Group 4 Finance Brochure

By Connor Neal, Lydia Linke,

John Valdez, Alex Hartle

November 15, 2015

Date:
To:

From:
Subject:

November 15, 2015

Amy May
Project Director
Washington State University, Global Campus
Lydia Linke, Connor Neal, Alex Hartle, John Valdez
Collaborative Repurposing Project Report

Attached is the report from our collaborative effort to create a financial education brochure. We
familiarized ourselves with the content and the need for financial education through research.
From our research we learned that college students seemed to lack basic financial education that
they needed for their current and future professional lives. Each team member shared the results
of their research by creating a three source annotated bibliography. After that, we completed all
the tasks described in our progress memo sent on November 8, 2015. The brochure contains a
condensed overview of financial education information. Through the creation of the brochure we
learned that there was a limited amount of information that could be told through the context of a
brochure. Future recommendations involve researching how to effectively distribute and market
the brochure. We appreciate the time that you have taken to read our report and hope you will
consider it. If you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions please feel free to contact us
through our email on Washington State Universitys Blackboard.

Table of Contents
Executive Summary... 4
Introduction .... 4
Research Methods .. 5
Results 7
Conclusion .. 8
Recommendations .. 8
References...10
Appendices... 9

Executive Summary
College students seem to lack the basic financial education that they need for their current and
future professional lives. This lack of early financial education has the potential to decrease their
total financial potential earnings because of possible financial mistakes they may make early on
in life. In hopes to counteract early misconceptions and future financial mistakes our group
sought to educate college aged students, aged 18-25, using a financial education brochure. This
brochure covers basic elements such as using a budget, an explanation of compound interest,
why saving and budgeting is important for retirement, and the impact of school loans. While this
brochure is a quick and easy way to reach college students, the brevity of the brochure makes the
information somewhat lacking. Hopefully, the information is eye catching enough to spark
college students interest and motivates the students to seek more financial education.

Introduction
Financial illiteracy is a growing problem that many developed countries are currently facing. The
United States currently faces a growing population of retirees that have not properly saved for
retirement. This leads to less ability to pay for services and lower overall quality of living in
older age (Lusardi, et al., 2007). Financial education courses can help combat the problem, but
require sustained teaching to make the concepts stick and become useful (Lusardi, et al., 2007).
One study found that college students are the more receptive to these classes than high schoolers
because of their increased experience in financial situations (Peng. et al., 2007).
This led us to create a brochure introducing financial education for students. The target audience
for the finance brochure is college age students, around 18-25. The brochure will have the most
impact on this group because they are heavily targeted, freshly independent, and the most
susceptible to reckless spending and poor investing.
The goal of the financial education brochure was to educate students on basic financial concepts,
provide useful knowledge and incite readers to seek further information. This goal was
accomplished by giving a brief overview of a variety of financial concepts, ranging from basics
like compound interest, budget, saving for retirement and the financial impact of college loans.
This information will help the target audience by giving information that can help them make
better spending and investing decisions.

Research Methods
We chose the intended audience of our collaborative repurposing project to be college students.
The reason we decided to focus our financial education brochure on this group is because
financial education would be very useful to people that are just starting careers and beginning to
become financially independent. People in this group typically have student loans debt as well
and will need to begin managing their finances around this time.
There were many things to consider in order for the financial education brochure to be a
successful project. Apart from needing to have the most beneficial and correct information for
our target audience, having an appealing document to look at was important.
We ultimately divided our project into 5 tasks:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Find three relevant sources and create an annotated bibliography

Add sources and check the sources for accuracy
Create a rough draft of the brochure
Final design of the brochure
Group consensus

Having the project be divided into these tasks ensured that there was constant progress so that the
project could be completed in a reasonable amount of time. It was also used to divide the tasks
among our four group members. The process of completing the project is detailed below:
Task 1: Find three relevant sources and create an annotated bibliography
We began our research by obtaining relevant sources of information that would be essential to
have on an educational brochure that would work well for our intended audience. Each of the
team members in our group found three sources that they considered to be the most useful and
created an annotated bibliography. This was helpful for looking through all of the sources in
order to choose the best ones for our purposes. Our sources that we found could be broken down
into the following categories:

U.S. Government Websites that focused on money management and student loans
Articles that discuss financial literacy among different age groups
Articles that detail surveys about financial literacy among college students

Task 2: Add sources and check the sources for accuracy

At this point we had our varied list of sources that we could review. We then needed to discuss
which of those topics to be the most important to include in our brochure. Having each of the

four annotated bibliographies to review made the task of choosing content straightforward and
without much difficulty.
After having the sources and topics that we felt worked well for the project, it was important that
we checked them for accuracy. Having the most accurate financial information was essential to
making a beneficial educational brochure. Checking the information for accuracy was
accomplished by comparing the information to multiple sources.
Task 3: Create a rough draft of the brochure
The purpose of this task was to present the information that we wanted to include into a brochure
template and finalize the layout of our product. We started by looking at various websites and
software applications with brochure templates. We considered Microsoft applications and several
websites. One of the websites that stood out was Easel.ly. This website is an infographic creation
tool that offered many differently designed templates to choose from.
We then had to decide on which template we thought would work well for our needs. From here,
we organized the content that we decided to include onto the brochure.
Task 4: Final design of the brochure
After having completed the rough draft of the brochure, the task was to now finalize our choices.
It was important that we verified that we met the requirements we needed in order to be sure we
hadnt left anything out, and if we did, to fix any problems that we encountered.
Apart from reviewing the technical requirements of the brochure, this task was also created in
order to give another chance to review the overall design of our product. This included checking
for consistent spacing, text size, image size, and color choices.
Task 5: Group consensus
The last task that we created for this project was a final verification to conclude that we finished
all the requirements for our brochure. It was important to have a consensus among all members
of the group that all of the information that we want to include was present and was shown in a
way that we all agreed on. It was also important that each of us checked that there were no errors
in formatting of the content and that all of the content was clear and readable before we
submitted our product.

