Building Savings

Make it easy for your community to learn about the Tax Time Savings Bond Policy. Marketing materials order form is now available on the Bonds site.

The capacity for lower income consumers to save is minimal. Their incomes are not just low, but often irregular and unreliable. Are lower income families too poor to save or too poor not to save? That’s a contradiction they face as their meager income is consumed by essentials such as rent, utilities, groceries, health care, insurance and emergencies. Opportunities for lower income families to save are few, and their savings needs are unique. At D2D, we design innovative savings products that address the distinctive savings needs of lower income consumers.

Impact of Building Savings

Savings Bonds - Policy and Impact

Beginning in 2010, 100 million households had easy access to a simple and solid savings option at tax time thanks to a new initiative announced by the Obama Administration on September 5, 2009.  In tax season 2010, the first year this option was available, 25,000 taxpayers saved $11 million.  This number is expected to increase significantly in 2011.

 

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Save to Win: Learnings

With the introduction of the Save to Win product in Michigan in 2009, credit unions have demonstrated that the possibility of winning – both a large $100,000 annual jackpot and a range of regularly awarded smaller prizes – does encourage people to save.

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Research Agenda

Our research and evaluation goals for Building Savings among low and moderate income families are to:


Resources on Building Savings

A Need for Product Innovation to Help LMI Consumers Manage Financial Emergencies

With little reseach on financial tools to help households prepare for financial emergencies, Doorways to Dreams Fund designed a survey to understand LMI consumers’ perceptions of and experiences with emergencies and their insights into product design features that will help them cope. This paper details

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2011 Savings Bond Report

Converting opportunity to impact was the central challenge for the Doorways to Dreams (D2D) Fund and the Savings Bond Working Group (SBWG) as we entered tax season 2011. The result was the Bonds Make it Easy national social marketing campaign, which aims to build awareness and use of the tax time savings bond policy first announced by President Obama in late 2009.

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Save to Win Midterm Report

The Save to Win prize-linked savings project now underway in eight Michigan credit unions has been very successful so far, as our mid-term report

 

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