SEED Universal Policy Initiative

About this grant

This renewal grant provides ongoing support to Washington University for a statewide demonstration of children’s savings accounts. Because the demonstration is being conducted within the state of Oklahoma’s existing college savings plan system, it could serve as a prototype policy for scaling up asset-building opportunities for an infinite number of families. Key goals during this grant period are to: 1) select participating families at random from state birth records and assign them to treatment and control groups; 2) coordinate and manage first-year implementation and problem-solving efforts; 3) undertake account monitoring research and reporting; and 4) develop and implement a communications plan. The grantee is a key leader in the asset-building field and is widely recognized for launching the movement with release of the seminal book, “Assets and the Poor”.