Boston Saves Receives $35,000 National League of Cities Financial Inclusion Grant

Mayor Martin J. Walsh today announced that the National League of Cities has awarded a $35,000 grant to support the growth of Boston Saves – the City of Boston’s children’s savings account program – as it enters the second year of its three-year pilot. The grant will fund Boston Saves’ parent engagement and community partnership efforts, including financial education and wealth-building initiatives for Boston families through the Mayor’s Office of Financial Empowerment. Mayor Walsh launched Boston Saves last fall to help families of Boston Public Schools (BPS) kindergartners save money for their children’s college or post-secondary career training.

Since 2015, Commonwealth has partnered with the City of Boston to help design a Children’s Saving Account that helps all Boston families save for their children’s futures through conducting original consumer research, advising on program development, and testing new features and designs.

Boston Saves is an exciting opportunity for families to support their children in pursuing post-secondary education,” said Timothy Flacke, Executive Director at Commonwealth, a mission driven organization that partnered with the City of Boston to design the children savings account program. “The continued growth and expansion of Boston Saves will allow even more families to build a solid foundation for education savings, a critical first step to financial opportunity.”

We have focused on increasing the desirability of CSAs by developing a user-friendly engagement platform with an open backend structure that Boston introduced in January of 2017.  The user-facing end of the platform enables ongoing interaction among program providers and the students and families with CSAs. It offers an unprecedented opportunity for ongoing interaction and financial education throughout the life of the product—which can be as long as 14 years.  The open back end enables families to choose the savings account that works best for them and their preferred financial provider.

Learn more in a press release from the City of Boston.