In the SEED Initiative, twelve community-based organizations (CBOs)
IntroductionOver the past decade and a half, a remarkable social policy movement has emerged in the United States. Based on the simple notion that low-income households can and will save, and that having financial assets is an important way for these families to get ahead and stay ahead, this "asset building" movement has created a new strategic framework for policy and practice that reaches from the local to the national level.Among the most promising innovations spurred by this movement are Children's Development Accounts (CDAs). CDAs are long-term, matched savings accounts established for children as early as birth and allowed to grow over their lifetime. In their ideal form, CDAs are seeded with an initial deposit and built by contributions from any number of sources including family, friends and the children themselves, as well as organizations such as churches, schools, foundations, government etc. Such groups can also augment the accounts through progressive savings match amounts and other incentives. Savings in CDAs are typically restricted for uses such as funding higher education, starting a small business, buying a home or saving for retirement. The accounts are often accompanied by age-appropriate financial education for accountholders and/or their parents.The first practical program models of CDAs in the United States were established beginning in late 2003 as part of the Saving for Education, Entrepreneurship and Downpayment (SEED) Initiative, a ten-year national policy, practice and research endeavor designed to develop, test, inform, and promote matched savings accounts and financial education for children and youth. In SEED, twelve community-based organizations (CBOs) across the United States and its territories were
C E N T E R F O R S O C I A L D E V E L O P M E N T W A S H I N G T O N U N I V E R S I T Y I N S T . L O U I S 2chosen to offer CDAs, establish best practices in delivering CDAs and demonstrate "proof of concept." In delivering CDAs (or "SEED" accounts, as they were known in this initiative) these model sites -also known as SEED "community partners" -performed a variety of functions, from strategy and planning, outreach and enrollment, account management and reporting, to offering financial literacy classes, and more.Since the inception of the SEED Initiative, a second wave of CDA programs has emerged at the local level. Most of these local models were inspired by and learned from the experience of the community partners in SEED, though in many cases, these models envision delivering CDAs on a much larger scale than in SEED. One of the key questions for each of these city-wide innovations has been how to incorporate some level of programmatic support to facilitate saving (a role often played effectively by CBOs), while not creating a model that would be difficult to deliver at scale.The purpose of this paper is to analyze these community and city-wide CDA innovations in the U.S. and to examine the role that CBOs...
