that people will become more aware that there are resources out there that can help them,” she said. “We will be investing in some new print materials, some DVD materials and some online resources that will just kind of freshen our resources in that area.”

MCPL Local Partner Organizations

Purdue University Extension-Monroe County
United Way of Monroe County
Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce
City of Bloomington Community and Family Resources Department
City of Bloomington Housing and Neighborhood Development
Ivy Tech Community College — Bloomington
Middle Way House
Monroe County Community School Corporation — Adult Education
South Central Community Action Program
Young Professionals of Bloomington