The Filene Research Institute in Madison, Wis., is hosting a webinar on Friday to show credit unions how to involve their members in a national Save Your Refund Sweepstakes that was recently launched by the non-profit group Doorway to Dreams Fund of Boston.
D2D was founded by Peter Rufano, a former Filene Fellow who has a long history of finding ways to motivate consumers to save, the institute said. Rufano worked with Filene Research on the development of prize-linked savings, including the Save to Win program that has been adopted at credit unions in North Carolina, Michigan and Nebraska.
The first-ever Save Your Refund Sweepstakes encourages tax filers over age 18 to save a minimum of $50 of their federal tax refund, by splitting their refund using Form 8888, and to enter the sweepstakes at http://www.saveyourrefund.com.
The sweepstakes, which ends April 15, has a $35,000 prize purse, including a $25,000 grand prize and four $250 prizes per week. The Internal Revenue Service Form 8888 is used to deposit refunds into more than one account.
“Our goal with the sweepstakes is to bring attention to the tax-time savings opportunity and the tools available to facilitate it,” Timothy Flacke, executive director of D2D, said. “We want to help transform saving money from a mundane act of sacrifice into an exciting and fun event infused with possibility.”
Visit Filene Research’s site for more information about the webinar.
