eXtension #30DaysofSavings mini-grant report to the Consumer Federation of America

1. America Saves Week 2019 Mini-Grant-FINAL Report
eXtension Financial Security for All (FSA) Community of Practice (CoP)
Submitted by Dr. Barbara O’Neill, CFP®, Rutgers University, boneill@njaes.rutgers.edu
Project Management Activities (Inputs)
Below is a description of activities associated with the eXtension 2019 mini-grant project: 30 Days of Savings:
♦ Developed marketing materials and 30 daily questions for the eXtension 30 Days of Savings project
♦ Developed guidelines and instructions for the eXtension 30 Days of Savings project
♦ Worked with CFA to develop an online registration form for the 30 Days of Savings project
♦ Worked with CFA to develop an Excel spreadsheet to track online contest entries
♦ Promoted the 30 Days of Savings project on Twitter and Facebook
♦ Promoted 30 Days of Savings with e-mails to and a video chat with Cooperative Extension colleagues
♦ Created digital images of tweeted submissions and 30 daily collage graphics of tweeted responses to questions
♦ Created a 3-minute video from the daily collages: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXHgRrHgqeo
♦ Participated as a guest on Wisebread’s #wbchat Twitter chat on 3/7/19 to discuss savings strategies
♦ Sent Amazon gift card prizes to three online registrants ($300) and two #wbchat participants ($100)
♦ Sent a survey to 30 Days of Savings participants to gauge America Saves participation and collect feedback
♦ Rutgers Cooperative Extension provided a 4:1 match of Dr. O’Neill’s time on the grant to manage this project
Project Activities (Outputs)
♦ A total of 255 tweets from 27 unique individuals were registered online and 380 tweets from 47 unique
individuals were located through a search of the hashtag #30DaysofSavings.
♦ Every tweet that was registered online or found using #30DaysofSavings was retweeted by Dr. O’Neill.

2. ♦ Reports were pulled at the end of each week to gauge audience reach. Conservatively estimated total outreach
(extrapolated via TweetReach partial reports for 100 tweets) for #30DaysofSavings was as follows:
Date and Number of Tweets Number of Accounts Reached Number of Exposure Impressions
2/4/19 with 372 tweets 265,678 904,516
2/11/19 with 750 tweets 471,378 1,784,867
2/18/19 with 600 tweets 157,080 1,245,162
2/25/19 with 559 tweets 174,201 1,226,468
3/14/19 with 553 tweets 477,482 1,552,831
♦ Wisebread reported the following outreach for the 3/7/19 #wbchat about savings that featured Dr. O’Neill as a
guest tweeter: 72 contributors, 1,988 tweets, 209,488 Estimated Reach, and 7,046,167 Exposure Impressions.
♦ As of March 12, 2019, after just one day online, the YouTube video #30DaysofSavings had 27 views (see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXHgRrHgqeo); it will be marketed frequently on social media channels
to increase viewership over time.
Project Impact (Outcomes)
♦ A follow-up evaluation survey was completed by 15 respondents (55% of the 27 online registrants).
♦ 60% of the respondents (9) took the America Saves pledge as a result of participating in 30 Days of Savings.
♦ Almost three-quarters of the respondents (73.3%) planned to start or increase their savings as a result of their
contest participation. 30-day savings reported by 6 participants totaled $7,960 plus 20% of someone’s pay.
♦ Feedback from contestants was overwhelmingly positive and included the following comments:
Summary
30 Days of Savings was a month-long asynchronous discussion via Twitter about various aspects of saving money.
The two highest weeks of participation were the first full week of daily questions and the last week that overlapped
America Saves Week. Answers to the 30 daily questions provided a diversity of opinions and emotions related to
savings (and lack of savings) and can be used by financial educators to inform future savings education efforts.