Financial Literacy & Life Skills
PLEASE DONATE WHAT YOU CAN
For most adults, managing money is part of everyday life. We make decisions about spending, saving, banking, purchases, and bills without thinking twice.
For adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, these decisions can feel confusing, overwhelming, and risky. A young adult may work hard, earn a salary, and participate in community life, yet still struggle to understand pricing, contracts, advertising, or financial consequences.
Without practical financial skills, adults with disabilities become more vulnerable to manipulation, overspending, debt, scams, and financial exploitation. Many struggle to manage income, distinguish between needs and wants, or make informed purchasing decisions, creating greater dependence and barriers to independence.
Helping Adults with Disabilities Protect Themselves and Thrive
At Chimes Israel, we see these challenges every day among adults with disabilities in supported employment. Many work in the open market, receive salaries, use public transportation, and participate actively in community life, yet lack the tools to safely manage money and protect themselves from financial harm.
Our Financial Literacy & Life Skills program is a practical program for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities and autism who participate in our supported employment centers. Through adapted, real-world learning, participants gain skills that help them manage money responsibly, reduce vulnerability to exploitation, and navigate daily life more independently. The program helps protect dignity, strengthen independence, and enables adults to make informed and confident decisions.
Building Safety Through Financial Knowledge
Traditional financial education often relies on abstract concepts that can feel inaccessible for adults with cognitive disabilities. At Chimes Israel, we teach financial literacy differently through simplified instruction, visual learning, repetition, guided practice, role-playing, and real-life simulations tailored to adults with developmental disabilities.
Participants learn how to manage income and expenses, follow a simple budget, use bank services, save toward goals, and make thoughtful purchasing decisions. They practice distinguishing between needs and wants, comparing prices, questioning advertising messages, recognizing manipulative sales tactics, and pausing before spending.
The program includes a supervised supermarket experience where participants apply budgeting and purchasing skills in a real-world setting, helping transform learning into everyday habits.
Prevention is central to the program. Adults with disabilities are often vulnerable to scams, misleading advertising, financial pressure, and exploitation. Participants learn to recognize risk, ask questions, slow down decisions, seek help when needed, and make safer financial choices rather than acting impulsively or under pressure.
A Program with Proven Results
Based on previous programs, we know these skills create meaningful, measurable change. Past participants demonstrated safer spending habits, improved budgeting, stronger decision-making, and reduced vulnerability to financial exploitation. Families and staff reported greater independence and fewer incidents of impulsive or risky financial behavior. A municipal social worker from the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipality wrote that the program helps adults with disabilities “make decisions with sound judgment, caution, and responsibility” and strengthens “their integration into society and the community.” A group home manager reported that participants gained practical tools for “shopping at the supermarket,” independent purchasing, and saving money, adding that “the results are clearly evident in the participants’ daily lives.” One parent thanked Chimes Israel for giving participants “knowledge, self-confidence and pride,” while a participant shared: “I learned how to ride the bus; how to shop at the supermarket… how to pay; and how to calculate using a calculator.” These are practical skills that build greater confidence, independence, and safety in everyday life.
Your Support Matters
Financial independence affects every area of life. When adults with disabilities learn how to manage money, they gain greater stability, confidence, and control over daily decisions. They become better able to sustain employment, participate in community life, and reduce dependence on others for routine financial choices.
Although government ministries help fund Chimes Israel’s core disability services, they do not support specialized enrichment programs created to respond to beneficiary needs. As a result, this program relies entirely on philanthropy to exist and remain accessible to the adults who need it most.
Your support will help adults with disabilities avoid exploitation, make informed decisions, manage money responsibly, and build safer, more independent lives. Together, we can give adults with disabilities the practical skills and confidence to thrive in their communities.
PLEASE DONATE WHAT YOU CAN
Every gift brings us closer to protecting our vulnerable children with disabilities in Ashkelon, Israel
Donations via Wire Transfer
Bank Transfer
US 501c3 Bank Transfer Information
To: Chimes International/FBO Israel Wiring Instructions
Bank Name: Truist
120 E Baltimore St., 23rd Floor
Baltimore, MD 21202
Routing Number #: 053101121
Account #: 1090003115685
Account Name: Chimes International Limited/FBO Israel
Please send remittance to: chimesweb@chimes.org
Israel 46A Tax Deduction
Account: Chimes Israel
Israel Amuta #: 58-0188894
Address: 24A Habarzel, Floor 2, Tel Aviv, 6971065 Israel
Bank: Israel Discount Bank, Branch #85, Kikar Yitzhak Rabin, 66 Ibn Gvirol Street, Tel Aviv 6495203 Israel
Account Type: Checking
Swift Routing #: IDBLILITXXX
IBAN #: IL450110850000002349428
Account #: 2349428
Personal Check
US 501c3 Address for Mailing Checks
Chimes International for Chimes Israel
4815 Seton Drive
Baltimore, MD 21215
ATTN: O’Ryan Case
Chimes International, Ltd.
EIN: 52-2000359
