Our Values
Expanding opportunities and providing fair and equitable ways for all people to earn a decent living and build economic resources is essential to creating prosperous societies. Our work helps low-income people build assets and gain economic security.
Our Work
Our efforts seek ways to make markets and public systems and policies work better for low-income families and help them access the opportunities and tools they need to climb out of poverty and achieve economic security. We do this by providing the resources necessary to help low-income people expand their livelihood options, get and keep good jobs, obtain quality financial services, increase their access to opportunities in metropolitan regions and benefit from improved social protection systems. MORE
Worldwide, we work in areas of concentrated poverty, including rural communities and urban neighborhoods, to ensure that residents have access to quality financial products, including savings, insurance and credit, and to business development services that strengthen their livelihood options. In the United States, our work also includes efforts to promote savings through contribution matches, stronger social insurance programs, improved public transportation, land use, and financing for housing and community development, along with workforce development that leads to quality employment. The goal of our work is to help poor families earn a sustainable income and build assets, enabling them to overcome intergenerational poverty and exert more control over their lives.
Our Focus
Securing equity for working families
In the United States, millions of families have found that working hard—even in multiple jobs—is no longer a path to basic economic security. One in four working families (and the 21 million children in those households) is dependent on employment that offers poor job security, low pay, few benefits and little opportunity for advancement. To help these workers strengthen their financial position through greater job stability and opportunity, we support a range of efforts, including greater access to proven government supports such as the earned-income tax credit; an increase in the minimum wage; and paid sick days and subsidized child care.
Helen Neuborne, Director
Next-generation workforce strategies
Good jobs sustain our communities, strengthen our economy and stand at the heart of our vision of opportunity. The job market in the United States has shifted dramatically over the past three decades, leaving growing numbers of Americans chronically unemployed or trapped in low-wage jobs with no future. Youth, immigrants and ex-offenders are among the most vulnerable. Expanding the employment opportunities of low-wage workers in the United States requires effective workforce development strategies that are responsive to their needs and provide access to quality training and jobs that increase their earning potential. We support the growth of organizations and research that address these challenges, increasing the quality, quantity and accessibility of training opportunities and work placement services where they can do the most good.
Helen Neuborne, Director
Building economic security over a lifetime
Publicly funded social protection systems are often a critical aid in helping the working poor join the economic mainstream. Our efforts to expand opportunity for low-income people focus on strategies that help families gain access to government initiatives that enable them to build economic security over a lifetime. Our work in the United States focuses on promoting public support for the creation of universal savings accounts and Social Security reforms that increase benefits for low-wage workers. Internationally, we focus on building savings through programs that combine matched contributions and savings services with conditional cash transfer programs (which reward low-income families for adhering to the requirements of a "social contract") to create permanent financial assets for poor households. Together, these measures can create financial assets that break the intergenerational cycle of poverty.
Frank DeGiovanni, Director
Improving access to financial services
Access to financial products and services provides a way to build long-term assets and weather unforeseen crises. Yet, in the United States, an estimated 19 million households do not have a savings or a checking account. Globally, nearly 75 percent of people living in poverty lack access to financial services. To help poor and low-income people build economic security, we back efforts to increase their access to quality financial services by supporting research to test innovative products that meet the needs of poor households; building an infrastructure to make these products and services widely available; funding advocacy for supportive policy and regulation; and supporting efforts to monitor the effectiveness of financial services.
Frank DeGiovanni, Director
Economic opportunities for the rural poor
Rural communities experience the deepest forms of poverty and face challenging barriers to economic opportunity. Fully 75 percent of the world's extreme poor—more than 883 million people surviving on less than $1 per day—live in rural areas. In the United States, some 7.5 million rural people are poor. Our work focuses on finding innovative ways to improve the livelihoods of rural producers. We have four approaches: encouraging research and development to test new ways to improve access to markets; strengthening the capacity of organizations that assist rural producers; supporting policy analysis and advocacy to improve private and public policies that affect rural livelihoods; and building robust global networks to support innovation and effective advocacy.
Frank DeGiovanni, Director
Affordable homeownership
Combining housing and community development finance tools with comprehensive community revitalization strategies and policies can spark a more powerful approach to urban revitalization and affordable housing production than either can achieve on its own. Since 2000, the portion of U.S. households burdened by unsustainable housing costs has risen 30 percent; the number of low-income people living in concentrated poverty has jumped 40 percent; and the unemployment rate has almost doubled. To help low-income families in the United States move toward financial stability and security, we promote the development of innovative finance tools to help them purchase and maintain homes that are part of sustainable communities, linked to public transportation, good schools and secure employment. In the short term, our strategy focuses on accelerating the reuse of foreclosed properties and the rebuilding of the national housing finance system. In the longer term, we support community revitalization efforts that improve affordable housing options.
George McCarthy, Director
Community development and land use innovation
The foreclosure crisis has resulted in the largest loss of wealth among low-income households and communities of color in U.S. history—both for those who have lost homes and those who have held on to their properties but experienced dramatic declines in home values. Among communities of color, the loss of wealth is estimated at $213 billion. Conventional community development methods have proven inadequate for addressing these challenges. To stabilize and revitalize distressed neighborhoods across the United States, we support innovative land use and community planning strategies that more strongly influence regional development. In thriving neighborhoods, we aim to secure well-located properties for affordable housing through inclusionary housing ordinances, density bonuses for affordable housing and land acquisition measures. In declining areas, we focus on eliminating blight, acquiring abandoned properties for community-driven redevelopment and helping cities make better use of available land.
George McCarthy, Director
Metropolitan economic opportunity
Geographic isolation and the concentration of low-income people in the United States have worsened dramatically over the past two decades, exacerbated by the dispersion of jobs, services and other opportunities to distant suburban and exurban areas. Gaining access to opportunities—especially for African Americans and Latinos—increasingly requires long commutes and high transportation costs. Meanwhile, state and federal budget priorities run counter to the needs of low-income workers, with three times as much funding invested in highways as in public transportation. Smarter regional development strategies that expand and connect decent employment opportunities with affordable housing along regional public transportation corridors can reduce concentrated poverty and help regions grow in healthy ways. We support state and regional advocacy groups and coalitions that promote economic development and help ensure that planning decisions and infrastructure investment are made in the public interest and benefit the working poor.
George McCarthy, Director