Results
The attached repurposed project we developed was a brochure aimed at supplying basic financial
information to college students around the age of 18-25. It will supply basic financial
information to help young students make smart decisions relating to money, covering topics like
saving and budgeting, compound interest, and student loans. All of this financial advice was to
be supplied in a simple, eye-catching format that would stick to readers as they absorbed the
information.
Task 1: Find three relevant sources and create an annotated bibliography
The resources that were found covered much of what we needed. The articles and surveys we
found from primary studies provided a general understanding for the type of information that we
needed to educate our readers. The government resources such as 360financialliteracy.org and
MyMoney.gov were good resources for getting basic financial information in a simplified
manner. The website studentaid.ed.gov proved to cover the topics of student loans completely in
what was required to gain government student loans and financial aid and described what steps
were needed to repay those loans. A few of our other academic articles pointed towards the large
financial literacy problem countrywide, but more specifically, high school and college students
(Peng, et al., 2007). This helped further reinforce our target audience of college-age students.
Another article surveyed over 42000 college students and a majority responded that they felt less
prepared for managing money than any other aspect of college life (Bidwell, 2015).
Task 2: Add sources and check the sources for accuracy
For our background research, we used reliable peer-reviewed sources that provided reasonable
conclusions on the state of financial literacy for college aged students. For brochure information,
we provided a few helpful financial .gov sites for various situations. These provide reliable
information and helpful tools for navigating complicated processes like students loans and
retirement savings (See Appendix i).
Task 3: Create a rough draft of the brochure
We chose a brochure template that we thought was eye catching and would appeal to our
audience. After that we began organizing the information that we thought was most important.
Finally, we created a brochure that was ready for finalization to ensure a professional, eye
catching, and readable brochure.

Task 4: Final design of the brochure

This task was accomplished by ensuring that all the requirements for an accurate and readable
brochure were met. We ensured that all the details were presented in an accurate and professional
manner, and that the brochure showed a cohesive message. In between our rough draft and final
draft, we decided to change from a one-sided to a two-sided brochure in order to communicate
the information more effectively. This gave us the space to elaborate more on topics and provide
helpful websites to the reader.
Task 5: Group consensus
Each of the group members reviewed the document and checked brochure guidelines to ensure
that the product was appropriate, professional, and readable. Each of the members signed off on
the document and gave their approval before the document was sent in for review.

Conclusion
The general conclusion is that the finance brochure serves its purpose well enough, but isnt a
platform that can effectively make an impact on the larger problem by itself. Our initial research
led us to some helpful studies and a few helpful sites for the basics. The research pointed to a
serious worldwide problem in financial literacy and the problems that could have on generations.
This further affirmed our target of college age students because the brochure had the highest
potential to affect this group. One of our academic articles also emphasized consistent education
on finance in order to make it habit (Lusardi, et al., 2007). With the limited space of a brochure,
it quickly became a question of which information is the most vital for a college student. We
decided that budgeting, retirement savings, compound interest, and student loans were the topics
we would cover. We found reliable information and graphics from 360financialliteracy.com and
other .gov websites, while the tools from Easel.ly provided us with the means to make an
informative brochure. Overall, the brochure provides useful information but the platform itself
doesnt allow much for in-depth explanations on topics.
Recommendations
When looking at our repurposed project the brochure provides some useful information. It ends
up covering many of the basic important topics that are needed for young college students and
provides important basic facts relating to things like what compound interest really means and
how making a budget can change spending, but has its drawbacks. The limited nature of a
brochure causes it to lose the possibility of explaining concepts in action. The brochure can state
how compound interest increases greater and greater over time but without the ability to show it
happening through a video or in person it loses some of the impact of how important compound

interest really is. Also, the brochure alone doesnt entice the reader to actively seek more
financial information which leads to it being somewhat ineffective. Most research points to
consistent distribution of the information leading to retention. Reading a few facts and graphs
generally dont stick in the long run. Still, this brochure does provide good information, and may
serve as a stepping stone to further knowledge for those with ambition to seek it. Another future
recommendation would be to consider how to properly distribute the brochure. For our project,
we were tasked only with creating the brochure, but further repurposing of this project would
require intense examination into effectively distributing it to the target audience.

Works Cited
Bidwell, Allie. "Lacking Financial Literacy." U.S. News Digital Weekly 7.14 (2015): 5.
Academic Search Complete. Web. 6 Nov. 2015.
Lusardi, Annamaria and Mitchell, Olivia. Financial Literacy and Retirement Preparedness:
Evidence and Implications for Financial Education Programs. Business Economics. 42.1 (2007):
35-44. Web. Nov 6 2015.
Michael, Schramm. "College prep starts with Finance 101." USA Today n.d.: Academic Search
Complete. Web. 6 Nov. 2015.
"Financial Literacy Now Part Of Classroom Instruction." Community College Week 28.1
(2015): 11. Academic Search Complete. Web. 6 Nov. 2015.
Peng, Tzu-Chin et. al. The Impact of Finance Education Delivered in High School and College
Courses. Journal of Family and Economic Issues. 28.2 (2007): 265-284. Web. 4 Nov. 2015.

Appendix i: Websites Used For Financial Education Brochure

Mymoney.gov
whttps://www.sec.gov/investor/students/tips.htm
ww.dol.gov/ebsa/publications/10_ways_to_prepare.html
https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/types/loans

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Appendix ii: Financial Education Brochure

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