Integrating Savings and Credit: A Strategy for Enhanced Asset Development Among Microentrepreneurs

About this grant

This grant will enable the Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED) to replicate and disseminate lessons learned from the Integrating Savings and Credit Initiative. The initiative was developed to examine the integration of two asset development and accumulation strategies: Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) and micro-enterprise development services. Since IDAs and micro-enterprise development services promote asset development and accumulation among low-income people and share similar methodologies, identifying the intersections and disconnects between these strategies was vital in order to maximize their potential for helping low-income populations.Third-year funding will support objectives that include creating a user-friendly, Web-based toolkit of the products created during the first phase of the initiative; designing training materials and conducting three training sessions that teach practitioners how to use the toolkit; providing $4,000 grants to five organizations to continue to collect and report quarterly performance data on the products; and preparing a summary report describing the results of the monitoring process.From 2002 through 2004, CFED partnered with five organizations to develop integrated savings and credit products and program design strategies. All five organizations completed market research, product development and testing; and contributed training and lending products to an integration toolkit.