At Commonwealth, we’ve spent 18 years designing, testing, and implementing solutions to make financial security possible for those who need it most. Given this background, we couldn’t be more thrilled that earlier this year, BlackRock announced the first phase of its Emergency Savings Initiative. The BlackRock Emergency Savings Initiative (ESI) is a $50 million philanthropic initiative to help address the savings crisis through unprecedented partnerships focused on enabling millions of people living on low- to moderate-incomes to establish a stronger financial safety net. BlackRock’s commitment to this issue is a watershed moment, rich with potential and with recognition of the significance of financial insecurity.

Alongside our fellow industry experts Common Cents Lab and The Financial Health Network, Commonwealth is thrilled to be part of the first phase of the initiative. We are deploying our expertise and capabilities to partner with employers, fintechs, financial services firms, academic institutions, and others, ultimately bringing tools, products, and services that make savings easier and more compelling to hundreds of thousands of employees and customers. 

Today, we join with BlackRock in announcing our first partners in the ESI including UPS, Mastercard, Etsy, Brightside, Arizona State University, and Acorns. This diverse group of leaders will work with Commonwealth, Common Cents Lab, and The Financial Health Network to take essential steps toward enabling financial well-being for their stakeholders.

For those of us working to advance financial security, this is a true inflection point. We know that enabling savings for workers, customers, gig economy participants, and students is both achievable and creates value for individuals and businesses/organizations alike, from reduced stress to stronger productivity. Through this phase of the ESI, we can now bring decades of design, implementation, and impact assessment experience, providing a golden opportunity for leading organizations to foster financial security within their own institutions.

Momentum has already begun to build, as the range of partners announced today attests. We know the benefits of financial security reverberate beyond the individual to impact employers, communities, and financial institutions; as more leading firms/organizations recognize this insight, we expect a cycle of further action, awareness, and progress.  

This work is consistent with a vitally important, larger trend: increasingly, leading firms and institutions focus on multiple stakeholders, and pursue double–or even triple–bottom lines. In this spirit, the Business Roundtable’s latest Purpose of a Corporation called on CEOs to focus on the well-being of all stakeholders, including employees. 

Timing is right for the ESI–emerging technology, new consumer insights, and changes in the labor market have provided new tools and insights, and awareness of the pervasiveness and impact of financial insecurity has increased. Additionally, new approaches to make saving possible, and even engaging, are arriving at the same time workers are experiencing unprecedented change and insecurity. There are tools to support saving today that did not exist a decade ago–we also know more about when and how to highlight savings opportunities.  

With 78 percent of Americans living paycheck-to-paycheck and nearly 40 percent saying they could not cover a $400 emergency from their savings, financial security is no longer an outlier issue; it’s gone mainstream. We invite you to join us in this effort and see how your organization can tap the resources and expertise of the ESI to enable financial security for your stakeholders.

To learn more about the ESI, contact Nick Maynard at info@buildcommonwealth.org or sign up for regular email updates.