About the Initiative
Enabling millions of Americans to build financial security through savings
Grappling with income and expense volatility and a lack of accessible savings tools, millions of Americans are struggling to create a financial cushion for themselves and their families.
In February 2019, BlackRock announced a $50 million commitment to help people living on low- to moderate-incomes gain access to and increase usage of proven savings strategies and tools—ultimately helping them establish an important safety net.
Our Goals
Protect More People
41% of Americans would have to sell a personal item or borrow money to cover an unexpected $400 expense.² We’ll recruit companies to achieve scale in addressing this lack of financial resiliency with employees, customers, students, and gig economy workers.
Build Better Savings Options
The initiative aims to help more people build savings through the development of well-designed savings tools that will address challenges faced by low- to moderate-income households.
Drive Widespread Progress
Industry experts together with employers and financial services companies, fintechs, and nonprofits have joined to develop new solutions via test-and-learn interventions that will help more Americans save.
The size and scale of the savings problem requires the knowledge and expertise of established industry experts that are recognized leaders in savings research and interventions on a individual and corporate level. BlackRock partnered with innovative industry experts Common Cents Lab, Commonwealth, and the Financial Health Network to give the initiative a comprehensive and multi-layered approach to address the savings crisis.
To develop heigh-quality savings innovations, the experts will:
- Help test and structure various strategies
- Provide early access to emerging research
- Distribute product design insights
- Evaluate and analyze data
- Facilitate industry connections
Industry Experts
The Common Cents Lab (CCL) is a financial behavior research lab within the Center for Advanced Hindsight at Duke University. CCL gathers and develops insights about what influences decisions to spend, save, borrow, and earn, and then leverages those insight to encourage behavior that aligns with people’s financial goals. In the last three years alone, CCL has partnered with over 50 organizations including Credit Unions, Banks, Tech Companies, Non-profits, local governments, and more, to re-design their product and services to measurably improve the financial health of more than half of a million people in the United States. Together we help their customers lead happier, healthier, and wealthier lives.
For more on CCL, go to commoncentslab.org and follow us on Twitter @commoncentslab.
Commonwealth strengthens the financial opportunity and security of financially vulnerable people by discovering ideas, piloting solutions, and driving innovations to scale. For nearly two decades, Commonwealth has designed effective innovations, products, and policies enabling over a half a million people to accumulate more than $1 billion in savings. Commonwealth understands broad changes requires market players to act. That’s why we collaborate with consumers, the financial services industry, employers, policy-makers and mission-driven organizations. The solutions we build are grounded in real life, based on our deep understanding of people who are financially vulnerable and how businesses can best serve them.
Additional information is available at buildcommonwealth.org and follow us on Twitter @buildcommwealth.
The Financial Health Network is the leading authority on financial health. We are a trusted resource for business leaders, policymakers and innovators united in a mission to improve the financial health of their customers, employees and communities. Through research, advisory services, measurement tools, and opportunities for cross-sector collaboration, we advance awareness, understanding and proven best practices in support of improved financial health for all.
For more on the Financial Health Network, go to www.finhealthnetwork.org and follow us on Twitter at @FinHealthNet.
Partners
Our partners are testing innovative interventions and savings tools to help people build emergency savings that can put them on a path to financial security. Learn more about these partners.
