Federal and state governments currently support a variety of programs and policies to encourage saving. However, most of these programs are focused on long-term goals, with consequent restrictions on use and penalties for withdrawals other than those tied to a specific goal. Currently, no systematic savings program exists to intentionally encourage savings that are unrestricted and not oriented toward specific long-term goals, such as emergency or contingency savings. MDRC is requesting support to test the AutoSave concept-a savings strategy that uses the workplace as the portal to initiate and sustain the accumulation of unrestricted savings for emergencies and/or short-term uses. Mott funds will enable the grantee to continue field testing this new savings intervention in at least five diverse workplace settings. The primary deliverable from this pilot phase will be a memorandum summarizing the early operational lessons, including employer and employee take-up and attitudes toward savings and the AutoSave concept. Established in 1974, MDRC is a nonprofit research institute headquartered in New York City.

This grant provides continuing support to Washington University for a statewide demonstration of children's savings accounts. Because the demonstration is being conducted within the state of Oklahoma's existing college savings plan system, it could serve as a prototype policy for expanding asset-building opportunities from thousands to millions of families. Key goals for the grant period are: 1) manage year four implementation activities; 2) undertake account monitoring research and reporting efforts; and 3) communicate research findings and other lessons to a broad group of stakeholders, including policymakers and the media. Washington University Professor Michael Sherraden is a leader in the asset-building field and is widely credited for launching the movement with his seminal book, Assets and the Poor.

Important practice and policy achievements have been made in the asset-building field over the past decade, yet several challenges remain. Most notably, scale-defined as expanding successes from thousands to millions of families in a cost-efficient manner-remains elusive. This renewal grant will enable Brandeis University to support the development of policy initiatives that address the issue of scale and other asset-building challenges by continuing to document and disseminate information about promising strategies. Brandeis University's Institute on Assets and Social Policy is a public policy institute whose mission is to conduct research that informs policies and practices that broaden wealth and improve the social and economic well-being of American households.