We are in the thick of the Refinement Phase! What does that mean? We selected our short of 25 ideas, as discussed in our latest update, and gave each of them specific, tailored feedback incorporating Advisory Panel input and everything the global collaboration network discussed during the Refinement Workshop. To ensure collaboration with the global community, the THINK Prize team also provided feedback to a number of community members with strong ideas that didn’t move into the Refinement phase, but had elements of overlap with other ideas. A blog post by the OpenIDEO team asked the global community to help each other out and continue the collaborative work. During the last week, the global community was especially intrigued by the following ideas:

• Maslow’s Street Fair: Where homeless individuals in the process of rehabilitation can learn how to financially take care of their basic human needs.
• A Grassroots Youth Campaign to initiate change: A youth campaign that taps the power of young people to change the way we think and talk about money.
• Customized Illustrated Financial Education Book for Children: Facilitating financial education for children through storytelling and engaging graphics that explain their parents’ monetary channels.

We have less than 2 weeks to go until the refinement phase closes. Interest and active collaboration within the credit union community picked up over the last few weeks. The credit union movement rises by lifting others. There’s still a lot of heavy-lifting in front of us. We hope you will continue to help financially empower those who need it most. Every little contribution counts.