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Thrivent Financial Educational Workshops

Chapters are encouraged to conduct educational activities to attract and involve more members. By educating our members, they are able to make more informed decisions, be more financially secure and live our their values in a meaningful way. Details about and links to tools about eligible chapter educational events are available on the Chapter Educational Activities – Overview page on CHIP.

Chapter Funds May Be Used to Support Some Educational Workshops Led by Thrivent Financial Representatives
Chapter operating funds, Care Abounds in Communities® program funds can be used to support certain workshops led by Thrivent Financial representatives that educate participants about financial topics in the context of their values. Supporting these workshops provides an opportunity to appeal to a different group of members than those who volunteer. It’s also another way a chapter can have a presence in congregations and meet the needs of members in a way that directly connects with Thrivent Financial’s area of expertise.

Workshops That Can Be Supported With Chapter Funds  |  Find Events & Workshops

Chapter Participation & Promotion  |  Suggested Script for Chapter Host of Workshop

Qualified Presenters  |  How to Report

If you want to find out more about these workshops or the opportunity for your chapter to support an FR-led workshop, contact a member of your regional Lutheran Engagement Team who can connect you with a Thrivent Financial representative who would like to partner with you to offer one of these values-based educational workshops to chapter members.

Workshops That Can Be Supported with Chapter Funds
View the Thrivent Financial Educational Workshop Descriptions below for a brief description of each workshop:

Charitable Giving: How to Make a Difference by Giving Back

This workshop is for people who want to learn how being a steward of their time, talents and treasures can provide a powerful gift to their congregation or other charitable organizations they care about.

Participants will learn about:

  • Charitable giving financial tools that may reduce their taxes and supplement their retirement income.
  • Ways they can leave a charitable legacy as well as opportunities to give back in other ways.

Audience: Pre-retired and retired are primary, but is appropriate for all ages.
Length: 50 minutes

College Matters: Ways to avoid costly mistakes and discover funding sources

Do you have high school kids who are thinking about college? How can you help provide for their education without sacrificing your own retirement savings or risk overburdening your students with debt? This workshop is designed to help parents of high school students:

  • Avoid costly mistakes when selecting a college.
  • Help save money by using admission and academic strategies.
  • Discover college funding sources.

Audience: Parents of high school students.
Length: 90 minutes

Economy and Investment Outlook Update®1

This update reviews key factors impacting the economy and financial markets to provide a better understanding to help participants make more informed decisions.

It must be presented by Thrivent Financial corporate office personnel and/or a senior financial consultant/financial consultant from the field. Contact your manager of Lutheran engagement for more information.

Audience: Adults knowledgeable in stock and bond markets.
Length: 60 minutes

From Me to We

This workshop for engaged and newly married couples will help them get their marriage off to a strong financial start.

The workshop helps participants:

  • Identify how their values and attitudes affect money decisions.
  • Set goals individually and as a couple.
  • Commit to achieving goals by balancing spending, protecting their family and saving for the future.

Audience: Newly engaged, married couples
Length: 90 minutes with optional, fast-paced game and 60 minutes without the game

From We to Three

Are you a new or soon-to-be parent? This workshop will help you:

  • Learn how to make ends meet now that you are a family of three.
  • Understand the importance of protecting your family for the future.
  • Learn how to get your child started on the right foot financially.

Audience: New or soon-to-be first time parents.
Length: 90 minutes

Getting More from Social Security

Social Security: will it or won't it be around when you retire? Opinions vary on that question, but most would agree it's a program they want to understand. Attend this workshop to:

  • Learn the basics of Social Security.
  • Determine the best way to optimize the benefits.
  • See how potential Social Security benefits fit in your overall retirement income picture.

Audience: Adults 35 – 65
Length: 50 minutes

Heart-to-Heart: As Your Parents Age

As your parents age, are you ready to help them? Learn how during this interactive, educational workshop where participants will gain:

  • An understanding of their parents' vision for the future.
  • Information to make decisions on their parents' behalf.
  • Tips for starting heart-to-heart conversations.

Audience: Adult children with aging parents.
Length: 60 – 70 minutes

Identity Theft: What You Need to Know

Identity theft can happen to anyone, anywhere, at anytime. During this educational workshop, participants learn:

  • How identity theft can occur.
  • Tips to protect themselves.
  • Steps to take if identity theft happens to them.

Audience: Adults age 18 and above
Length: 50 minutes

Job Transition Strategies

When it comes to a job transition, it's important to think beyond a resume and job search activities.

During this educational workshop, participants will receive information and tools to help them:

  • Remain focused, productive and motivated.
  • Make connections with peers.
  • Experience a more positive job transition.

The first one is facilitator lead. In addition, there are eight web modules related to job transition that can be viewed anytime. These Online Educational Resources are designed to be done independently on Thrivent.com/jobchange. They cover topics from resume and cover letter writing to networking and interviewing plus much more.

Audience: Unemployed adults
Length: 90 minutes

Keeping the Farm in the Family

This workshop is for farming families who want to keep their business in the family. It helps them:

  • Identify and overcome transition obstacles.
  • Protect their assets today and in the future.
  • Develop a plan to smoothly transition their farm and maintain family harmony.

