With your participation, this collaborative platform will be the “go-to” place for and by the youth-inclusive financial services community. Features include:

• YFS-Link Map. Navigate Making Cents’ interactive YFS-Link map to showcase the work you are doing in youth-inclusive financial services or find your next YFS partner!
• Become a YFS-Link Member. By signing up to be a member, you have special access to the membership directory; can post in the discussion forum; contribute to the resources collection; and add your YFS program to the map.
• YFS-Link Discussion Forum. Do you have questions about how to most effectively provide youth with appropriate financial services? What elements factor into your YFS success story or best practice? Share and discuss with your fellow YFS-Link members today!
• YFS-Link Resources. Are you interested in learning more about youth-inclusive financial services? Browse the most comprehensive list of resources in the sector, including case studies, videos, presentations, and journal articles.

The following practical, hands-on courses have been developed for dissemination and, as courses are modular in nature, can be easily tailored for greater relevance to the audience and context of the training. Click on any of the following links to learn more about each course.

• Serious Business: Making A Case for Youth-Inclusive Financial Services (1/2 day)
• Implementing Sound Practices in Youth-Inclusive Financial Services (2 days) (Available in Spanish; Arabic forthcoming.)
• Market Research with Young Clients (3 days) (Available in Spanish and French; Arabic forthcoming.)
• Adapting and Developing Financial Services for Young Clients (3 days) (Available in Spanish; Arabic forthcoming.)
• Partnering for Improved Service Delivery with Young Clients (2 days) (Available in Spanish; Arabic forthcoming.)
• Staffing for Improved Service Delivery with Young Clients (1 day)
• Savings Products and Services for Young Clients (1/2 day)

To date, hundreds of practitioners, including individuals from CHF International, Equity Bank, FINCA, Freedom from Hunger, Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA), and Save the Children have participated in our YFS training courses.

YFS-Link collaborates with leading training organizations and networks to conduct ToT workshops in order to certify local trainers to replicate the innovative YFS-Link courses in their country or region. Once trainers are certified through YFS-Link’s three-phase certification process, they gain access to a full set of training materials and ongoing support from YFS-Link to ensure that materials are adapted to their local environment. To date, YFS-Link has certified 300 YFS-Link training professionals through collaborations with over 15 capacity building institutions and financial services networks including Boulder Institute of Microfinance, BRAC Training Institute, Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, Inter-American Development Bank, MicroSave, SEEP Network, Sustainable Microfinance Development Program (SMDP), and United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF).

Options for one or several day consultations following course delivery can be explored along with longer term specialized technical assistance. Technical assistance is designed to reinforce the internal capacity of FSPs and YSOs to develop and deliver financial services, or to develop effective partnerships and linkages to expand the access of youth to appropriate financial services and supporting services.  For more information on TA opportunities, contact yfslink@makingcents.com .

Recent YFS-Link TA partnerships include:

• YFS PLP, The SEEP Network. Making Cents is providing technical assistance in curriculum development and training for the SEEP Network’s Youth Financial Services Practitioner Learning Program (YFS PLP). The course will combine content related to Making Cents’ applied learning methodologies and content resulting from YFS PLP’s learning products.

• YouthStart, UNCDF. Making Cents supported UNCDF's YouthStart program by providing technical training on youth-inclusive market research to 45 practitioners from 20 financial services providers in 13 countries, including Benin, Ethiopia, Mali, Rwanda, Senegal, Togo and Uganda. YFS-Link’s interactive capacity building curriculum provided participants with a practical step-by-step framework for developing and implementing market research with young people, taking into consideration cognitive development and life stage factors of youth. Participating YouthStart organizations leveraged lessons learned to design and implement their own youth-friendly market research and are currently in the process of piloting newly developed products and services for youth clients. The YouthStart program builds on UNCDF's commitment to financial inclusion by increasing access to financial services for low-income youth (ages 12-24) in Sub-Saharan Africa.
• YouthSave, Save the Children. Making Cents is working with Save the Children, Banco Caja Social de Colombia (BCSC), and BrandStrat, a local market research agency, to conduct youth-inclusive market research and support product development for a pilot savings product for low-income youth ages 12-18 in Colombia. YFS-Link is working closely with BrandStrat to build its capacity to understand, work with, and better serve, the local youth market, especially in light of the competitive market available to young people in Columbia. The YouthSave Consortium is currently working with local banks in Colombia, Ghana, Kenya, and Nepal to develop youth-appropriate savings accounts in order to shed light on critical questions related to whether and how savings accounts can serve as tools for both youth development and financial inclusion.
• The Jordan Micro Credit Company (Tamweelcom). Making Cents is leading The Jordan Micro Credit Company (Tamweelcom) in the process of designing and rolling out Jordan’s first youth education loan product, including market research, product testing, and monitoring.  Specifically, YFS-Link is carrying out concept testing to understand the demand for educational loans in the local market and will apply market research findings to adapt and pilot an education loan product for local youth. YFS-Link will closely monitor the pilot phase of the project and support the pilot evaluation to translate findings into a final product prior to roll-out. Tamweelcom is one of Jordan’s leading microfinance institutions, providing nearly 40,000 low-income and productive-poor with financial and non-financial services to improve their social and living standards.
• Freedom from Hunger. Making Cents designed youth-inclusive market research tools and provided technical assistance for data analysis to Freedom from Hunger (FFH) in Ecuador and Mali, as both programs looked to develop a comprehensive savings and financial education strategy. In each program, YFS-Link explored two age segments (13 to 17 and 18 to 24) in order to understand each market segment’s unique needs for financial capabilities. YFS-Link staff worked closely with FFH to ensure that the tools developed and analysis being carried out could be leveraged to most efficiently understand young people’s knowledge and use of both financial services and of money. In addition, YFS-Link documented for FFH how the market research results confirmed or dissuaded some of the myths and facts around young people and financial practices that many individuals, including staff, had. Freedom from Hunger is an international development organization that brings innovative and sustainable self-help solutions to the fight against chronic hunger and poverty.
• CHF International and Ryada. Under USAID’s Expanded and Sustained Access to Financial Services (ESAF), Making Cents is working with CHF International’s local microfinance program, Ryada, to develop a youth-friendly microfinance product that can be taken to scale in a sustainable manner. In this capacity, making Cents is leading Ryada in the design of youth-inclusive market research tools and the selection of a local market research firm. Under YFS-Link’s management, focus group and interview tools were used to assess preferences for the look and feel of the product, particularly how the marketing and positioning of the financial product could be most appealing to the targeted youth market, and YFS-Link will support the data analysis processes to develop recommendations and youth-friendly product concepts. ESAF assists a wide range of financial sector actors, from first-time depositors to mortgage underwriting banks, to improve access to financial services for Palestinian households and micro, small, and medium enterprises.