Our Research
Commonwealth conducts original qualitative and quantitative research with financially vulnerable people—including Black, Latinx, and women-led households who disproportionately experience financial insecurity. We also interview industry experts and academics. We take what we learn and translate findings into actionable insights and practical solutions designed to change systems to work better for financially vulnerable people. We work with community groups, employers, financial services firms, fintechs, policymakers, and workplace solution providers to design and test real-world, practical solutions that not only work for individuals and families, but are also scalable and address the business needs of our partners.
We share the results of our work to provide you with innovative ideas, practical insights, and the tools you need to act. Explore our publications below.
Save to Win: Michigan 2012
This paper reports on the performance of the Michigan Save to Win (STW) product in its fourth year, highlighting findings that demonstrate that STW continues to impact members and offer opportunities for improved financial security.
Paving the Way Forward: Savings On Prepaid Cards
This paper reviews a collaboration between D2D and Banking Up to design and evaluate an emergency savings feature on their UPside prepaid card, providing insight into the potential impact on consumers and prepaid card providers. The work discussed in this…
Prep for Change: Improving Financial Capability Through Standardized Testing
Changing the context of standardized college-admissions tests (like the ACT or SAT) or state-wide exit exams could create a student-driven desire to learn about personal finance in a practical, doable, and scalable way. This paper explores the need for financial…
Building Financial Security Through Fun
This paper provides results and insights from the first Save To Win (STW) expansion experience in Nebraska with some highlights from one of the newest states to launch, North Carolina. Additionally, it compares the prize structures in each of the…
A Winning Proposition: Creating Economic Opportunities Through the State Lottery
This paper from discusses the opportunity for a state government backed savings product offered through the lottery channel, making the case for the role of government in savings, the potential of the lottery channel for offering such a product, the…
Spurring Innovation Via Public Challenge
The contest challenged Americans to submit their most innovative ideas and designs to one or both parts of the Challenge, the IdeaBank, which captured 140-character ideas and the App Design Challenge, which allowed submitters to upload more detailed explanations for…
Can Games Build Financial Capability?
This report explores D2D's current thinking about how casual financial literacy video games can lead to improvements in financial capability. With a foreword by Peter Tufano, Chairman of D2D Fund and the Peter Moores Dean, University of Oxford's Sa “Financial…
Playing the Savings Game: A Prize-Linked Savings Report
This report shows how, in just three years, prize-linked savings (PLS) products in Michigan & Nebraska credit unions have accumulated over $40 million in savings. PLS leverages behavioral principles to invigorate saving, a traditionally difficult and mundane activity, by rewarding…
Gamifying College Readiness and Financial Literacy
D2D Fund partnered with BlackSmith LLC andRegions Bank to launch SummerQuest: Birmingham, a college readiness and financial literacy program aimed at high school students throughout the city of Birmingham, AL in the Summer 2012. With this program, Financial Entertainment expanded…
Emergency Gift Cards: Commoditizing Savings with Prepaid Cards
D2D Fund has designed an emergency gift card to test a new way of reaching consumers with a short-term savings product by incorporating the following insights: a) consumers like to gift savings to their loved ones and as seen with…