Audience: Individuals and couples who own a family farm
Length: 50 minutes

Making a Difference: Sharing your time, talents and treasures

Looking for ways to make your giving more meaningful? This workshop will help you:

  • Identify the values that are most important to you.
  • Explore ways to share your resources to make a difference.
  • Create a personal giving plan.

Audience: Adults ages 25 – 55. Also good for couples and families.
Length: 60 minutes

My Legacy Matters: Living and Planning a Meaningful Legacy

This workshop helps participants:

  • Identify their values.
  • Clarify their intentions.
  • Create a legacy plan to share with loved ones.

Audience: All ages, pre-retired and retired
Length: 50 minutes

My Life, My Plan: Creating a Life Plan Based on Your Values

This workshop helps participants:

  • Identify their values and how values drive behavior.
  • Reflect on their life to help plan their future.
  • Set goals and develop a values-based plan to achieve them.

Audience: Adults at any stage of life
Length: 50 minutes

More Than Money Matters®

This award-winning interactive workshop is for people who want to manage their money in a way that aligns with their values.

The following six sessions help participants embrace stewardship as the responsible management of resources God has entrusted to their care:

  • Stewardship and Values
  • Communicating about Money
  • Setting Goals
  • Credit and Debt
  • Finding Money to Save
  • Budget and Net Worth

Audience: Adults
Length: Six 90-minute sessions

More Than Money Matters®: Stewardship & Values

During this interactive educational workshop, participants will identify their values so they can make intentional choices about how to share, save and spend their money. This award-winning workshop will help them develop a solid foundation for money management.

Audience: Adults mid-20s and above
Length: 60 – 90 minutes

More Than Money Matters®: Communicating About Money

Money talks. Are you listening?

During this interactive workshop participants explore how their past experiences have affected their attitudes and feelings about money. Gain techniques for improving communication with family, financial professionals and others.

Audience: Adults mid-20s and above
Length: 60 – 90 minutes

More Than Money Matters®: Setting Goals

Got goals?

If you dare to have goals, you just might achieve them! Participants of this award-winning workshop will learn how their vision of the future can become clearer. Goals can help people manage their money and live their values. Attendees walk away with practical tools and an understanding of what to do next, including how to manage the pressure to spend.

Audience: Adults mid-20s and above
Length: 60 – 90 minutes

More Than Money Matters®: Credit & Debt

Being in debt can leave you preoccupied and anxious. And what does it all mean in the long run for your credit rating? At this award-winning workshop participants will gain peace of mind and a solid debt reduction plan tailored to their situation. Understand good debt and bad debt, and their potential impact on goals. Learn how their credit history can affect their financial future as well.

Audience: Adults mid-20s and above
Length: 60 to 90 minutes

More Than Money Matters®: Finding Money to Save

The secret to saving money? You've got to start.

This award-winning workshop will motivate participants to decrease spending and increase saving. They will develop a savings plan unique to their situation and uncover specific ways to spend less. Saving is about making choices not to spend today so you can take care of yourself and your family tomorrow.

Audience: Adults mid-20s and above
Length: 60 – 90 minutes

More Than Money Matters®: Budget & Net Worth

Budgets and net worth sound dull? Not when your money and your financial future are at stake.

This award-winning workshop will help participants build and manage a budget, plus track progress on their financial goals with a basic recordkeeping system that really works.

Audience: Adults mid-20s and above
Length: 60 – 90 minutes

My Retirement Matters

You can retire, but only you can make it happen. And it all starts with planning.

At this workshop, participants gain confidence and are able to clarify their vision for how they want their retirement to be. Review retirement trends and consider what income and expenses may be. Most important, they will identify action steps they can take now to make retirement happen.

Audience: People 5 to 15 years from retirement
Length: 60 – 75 minutes

Parents, Kids and Money Matters®

This interactive, values-based workshop takes a unique stewardship approach to talking to children about money management.

It consists of a parent workshop, led by a Thrivent Financial representative, with a simultaneous children’s lesson, led by a volunteer.

Parents receive a resource guide to help continue the conversation at home with their children. The kids receive a Money Smart pig.

Audience: Parents and children ages 6 – 10
Length: 50 minutes

Parents, Teens and Money Matters®

This interactive workshop is designed for young teens (ages 11 – 14) and their parents. It uses dialogue, activities and a game format to spark an open discussion about values, money, influences and choices.

Parents receive a resource guide to help continue the discussion of money and values with their teens. Teens receive the Cash Cache®, a personal finance planner.

Audience: Parents and their teen ages 11 – 14
Length: 50 minutes

Real Money Talk for Women

This workshop delivers financial education for women of all ages, which is more important than ever considering that women have a 90% chance of being solely responsible for their finances at some point in their lives (National Center for Women and Retirement Research).

