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Building Assets

An estimated 2.7 billion people live on less than $2 a day. This is more than half the population of the developing world and the majority of them are young people. Because jobs are scarce, self-employment and household asset-building is the only option for many.

While the last decade has witnessed a general improvement in income among the world’s working poor, there has been a growing asset divide. Today, asset inequality dwarfs income inequality worldwide, with low levels of asset ownership reaching well into the American middle class.

Our Building Assets program seeks to help women and youth build, own and have access to financial and social assets enabling them to exert control over their lives and participate in the economy and society in a meaningful way.

We fund programs that:

• Extend Critical Financial Services
  
  
  • Increase savings and access to housing credits, individual development accounts and children’s savings accounts in order to encourage schooling, home ownership, property ownership and micro or social enterprises;
  • Support innovative programs such as employer-based asset building efforts and pairing remittances with credit and savings products for immigrant and migrant workers;
  • Assist microfinance institutions to reduce poverty by focusing on the provision of schooling for girls, preventing the spread of communicable diseases such as HIV, and strengthening the role of women as managers and leaders;
  • Encourage microfinance institutions to work at the intersection of micro and small business;
• Advance Public Policy
  
  
  • Conduct research and support public policy change in order to document the allocation of public investment to the non-poor to support of inclusive and universal asset policies, extend and/or eliminate barriers faced by women and youth, and leverage tax codes;
• Protect Assets
  
  
  • Promote anti-predatory lending legislation and regulation and support expansion of insurance schemes; and
  • Leverage peer learning and best practices across borders and from all parts of the world.