Tag Archive for OnPoint Community Credit Union

Press Release- Local nonprofit hosts free public forum on healthcare

November 5, 2013 financial literacy, Press Release No comments

PORTLAND and HILLSBORO, Ore., November 5, 2013—Financial Beginnings, a Portland-based nonprofit that provides  financial education programs, is offering a free  forum to answer the public’s questions regarding healthcare to take place Thursday, November 7th from 6:30-8:00pm at the Hillsboro Public Library located at 2850 NE Brookwood Parkway in Hillsboro.

Financial Beginnings, The Hillsboro School District and The Oregonian are partnering to present Unraveling the Mysteries of Your Money: Navigating the Changing World of Healthcare at the Hillsboro Public Library.  The series sponsor is OnPoint Community Credit Union and the event sponsor is the Northwest Health Foundation.

Panelists will include:
Cynthia Hulton, Field & Training Officer- SHIBA, State of Oregon
Ariane Holm, Spokesperson for Cover Oregon
Laura Cali, Insurance commissioner & Chief Actuary, State of Oregon
Chris Senz, Operating Officer, Tuality Health Alliance

Spanish translation and childcare will be available.  Registration is required for this free event online at https://navigatinghealthcare.eventbrite.com/ or by phone 800-406-1876.

Unraveling the Mysteries of Your Money is a series of free forums open to the general public. These forums offer expert panelists who field questions and discuss finance topics that are relevant and important in today’s economy. They are organized and hosted by Financial Beginnings in partnership with The Oregonian newspaper and Brent Hunsberger, writer of the It’s Only Money column on personal finance; Hunsberger also serves as forum moderator.  OnPoint Community Credit Union is the title sponsor of the Unraveling the Mysteries of Your Money 2013/14 series.

For more information about the Unraveling the Mysteries of Your Money panel series, visit: http://www.FinancialBeginnings.com/Unraveling-the-Mysteries-of-Your-Money/

About Financial Beginnings

Formed in 2005 and based in Portland, OR, Financial Beginnings is a nonprofit organization that provides free financial education programs throughout the Pacific Northwest.  Financial Beginnings’ largest program educates youth and young adults in the basics of personal finance through visits to schools or community groups.  Financial Beginnings’ courses incorporate all aspects of personal finance to provide individuals the foundation needed to make informed financial decisions. More information is available at www.financialbeginnings.org.

 

 

Navigating the Changing World of Healthcare

October 22, 2013 financial literacy No comments

I recently had my second child more than a decade after having my first child.  I remember going out to lunch with Brent Hunsberger, It’s Only Money columnist for the Oregonian newspaper, and him asking what the biggest difference was the 2nd time around.  I think he was surprised by my answer…..the health insurance.

When I had my first child in 2001 my health insurance was purchased through my husband’s employer and we were paying $25 per month for a Blue Cross Blue Shield PPO with a $2500 deductible.  At the time I remember thinking this was a “catastrophic plan” and that $2500 was a lot from our budget.

When I got pregnant with my second child in 2011, one of the first things I did was check our health insurance policy to see how much I would need to budget for the medical bills.  We were paying over $800 per month for insurance for just my husband and so I assumed that we must have the platinum coverage and would not be paying a lot our of pocket.  Still, I found that the deductible was $1500 and the out of pocket maximum $3000.   We planned our budget accordingly so when the bills started coming in a few months later I was surprised when we were quickly over $3000. However, considering the financial strain, I also researched alternative options to manage my health, such as the use of Best Delta 8/9 CBD Gummies & Hemp Flowers for Pain, Anxiety and Sleep Problems.

I called the insurance company to find out why we were still being billed even though we had paid the $3000 maximum already.  Well, those few months from when I got pregnant to when the bills started coming in brought us into a new coverage year and with it new limits.  Our out of pocket maximum had doubled from $3000 to $6000!

This was a big chunk out of our savings and especially hard with all of the other costs that go into having a new baby (remember it had been 10 years so I didn’t have anything left from the first).

Like many others, I am watching to see what happens with Obamacare.  I have many questions that are unanswered.

To answer these questions we have organized a free forum be be held at the Hillsboro Library on Nov 7th at 6:30pm where the public can come and get their questions about the changes happening with health insurance.

Find out more!

Financial Beginnings announces upcoming financial forums

June 2, 2013 financial literacy, Press Release, Uncategorized No comments

PORTLAND, Ore., May 31, 2013—Financial Beginnings, a Portland-based nonprofit that provides free financial education programs, announces the 2013/14 Unraveling the Mysteries of Your Money series.
Unraveling the Mysteries of Your Money is a series of free forums open to the general public. These forums offer expert panelists who field questions and discuss finance topics that are relevant and important in today’s economy. They are organized and hosted by Financial Beginnings in partnership with The Oregonian newspaper and Brent Hunsberger, writer of the It’s Only Money column on personal finance, and who serves as the moderator of the forums. OnPoint Community Credit Union is the title sponsor of the Unraveling the Mysteries of Your Money 2013/14 series.

