This report is authored by the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada.

Report name

Counting Change: A Measurement Plan for the National Financial Literacy Strategy 2021-2026

Who wrote this report?

This report is authored by the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC). FCAC is responsible for protecting financial consumers by strengthening the financial literacy of Canadians and supervising federally regulated financial entities, such as banks.

Introductory Text

In 2021, the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) published the National Financial Literacy Strategy - a 5-year plan to create a more accessible, inclusive, and effective financial literacy ecosystem for all Canadians. 

The National Strategy provides guidance on how financial literacy stakeholders—from government, community groups, non-profit organizations, or industry—can work together to help consumers achieve positive financial outcomes and build financial resilience.

However, it is not enough to solely implement initiatives that align with the National Strategy. To really understand if our initiatives are collectively making a difference and helping Canadians, we need to measure their impact.

The National Financial Literacy Strategy Measurement Plan helps guide financial literacy ecosystem stakeholders through the basic steps they can take to measure the impact of their financial literacy activities.

Best quote

The Strategy and Measurement Plan are intended to leverage the many strengths of stakeholders across the country to help gain collective agreement about how to evaluate and improve the financial resilience of Canadians.

**Key takeaways: **

  • Only through measuring outcomes can we test and verify that our initiatives are working to improve the financial lives of Canadians.
  • By sharing results, we can gain collective understanding and work together to scale-up initiatives that are helping Canadians and refine or stop initiatives that are not helping.
  • The National Financial Literacy Strategy Measurement Plan guides financial ecosystem stakeholders through basic steps for how to measure the impact of financial literacy activities through the lens of the National Strategy.

What’s in this report?

The Measurement Plan provides a step-by-step guide for how stakeholders can participate in advancing the National Strategy and measure the tangible outcomes and impacts of their financial literacy initiatives.

The Measurement Plan also includes two online tools to help stakeholders with their measurement:

  1. Measures Library: An online repository that stakeholders can browse to find existing measures that are aligned with the National Strategy and can be easily incorporated into their initiatives to measure financial literacy outcomes.
  2. **Measurement Plan Intake Form: **An online submission form that stakeholders can use to share their measures and high-level results with FCAC. Submitted results will be rolled up into high-level indicators and shared publicly so that we can collectively track our progress on advancing the priorities of the National Strategy.

The Measurement Plan also profiles organisations who have signed on as Early Adopters and are working to advance the National Strategy through measuring the outcomes of their initiatives.

Why should you read this report?

The National Strategy emphasizes the need to use an evidence-based approach to understand whether our financial literacy initiatives are leading to positive financial outcomes. In other words, we need to measure our outcomes so that we can work together as an ecosystem to scale up initiatives that are helping Canadians and refine or stop initiatives that are not helping.

The Measurement Plan provides stakeholders with a guided approach to measurement. Through using the Measurement Plan we can collectively, as an ecosystem, ensure that we are measuring the true impact of our actions towards achieving the goals of the National Strategy.

Who is this report for?

This report is meant for everyone in the financial ecosystem who can play a role in building the financial resilience of Canadians. This includes governments and regulators, financial services industry, financial literacy community groups, and researchers and academics.

Measuring outcomes benefits everyone in the ecosystem. We are calling on all ecosystem stakeholders to join FCAC in using the Measurement Plan to advance the National Strategy, help build the financial resilience of Canadians, and make change that counts.

🔗 Read the full report here. 🔗

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