How to use this dashboard
The Cincinnati Financial Freedom Dashboard shows the results of the Cincinnati Financial Freedom Survey, broken into eight survey categories. Each survey category is down broken further down into survey question topics outlined below: 

1. Top Three Financial Priorities which shows respondents’ top financial goals over the next five years. 
Cincinnati Demographics which show the following question topics: education level; household income; living situation; and neighborhood zone. 
2. Job Mobility which shows the following question topics: current job satisfaction; barriers to better jobs; desired benefits; and wage theft. 
3. Housing (rental and homeownership) which shows the following question topics: home purchasing difficulties; homeownership difficulties; rental difficulties; existing homebuyer program awareness; and homebuyer program interest. 
4. Debt and Consumer Protection which shows the following question topics: delinquent debt types; financial scams; predatory financial products used; medical care challenges; medical debt owed; payday loan debt owed; and private student loan debt owed. 
5. Banking and Financial Access which shows the following question topics: banking barriers; financial tools used; ran-day/ emergency funds; barriers to rainy-day/ emergency funds. 
6. Financial Planning which shows the following question topics: top three (3) financial goals; comfort with business loan qualification; comfort credit score management; comfort with general loan qualification; comfort with mortgage qualification; comfort with retirement planning; comfort with investing; and unexpected windfall.
7. Financial Coaching which shows the following question topics: financial coaching program interest; preferred financial coaching program method.

To use the dashboard, choose a survey category below and then choose from the dropdown menu in Step 2 to enable all visuals. Click the “Return to Homepage” button at the bottom of the page to navigate back to this screen or select a different survey category and question topic by using the dropdown options in Step 1 and Step 2. 
About this data
In 2022, the City of Cincinnati was selected by the national nonprofit Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund’s (CFE Fund) CityStart initiative to create a blueprint to help address the financial empowerment needs of residents and the opportunities to meet those needs, prioritizing the financial stability needs of Black residents. As part of the CFE Fund’s CityStart initiative, which is supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Greenwood Initiative, the City received a $75,000 planning grant, as well as extensive CFE Fund technical assistance.  The City of Cincinnati worked with the CFE Fund to create its Financial Freedom Blueprint; the goal of this blueprint is to lay out evidence-based investments and policies that the City will pursue to address this inequity.  A cross-departmental team, led by the Office of Performance and Data Analytics, went through a yearlong process of community engagement, researching solutions from around the country, and collecting data to understand the goals and barriers that were most pressing to the community.    

The City partnered with Burke, Inc. and The Voice of Your Costumer research and marketing firms to conduct a statistically significant survey of over 1,000 residents, including 500 Black/ African American residents to understand barriers around reaching financial freedom. The survey insights uncovered racial disparities around financial goals, job mobility, housing (rental and homeownership), debt and consumer protection, banking and financial access, and financial planning and coaching.  
About CityStart
The CFE Fund’s CityStart initiative is supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Greenwood Initiative, whose mission is to accelerate the pace of Black wealth accumulation for Black individuals and families and address systemic underinvestment in Black communities in the U.S. The Greenwood Initiative is advising the CFE Fund on the design and execution of this iteration of the CityStart program with a specific lens on racial wealth equity.
Methodology
Representative Sample Specifics. The research design included gathering survey responses from a representative sample of two populations in Cincinnati:  
  • “All Cincinnati Residents.” A representative sample of Cincinnati residents, balanced on age, gender, income, neighborhood zone, and ethnicity, to match “2020 City of Cincinnati Neighborhood Comparison” data. The number of completed surveys (sample size) for this group is n=1038.  
  • “Black Residents.” A representative sample of Cincinnati residents who identify as Black/ African American, balanced on age, gender, income, and neighborhood zone to match “Claritas 2023 City of Cincinnati African American Profile” data and “2020 City of Cincinnati Neighborhood Comparison” data. The number of completed surveys (sample size) for this group is n=533. 
With the sample sizes achieved, the results from the survey are projectable to the target populations with a margin of error of 3.042% at the 95% confidence level for All Cincinnati Residents and 4.245% at the 95% confidence level for Black/African American Residents, meaning that if the survey were replicated, we could expect close to the same results. 
Data Weighting  
Results were weighted to match known demographic/geographic targets (from “2020 City of Cincinnati Neighborhood Comparison” data and Claritas 2023 City of Cincinnati African American Profile data. Random Iterative Method IM (RIM) weights were calculated using sample targets for age, gender, income, zone and ethnicity. Separate weights were calculated and applied for All Cincinnati Residents and Black/African American Residents. 

Neighborhood Zone 
The Cincinnati Financial Freedom Survey categorized respondents into six zones, numbered 1 through 6, that have similar total populations and are composed of adjacent neighborhoods. 

Statistically Significant Difference 
A statistically significant difference means that one group’s answers are meaningfully different from another group’s answer. In instances where survey responses had a statistically significant difference between the two sample populations, it is indicated by an asterisk in the tooltip description.