The workshop helps participants:

  • Minimize their money worries by understanding facts.
  • Overcome obstacles that prevent them from managing their finances.
  • Use five keys that help them reach financial goals

Audience: Women age 20 and older (single, married, divorced, widowed)
Length: 60 minutes

1 Requires special training and certification – presenters for these workshops must meet the special qualifications outlined for use. For all other workshops, see the Qualified presenters section below.

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Find Events & Workshops
This registration page on Thrivent.com provides an easy way for people to find and RSVP for upcoming workshops in your area – no login is required and is open to members and nonmembers.

If your chapter is working with an FR to conduct a Thrivent Financial educational workshop:

  1. Work with FR or event lead to submit workshop through the Online Registration Tool.2
  2. Share the news and direct members, congregations and community members to "Find Events & Workshop" (Thrivent.com/findaworkshop) to learn more and RSVP. Because no login is required, online workshop registration is open to members and nonmembers alike.

For more information about the Find Events & Workshops registration page, please contact your regional Lutheran Engagement Team. See the Thrivent Financial educational workshops page in CHIP, your online resource guide, for details about the workshops.

2 When submitting a workshop, all required fields must be completed. Registration confirmation email address must be a Thrivent Financial email account.

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Chapter Participation & Promotion
With the approval and desire of the chapter leadership board or congregational advocate team:

  • Chapter operating funds, Care Abounds in Communities program funds can be used to support the educational workshops listed above, such as paying for refreshments, meal, pens/pencils, workbooks, invitations, etc. (Note: While chapters or congregational advocate teams may pay for workbooks, the Thrivent Financial representative needs to order them. If the chapter has agreed to pay for educational supplies that the Thrivent Financial representative ordered, it is OK for the chapter to issue a check to the financial representative to reimburse those costs. The chapter must retain the receipt.)
  • Chapter newsletters, postcards and websites can be used to announce an educational workshop. Prewritten paragraphs for each workshop are available for chapters to copy and paste onto their postcards, newsletters and website.
  • Chapter operating funds, Care Abounds in Communities program funds can be used for the promotion of the workshops (e.g., bulletin inserts, mailings, posters, temple talks).
  • Chapter members can volunteer at workshops (e.g., help with pre-registration of attendees, help with the pre-workshop follow-up phone calls to attendees to encourage attendance, etc.).
  • More than one chapter and/or more than one congregation can cohost a workshop.

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Suggested Script for Chapter Host of Workshop
Here is suggested wording for chapter leaders to introduce and close a chapter-hosted educational activity (printable script – Word, 28K):

Welcome:

We are so glad you could be here today for [workshop name] brought to you by [chapter name]. We hope you find this educational workshop a good use of your time and walk away with a better understanding of the topic.

The [chapter name] is able to offer workshops like this one because of the unique character of Thrivent Financial for Lutherans. As a fraternal benefit society, we are able to offer charitable, educational and social activities to serve you, our members.

Introduce workshop facilitator:

Now, let me introduce the workshop facilitator – [name of facilitator and brief introduction]

Close:

Thank participants

On behalf of [chapter name], I want to thank you for coming to today’s event and I hope you found this workshop informational. I would also like to thank [facilitator’s name] for being here today. [He/She] is available to answer any questions you may have.

Learn more about Thrivent/Chapter events

We also have a couple of upcoming chapter events I would like to mention: [list]. [If you have any volunteer or other needs, announce those here.] If you would like to participate in any upcoming events or have any questions, please see me.

Thank you again for your time today. We hope you enjoyed it.

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Qualified Presenters
Presenters of materials bearing the Thrivent Financial brand should be viewed as representatives of our organization. For this reason, presenters must be an employee or a registered representative of Thrivent Financial for Lutherans. Presenters cannot be volunteers such as chapter leaders or congregational advocates.

Currently, the How to Thrive in RetirementSM and Economy and Investment Outlook Update® workshops requires special training and certification. Presenters for this workshop must meet the special qualifications outlined for use.

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How to Report an Educational Workshop
Report the activity as a Care Abounds in Communities educational activity if those funds are used.

If chapter operating funds are used, report the activity as a locally supported activity:

  1. From the Chapter Leadership Administration page, select Report Locally Supported Activity Results (e.g., Join Hands Day, meetings, elections, hands-on service and fund-raising activities, etc.).
  2. Click on GO.
  3. Select the Administrative/Educational category from the drop down box.
  4. Click on Continue.
  5. Select Local Education from the drop down box.
  6. Click on Continue.

For complete details about appropriate uses of and reporting chapter operating funds, see the Planning and Appropriate Uses and Reporting Operating Funds Expenses pages in the Operating Funds section of CHIP.

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Additional Topics:
Chapter Educational Activities – Overview
Educational Activity Planning Checklist (PDF, 85K)
Educational Activities Idea Starters and Best Practices (Word, 92K | PDF, 37K)
Managing and Reporting Chapter Operating Funds (PDF, 302K)



This is proprietary information that is solely for use by employees, volunteers, and agents of Thrivent Financial for Lutherans in connection with fraternal activities of Thrivent Financial for Lutherans.


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This document was last updated on Tuesday, December 27, 2011 at 10:44 AM