We already sketched a financial wellness score. What's missing?

Usually three things: validation, a benchmark, and a way to track the same members over time. A sketch often lands close to the FinHealth Score® already, a few behavior components and three member tiers, which is a sign the validated version will fit what you were trying to measure.

Why do homegrown scores look so similar?

Because people who think hard about financial health arrive at the same parts: managing money day to day, saving for the future, borrowing responsibly, and planning ahead. The Financial Health Network's FinHealth Score® is built on four pillars, Spend, Save, Borrow, and Plan and Protect, and places people as Financially Healthy, Coping, or Vulnerable. If your sketch has components like those and tiers like those, you've rebuilt the outline of it.

What does a sketch usually lack?

• Validation. Evidence that the questions measure what they claim, tested beyond your own institution.
• A benchmark. A national distribution to compare your members against. Without one, a score of 72 means nothing on its own.
• Tracking over time. The same people, measured the same way, linked to what they were offered and what they did.
• Defensibility. An answer, for a board or an examiner, to "where did this number come from?"

Is the work we did wasted?

No. A sketch tells you what your institution cares about and which outcomes it wants to move. Map each of your components to the FinHealth Score® pillars, keep anything genuinely specific to your members as additional questions, and use the validated score as the core you report on.

What should we do next?

Read how to measure member financial health credibly and build or buy. If you have a sketch, book a call and bring it: we'll map it against the validated version and show what's left to build.

More answers for measuring financial health and proving programs work: Prove your financial wellness program works.