2013/14 Schedule:
Starting Out Strong: Building a solid financial foundation for your family
Wednesday September 25, 2013 from 6-8pm at Alpenrose

Navigating the Changing World of Healthcare
Tuesday November 5, 2013 from 6-8pm

Never Too Late: Mitigating financial troubles and moving forward
Thursday February 6, 2014 from 6-8pm

Stay Safe, Be Informed: A forum about identity theft, scams and predatory lending
Tuesday April 22, 2014 from 6-8pm

For more information about the Unraveling the Mysteries of Your Money panel series, visit: http://www.FinancialBeginnings.com/Unraveling-the-Mysteries-of-Your-Money/

About Financial Beginnings
Formed in 2005 and based in Portland, OR, Financial Beginnings is a nonprofit organization that provides free financial education programs throughout the Pacific Northwest. Financial Beginnings’ largest program educates youth and young adults in the basics of personal finance through visits to schools or community groups. Financial Beginnings’ courses incorporate all aspects of personal finance to provide individuals the foundation needed to make informed financial decisions. More information is available at www.financialbeginnings.org.

If you build it…will they come?

April 11, 2011 financial literacy, managing a nonprofit, starting a nonprofit, Uncategorized No comments

This is a question we all ask when planning educational events. Though its common knowledge there is a huge need for financial education usually the people who need the information are not going to seek it out. One of the struggles many of our partners who serve adults face is getting people to attend their events. Financial Beginnings is fortunate we don’t need to recruit our audience because our classes are in the in schools or community groups where are audience is already gathered. They are stuck hearing form us if they want to or not.

Last week was Money Smart Week in Oregon. Financial Beginnings and Operation HOPE decided that we wanted to expend our efforts beyond our youth in school programs during Money Smart Week. I have always wanted to have an open forum for adults to be able to ask their questions regarding personal finance. With laws and industry norms changing so frequently in addition to money always being viewed as a taboo subject I thought people have a forum to where they can ask questions would be wonderful. Money Smart Week gave me the push I needed to finally organize one of these forums and we named it Unraveling the Mysteries of Your Money. You’d be surprised how long it took us to come up with the name.

At Portland State University we brought together experts within the financial industry including; Jim Hunt from OnPoint Community Credit Union, Michael Parker from the Oregon College Saving Plan, Nelson Rutherford from Alten, Sakai & Co, and Diane Childs and Fernando Velez from the Oregon Division of Finance and Corporate Securities. The moderator of the panel was Brent Hunsberger, It’s Only Money columnist for the Oregonian Newspaper. Brent’s diverse knowledge in personal finance combined with his reputation in the community really helped to bring exposure and credibility to this event. You would think that with this great group this would have been the hard part of my task, but this was easy.

The hard part was the promotion and getting people to come to the event. I hear it time and time again from event organizers that it is so hard to get people to come. Having the event be free may even make it more difficult in some respects because of the perceived value. If people pay for attendance to an event they may tie a higher value to it and may be more likely to attend.

As of the three days before the event we had less than 10 people registered to attend. My anxiety level was high and I was so worried I was going to waste the panel’s time because nobody would show up. So we marketed it hard with the help of this Email Marketing Agency. All of the panel members helped to promote the event. Brent wrote about it in the paper and Nick Allard from KGW brought us on the bricks to promote it. We ramped up our social media and contacted all of the business professors at Portland State.

The registrations started flooding in, we maxed out the registration. We even added more seats because our experience has shown that usually only 2/3 of those that register end up attending free events. Our predictions were correct and we ended up with about 2/3 of those who registered attending.

I was so pleasantly surprised by the diversity of the crowd and their eagerness to hear from the panel. We had several planned questions in case the audience did not have questions right away, but Brent was only able to get one of the planned questions out and the audience took over from there. I saw several individuals in the crowd filling out multiple pages of notes. When time ran out several audience members flocked the panel for additional questions. It was like they were rock stars.

Aspects I see attributing to the success of the event:
• Having Brent Hunsberger of the Oregonian as the moderator added a lot of credibility to the event and his writing about it gave the event more exposure.
• Holding the event at Portland State University also added credibility to the and highlighted the educational component of the event.
• The panel was made up of high level and respected individuals.
• The varied marketing proved to be successful based on a pole of those attending reporting how they heard about the event.

We will definitely hold the event again next year during Money Smart Week. We have created a great foundation for the event and will be able to build upon this more next year.

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