Grantees at Work: California Investors Benefit from Three Foundation Programs at Their Local Library
Patrons of the Silver Lake Branch Library in Los Angeles, CA, recently enjoyed an educational presentation from law school students participating in the Investor Advocacy Clinic from the Pepperdine University School of Law. The students presented a program, Tricks of the Trade: Outsmarting Investment Fraud, part of the FINRA Foundation’s campaign to teach senior investors how to avoid becoming victims of fraud.
Pepperdine’s Investor Advocacy Clinic is one of six such clinics funded by the FINRA Foundation. The Foundation initiated the program to help fill the gap in legal representation for investors with small claims who do not have the financial resources to obtain legal counsel. The start-up grants allow law schools to open clinics to provide legal help to underserved investors involved in securities disputes. The clinics also educate the community and help investors avoid fraud. Law students who participate in these clinics do not receive compensation, but benefit from serving the public interest, earning course credit and gaining experience representing clients in actual cases. The grants expand the geographic reach of securities advocacy clinics available to investors in California, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Washington, DC.
The Silver Lake Library, part of the Los Angeles Public Library, welcomed the opportunity to team up with the Pepperdine law students to enhance financial education offerings to library patrons. The Los Angeles Public Library has received a grant from Smart investing@your library®, a program administered jointly by the FINRA Foundation and the American Library Association. Now in its fifth year, Smart investing@your library® allows libraries to implement a variety of programs to increase patrons' access to and understanding of financial information. The grants target a diverse group of library patrons—among them youth, seniors, English language learners, new Americans and low-income individuals. Participating libraries and library networks use a variety of technologies and outreach strategies to connect library users to the best available financial education and information. These strategies include online learning, classroom formats, one-on-one clinics and educational activities conducted in virtual worlds. The libraries also partner with community organizations, schools, universities, veterans organizations and local governments to expand the impact of the services and resources enabled by the grants.
The program presented to the patrons of the Silver Lake Library, Tricks of the Trade: Outsmarting Investment Fraud, is based on Foundation-funded research that shattered the stereotypes of senior investment fraud victims. The fraud victim profile was counterintuitive in many respects. For instance, victims were often financially knowledgeable men. In addition, the influence tactics used by fraudsters were shown to be sophisticated and highly effective. These findings forced regulators and advocates alike to rethink how best to approach the challenge of equipping older investors with the tools and information they need to thwart fraudsters touting investment scams. As a result, the Foundation launched a campaign beginning in 2008 to help seniors identify and resist persuasion tactics common to many types of fraud. The campaign promotes a three-part message: acknowledge personal risk, identify persuasion red flags and practice simple protection strategies. The goal is to help older investors understand how they might be susceptible to investment fraud and, most importantly, how to replace risky investment behaviors with fraud detection and prevention behaviors.
Los Angeles residents will continue to benefit from this university-library collaboration when the clinic’s students return to the Los Angeles Central Library to present their program on outsmarting investment fraud. You also can learn how to avoid becoming a victim of fraud by visiting SaveAndInvest.org.