Describe the program's most important achievements and lessons learned:
Achievements
Wi$eUp is a demonstration project. Since its inception in 2004, over 9,164 women have registered for the project. As a result of their participation in Wi$eUp, 69 percent of the participants have said they will take an action step to increase their financial security.
Lessons
The effectiveness of the Wi$eUp demonstration project could be expanded if participants were more engaged with the full array of Wi$eUp offerings.
Describe the challenges of the program:
The results of the evaluation indicate that many survey respondents and interviewees did not take full advantage of all Wi$eUp components and therefore did not receive the benefits that they might have realized by using those components.
Specify if the program has any internal and external evaluations, if applicable, include key findings:
Internal Evaluations: No.
External Evaluations: Yes.
An external evaluation was conducted by ERG of Lexington, Massachusetts. The evaluation found that in general survey respondents and interviewees who used components of the Wi$eUp demonstration project rated these components quite favorably, and most indicated that they increased their understanding of financial security and took actions related to the project components they used.