United States Department of the Treasury

Our Client's Challenge:

The U.S. Department of the Treasury turned to Hager Sharp to bring life to the community outreach initiatives of the Electronic Funds Transfer Public Education Campaign. The Treasury's goal was to convert paper check benefit recipients to EFT (direct deposit to most of us). Its diverse audience of some 18 million people included approximately 9 million without a banking relationship. To meet the challenge, Hager Sharp supported a coalition of organizations that developed financial literacy education materials for community-based organizations. We then developed and implemented a campaign to enlist partners to deliver programs in church basements, community centers, senior centers and other settings. Partner agency Earle Palmer Brown supported the effort with public service advertising and materials development.

The Difference:

We developed and staffed a field operation working in five regions across the country to deliver train-the-trainer programs and invigorate partnership outreach.

We enlisted more than 1,500 partner organizations, ranging from the National Association of Community Action Agencies and AARP to the Wisconsin Indian Elders Association in Lac du Flambeau, WI and the New Bethel Baptist Church in Harvey, LA.

We developed specific partner outreach strategies to reach American Indians, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, people with disabilities and Veterans. Based on partnership outreach, materials were developed in Braille, on tape and in Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean and Russian.

Train-the-trainer programs were conducted over 900 times, and, in turn, trained organizations conducted more than 3,500 programs for members of target audiences.

To date, more than one million check recipients have received information about new choices for receiving federal benefits and participation in EFT programs has grown from 68 percent of all benefit checks to 75 percent.