A Supervitamin for Public Programs

New York City (the Mayor’s office, that is, with whom we have partnered in the past) just released a report about some of the financial empowerment work—including savings, banking and financial counseling initiatives—that it has been pushing into its core social service programs. The report, Municipal Financial Empowerment: A Supervitamin for Public Programs, focuses on professional, one-on-one financial counseling. We’ve been big supporters of trying this approach in the past, as the main question with this kind of financial counseling isn’t whether it can be effective, but whether or not it can be scaled? The City has been a real leader in trying to answer that question and Mayor Bloomberg has been out in front of this idea (the City is set to put $2.4 million behind the Financial Empowerment Centers, which previously were funded with private donations). The report shows how New York built its network of privately-funded Financial Empowerment Centers and how financial counseling may make traditional social service programs achieve better and longer-lasting outcomes. If this approach works we might have a new model with great potential to move people up the financial ladder and help them progress from just earning income to saving to asset and wealth accumulation.

We’re told the NYC Department of Consumer Affairs plans to release reports examining the integration of savings programs, banking access initiatives and other important financial empowerment efforts into core City services. The states have always been considered “laboratories of democracy.” Recently we’ve seen that extend more and more to our cities as New York, San Francisco and a host of other cities step up to fill needs in innovative ways. The really exciting aspect of the work going on in NYC is not just the new financial counseling centers but the potential for an asset building approach to be woven into the entire traditional social service sector and helping those programs achieve better and longer-lasting outcomes.

In a piece for The Wall Street Journal, Jonathan Mintz summed up the approach:

Mr. Mintz said that dispensing financial advice to those already receiving social services staves off relapses and eventually pays for itself. “We call it the supervitamin effect,” he said. “Take domestic violence: The average woman goes back to an abusive situation seven times, and the primary reason is because of finances.”

We’ll continue to keep an eye on this work as it develops in New York, there’s a great deal for other cities, policymakers and the asset building field to learn here.