Herndon, Va. –
December 7, 2011 –
After implementing the Meridian Global learning management
system last spring, Money Management
International
(MMI), America’s largest nonprofit, full-service credit counseling agency, has
added an array of online education courses to its line-up of instructor-led classes
for managing personal finance.
Since
April, the Meridian LMS, which distributes
and tracks education via the internet, has delivered MMI clients a list of
online courses covering topics such as budgeting, financial goal-setting and
managing credit.
“The
Meridian LMS extends the reach of our traditional classes by giving our clients
access to financial education that they can take on their time,” said Amy Lins,
director of instructional design for Money Management International. “We also
created a family interaction guide via the Meridian LMS to teach sound
financial skills. Within the budgeting module of the family interaction guide,
parents – who are clients of MMI – can work with their children to build a
family budget. Young children can learn about counting money, and
high-schoolers can learn about banking basics and credit reports.”
Through
its network of offices around the country, MMI has long offered community-based
workshops in which its educators serve clients via classroom instruction. But
putting Meridian’s LMS in place has given MMI a way to not only deliver
education to clients online but also measure how effectively people are
grasping the concepts that underpin the organization’s debt-counseling
programs.
“Every
one of our clients who are on a debt-management plan can take our online
financial education, and the LMS offers us a way to track their progress,”
added Lins. “We follow up with them after these classes to make sure they
continue getting support to change their lifestyle.”
According
to Lins, a lot of organizations offer financial literacy education in an online
format, but MMI has put a great deal of effort into making its online courses
interactive and interesting. “Our online courses aren’t just bullet points on a
page, far from it,” said Lins. “One of the first clients to take our new online
education said she was ‘motivated to make changes and learned a lot of tips on
how to reduce expenses and change habits.’”
“The
Meridian LMS is particularly suited for educating an external audience of
learners,” said John Leh, vice president of Sales and Marketing for Meridian. “Meridian’s learning portal mirrors the unique
processes and interface considerations of nonprofits. For example, our LMS
easily supports external learners by tracking continuing education, managing
competencies and delivering personal development courses.”
MMI’s
clients access the Meridian portal via a password-protected web site, which
delivers courses and tracks the number and kinds of online financial courses
clients are taking.
In
addition to the education MMI is delivering its customers, the Texas-based
nonprofit is also beginning a project to integrate its online employee
education with a human resources information system. MMI hopes to transfer its
current stock of computer-based training modules for employee education (held
in Sharepoint) to the Meridian LMS by year’s end. Once transferred, MMI will be
able to integrate employee education via the LMS with each worker’s employee
record.
About Money Management International
Money Management International (MMI) is a
nonprofit full-service credit-counseling agency, providing confidential
financial guidance, financial education, counseling and debt management
assistance to consumers since 1958. MMI’s counselors
are both HUD certified to deliver housing counseling services, including
delinquency mortgage counseling, and approved by the EOUST to deliver
bankruptcy counseling and education. Counseling is available by appointment in
branch offices and 24/7 by telephone and Internet. Services are available
in English or Spanish. To learn more, call
800-762-2271 or visit www.MoneyManagement.org.
About Meridian
Our
flagship product, Meridian Global LMS, integrates learning content management,
workforce analytics, knowledge management and competency modeling in one
learning management system (LMS). In addition to Meridian Global LMS, we
provide professional services, courseware development and hosting services. We
serve approximately eight million users at more than 300 public- and
private-sector employers. Our software is used by companies that range in size
from 1,000,000 employees to less than 100 workers. Our clients include the
American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, AutoZone, Panera Bread, the
U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy and more than 80 federal, state and local
governments.
We
are the number one ranked learning-technology company for customer loyalty. Our
award-winning software aims to deliver learning, distribute knowledge and
sharpen business skills, which will make you a leader in your industry. Our
Herndon, Va.-based company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Visionary
Integration Professionals. To learn more, visit http://www.meridianksi.com, or follow Meridian
on Twitter at http://twitter.com/meridianks.
