Finance Program Specialist

Job Title:          Finance Program Specialist
Reports to:      Sr. Director of Career and Education Services
Location:         Phoenix, AZ
Status:             Full-time/Exempt

About Fresh Start

Fresh Start is dedicated to empowering women by providing education, resources, and support to foster personal transformation and financial self-sufficiency. Our comprehensive services, offered at the Fresh Start Women’s Resource Center in downtown Phoenix, include career readiness, family law support, social work services, domestic violence support, mentoring programs, computer training, scholarship funding, health & wellness classes, and job placement support.

Fresh Start is dedicated to empowering women to achieve financial self-sufficiency through personalized long-term, 1:1 financial coaching. We believe in providing comprehensive support and education to help our clients navigate their financial journeys successfully.

Job Summary:

The Finance Program Specialist will work directly with Fresh Start women to provide high-quality financial empowerment sessions. This role focuses on individualized coaching to help clients with budgeting, increasing wealth, and achieving financial empowerment. The Specialist must enjoy coaching, be empathetic, goal-oriented, and possess a strong drive to elevate others towards self-sufficiency. Approximately 80% of the advisor's time will be spent in direct client interactions, with the remaining 20% dedicated to program operations, workshop facilitation and presentations, documentation, data entry, and follow-up.

Key Responsibilities - Client Counseling and Coaching

• Provide individualized 1:1 financial coaching and empowerment support to clients.
• Offer ongoing support to actively engage clients in promoting their financial wellness. (Areas include budgeting, understanding credit reports and scores, credit repair, prioritizing and reducing debt, savings, building good credit, spending control, getting financially organized.)
• Deliver personalized guidance on budgeting, wealth-building, and financial goal setting.
• Inspire and motivate clients with a strong passion to elevate their financial status and well-being.
• Conduct 1:1 sessions to assess the client's financial situation and develop goals and action plans to meet those goals.
• Facilitate group sessions/workshops for clients covering financial topics relevant to low- and moderate-income levels.
• Establish long-term relationships with clients to help them achieve their financial goals.

Follow-Up and Documentation

• Maintain detailed records of client interactions and outcomes.
• Conduct follow-ups to ensure clients are progressing towards their financial goals.
• Gather and document session data for program reporting and evaluation.
• Track outcome deliverables for grants.

Program Development and Support

• Achieve program goals for client impact and service outputs through proactive client outreach.
• Deliver presentations on personal finance topics and services offered by Fresh Start.
• Participate in regular team meetings and skill-building training sessions.

Experience and Qualifications:

1. Fluency in English and Spanish communication is required.
2. Specialized knowledge in financial empowerment services for low- and moderate-income individuals. Applicants with professional or comparable experience in personal finance (money management, savings, financial services, consumer rights) will be considered.
3. Experience in the financial sector, and a solid understanding of personal finance principles.
4. Minimum of 2-3 years of full-time work experience in personal finance, education, social services, community organizing, or a related field.
5. Ability to work a flexible schedule that may include evenings and weekends.
6. Communication skills and cultural competency to work with a variety of stakeholders.

Required Skills and Attributes

• Passion for Empowerment: Strong drive and passion to elevate others, helping clients gain financial literacy and achieve their financial goals.
• Self-Motivated: Ability to work independently, meet deadlines, and take ownership of personal finance research and continuous learning.
• Goal-Oriented: Must be goal-oriented, consistently striving to help clients meet and exceed their financial objectives.
• Receive & Provide Feedback: Ability to effectively receive and implement feedback to clients.
• Communication Skills: Excellent communication and interpersonal skills; coaching and facilitation experience with adults or in non-traditional settings is ideal.
• Professional Judgment:  Ability to exercise knowledge-based professional judgment and adapt services as needed.
• Attention to Detail: Strong attention to detail in all aspects of work.
• Critical Thinking:  Robust critical thinking skills to navigate complex financial situations.

Notice: This job description in no way states or implies that these are the only tasks to be performed by the team member occupying this position. The team member will be required to follow any other instructions and to perform any other job-related duties requested by their manager. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change, or new ones may be assigned at any time with or without notice. If other duties become long term, significantly increase the workload of the team member, or require skills that supersede those listed above, the team member should discuss with their manager. The job description may need to be modified. Fresh Start reserves the right to change this job description at any time. Employment with Fresh Start is at-will. This job description supersedes prior job descriptions. Reasonable accommodation can be provided for a disability that is affected by the above-stated job responsibilities and/or qualifications.