Resources/Asset Development

Individual Development Accounts

  • Asset Development in Microenterprise Organizations. Business ownership is one of the primary ways that Americans build assets, and the microenterprise field was an early supporter and practitioner of asset-building programs. At the Assets Learning Conference sponsored by CFED, FIELD Senior Consultant Joyce Klein described the growing set of asset-building strategies offered by microenterprise programs, and summarized research to date about the asset-building effects of microenterprise. (2008, 24 pages, FIELD).
  • www.idanetwork.org. This on-line resource from CFED provides a wide range of information on Individual Development Accounts.  The Web site includes a resource library that includes a section on IDA program design, as well as information on asset training, financial education, funding and asset policy.
  • The Savings and Credit Toolkit. This resource from CFED describes the critical steps involved in integrating microenterprise and IDA programs. It outlines a systematic product development process that can assist programs in determining appropriate goals for integration, and developing the steps required to implement those goals. The kit also provides sample designs and tools developed by five organizations that took part in its “Integrating Savings and Credit Initiative.” Components of the toolkit cover: determining goals and organizational capacity, knowing your target market, product design, pilot testing, product launch, training, and evaluating your program. (2005, CFED)
  • Savings and Credit for Microentrepreneurs.  This bulletin, which is Volume 4, Number 1 in CFED’s Effective Policy and Practice Guide series, explores how Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) and microenterprise development (MED) products and services can be integrated to enhance asset accumulation among low-income entrepreneurs. (Undated, 6 pages, CFED.) 
  • Integrating Savings into Microenterprise Programs for the Poor: Do Institutions Matter? This paper uses data from microenterprise programs that support savings through IDAs to examine which institutional characteristics – match rates, flexibility in program rules, hours of financial literacy training, etc. – have an affect on the savings rate of program participants.  Although this is a fairly technical research report, the findings on pages 20 and 21 will be useful for those designing IDA programs for entrepreneurs. (2004, 27 pages, Fred M. Ssewamala and Michael Sherraden.)