The eXtension Financial Security for All community of practice has received the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman’s Award for Innovation in Financial Education.

North Dakota State University Extension Service family economics specialist Debra Pankow led the multistate effort to develop Financial Security for All, one of eXtension’s first communities of practice, or resource areas.

NDSU is among 74 land-grant universities throughout the U.S. that were involved in creating eXtension (pronounced E-extension). It is an online portal to an interactive learning environment that provides reliable information based on solid research and trustworthy, field-tested data. It complements and enhances the Extension Service’s community-based programming.

Financial Security for All includes learning tools, interactive financial calculators and answers to hundreds of frequently asked questions. It also has an Ask an Expert feature, which allows people to ask a question and an Extension professional will respond within 48 hours.

This community of practice provides people with virtual access to more than 300 personal financial educators.

“I was honored to accept this award for the Financial Security for All community of practice,” Pankow says. “Recognition by our financial education peers and partners is particularly meaningful as we continue to develop unbiased and timely educational resources to reach consumers with just-in-time, quality education to help them make important financial decisions.”

The nonmonetary FDIC Chairman’s Award recognizes excellence and innovation in financial education and highlights potentially replicable programs. Recipients were selected on factors such as whether they used creative or novel approaches and captured new or nontraditional audiences, and the measures they used to determine effectiveness.

Financial Security for All was one of six organizations or individuals selected to receive a Chairman’s Award.

Pankow and Deb Gebeke, the NDSU Extension Service’s assistant director of family and consumer sciences, were in Washington, D.C., to receive the award at the National Press Club on Thursday.

For more information about the Financial Security for All community of practice, visit http://www.extension.org/personal%20finance.

NDSU Agriculture Communication