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Old Fart
Jul 25, 2013
I know you can only lead a horse to water, but so many of my coworkers are living paycheck to paycheck. I work in a somewhat large service industry company and most employees make about 1.5x to 2x minimum wage. I want to take over one of our informational bulletin boards and at least try to help.

How should I go about this? What are good ways to get someone's attention and make getting out of the cycle an attainable goal? I want to make it attention-grabbing, non-judgmental, but easy to grasp and execute. Something that can offer at least some short-term results to keep people interested.

I'm by no means an expert. I didn't even really understand what a budget was until my late 30s, and even now I'm no MMM. I just feel like there's gotta be a way to let people know they're not alone, there's no shame, but there is a way out.

Suggestions?

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Knyteguy
Jul 6, 2005

YES to love
NO to shirts


Toilet Rascal

Old Fart posted:

I know you can only lead a horse to water, but so many of my coworkers are living paycheck to paycheck. I work in a somewhat large service industry company and most employees make about 1.5x to 2x minimum wage. I want to take over one of our informational bulletin boards and at least try to help.

How should I go about this? What are good ways to get someone's attention and make getting out of the cycle an attainable goal? I want to make it attention-grabbing, non-judgmental, but easy to grasp and execute. Something that can offer at least some short-term results to keep people interested.

I'm by no means an expert. I didn't even really understand what a budget was until my late 30s, and even now I'm no MMM. I just feel like there's gotta be a way to let people know they're not alone, there's no shame, but there is a way out.

Suggestions?

1) TheAdminZone.com - this site is all about running a forum. It covers how many forums you want to actually have (you don't want to start off with as many as SA has for example, usually 2-3 is a good number until you absolutely need more forums on a certain topic).
2) A forum software. vBulletin used to be the standard (what SA uses), but there are lots of great contenders now. Invision Power Board, phpBB, etc. Definitely do some research here. You mention taking over something so maybe you already have this covered.
3) Some tenacity. Building an online community is really difficult. There are plugins for vBulletin at least that let you post as other users. You pretty much want to start driving fake conversations between users yourself. This gives an appearance of an active community and social proofs your site. If you're not going to run it as an income source this may not be too difficult.

If you have any specific questions I could probably help a little bit. I've run a couple relatively successful forums with upwards of 5,000 users (and made decent money off of it), and lots of unsuccessful ones too.

Edit: vvv Oh. Well now I feel like a jackass if that's the case. Don't have any suggestions there.

Knyteguy fucked around with this message at 06:46 on Oct 10, 2014

kidhash
Jan 10, 2007
I think he means a real life bulletin board on a wall

Old Fart
Jul 25, 2013
Haha, yes, sorry. Thank you for the response, tho.

An actual thing posted on a physical wall. Like, what are good newspaper articles to help people feel less alone? What are good "quick tips"?

It just depresses me hearing everybody talk about how they can't afford medicine until payday, or that the insurance on their BRAND NEW CAR is too high, or having to borrow from retirement accounts, etc. But nobody wants to be lectured on money and everybody is convinced he's the one person who would never be able to save because of a, b, c...

moana
Jun 18, 2005

one of the more intellectual satire communities on the web
Honestly I think the best thing if you're willing to put in the effort is to offer a free budget counseling session. Put up a "Want to take control of your money? Don't know the best way to start?" sign and give anyone who asks a 30-min crash course on Mint and talk to them about why they're stressing out. Personalized solutions will go farther than any bulletin board, and you'll only be talking to people who know they need help. But of course that's a lot more effort on your part.

slap me silly
Nov 1, 2009
Grimey Drawer
On the other hand if someone advertised that on a billboard at my work or anywhere, I would assume they were going to try to sell me something.

moana
Jun 18, 2005

one of the more intellectual satire communities on the web
You would, but you're a financially savvy individual already. If the rest of the bulletin board is helpful, then I think people would trust it. Plus it's an info board, I'm guessing they don't let companies and poo poo advertise on it, right?

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Old Fart
Jul 25, 2013
I think you're right that one on one is best, but I worry that would come off as incredibly smug and demeaning. I feel I need to just help people get a toe in the water somehow.

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