Prepare Your Children For The Important Financial Opportunities That Lie Ahead

Welcome to an overview of Financial Empowerment, U.S. Trust’s financial education program for the children and grandchildren of our clients.

At U.S. Trust we recognize the importance of financial education. Through our U.S. Trust Insights on Wealth and Worth research study, we know high net worth individuals are concerned about raising children of affluence, and providing them with a sense of value and purpose.

Based on research findings, as well as feedback from our clients, we developed Financial Empowerment, a customizable education program specifically for ourclients’ young adults’ ages 21-35.

Financial Empowerment includes a broad curriculum which gives young adults a solid financial education, providing them with valuable knowledge that can enhance their understanding of their financial opportunities.

The program covers a wide variety of financial literacy topics such as budgeting, investing, retirement and credit as well as topics like values and philanthropy. In addition, the program covers the financial aspects of typical life events that a young adult may experience, including buying a home or getting married. We also have topics available which relate to Protecting one’s wealth, Trusts and Business.

At U.S. Trust, our advisors work with our clients’ children or grandchildren to understand their financial education needs, and then meet with them either face-toface, or virtually via a web based seminar. As we’ve continued to evolve this program, we’ve added the Financial Empowerment website as an online component.

The Financial Empowerment website is the first stop for our clients and their young adults to learn about the program, understand the financial education topics that are available and to get started by letting us know (via answering a few questions) what financial topics they are most interested in discussing.

As you view this home page, you can see that we’ve taken the six major categories and made them easily navigable. Visitors to the site can click on one of the categories directly, or use the “Financial Education Topics” drop down menu to access the categories. Within each category, users will discover one or more topics to explore. For example, lets look at Personal Financial Basics

On this page a user can see all of the topics covered in the Personal Financial Basics category. Further, by clicking on “Read More” you are taken to a new page to learn more about each topic.

For example, the Investing page is comprised of a mix of interactive activities and short narratives all designed to help the young adult gain a quick overview of the topic and enhance their familiarity with the subject matter. Using the navigational tool in the upper left, the young adult can quickly and easily navigate to other topics.

An important component of the program is for the young adults to evaluate their current situation and think about their plans for the future. We have a series of worksheets they can access by clicking on “Get started now”, where they can complete a Financial Literacy Assessment and other informational worksheets.

Typically, one or more of these worksheets is completed by the young adult in preparation for a more detailed conversation with the family’s U.S. Trust advisor.

The information provided on the worksheets, including the Net Worth Statement that you see here, assists the family’s advisor in structuring a customized agenda for the personal meeting.

After the initial meeting, the young adult and the advisor determine appropriate next steps which might include scheduling an additional session, opening an account or further assessing the young adult’s financial planning needs.

U.S. Trust is particularly proud of the Financial Empowerment program. As a demonstration of how powerful Financial Empowerment is, the Corporate Executive Board VIP Forum profiled U.S. Trust’s Financial Empowerment Program as a best practice strategy for providing financial education to the next generation of clients.

Financial Empowerment is a powerful tool to help young adults strengthen their financial knowledge and be prepared to tackle the complex challenges that lie ahead.

For additional information about Financial Empowerment, please contact your U.S. Trust advisor or call 1-800-USTRUST.