The National League of Cities (NLC) has invited Boston and four other cities to participate in a new Children’s Savings Account (CSA) learning collaborative cohort. This will enhance and support Boston’s own CSA pilot program that is expected to launch in the fall of 2016. The NLC learning collaborative is a chance to connect with other cities on a bi-monthly basis and dive deeper into issues and challenges each city is currently facing in getting ready to launch a CSA. Here is a quick overview of the learning collaborative:
CSA City-Led Learning Collaborative:
o Members chosen to participate in this initiative include 5 cities close to launching their city-led CSA initiative (Boston, Durham, Louisville, Milwaukee, and Oakland)
o Eligible cities are cities that have not launched their CSA but that are close to launching/implementation.
o The technical assistance includes but is not limited to bi-monthly calls with NLC staff, CFED and other experts to dive into issues/barriers that the OFE highlighted in its application to help move the initiative forward and get closer to implementation.
o Project period: August 2016-April 2018
In addition, Boston was recently selected to be part of NLC’s CSA City-Led Peer Network:
o Network includes 11 cities at various stages in designing or implementing a city-led CSA
o This will includ quarterly calls on broad strategy level topics related to CSAs such as funding strategies and linking post-secondary success metrics and CSAs. This will give us an opportunity to repay all the assistance we received as we were conceptualizing our CSA pilot launch. Programs in San Francisco and Maine were particularly helpful to us and were very generous with their time. All the cities, states, and municipalites planning CSA programs have benefited from those whose programs are already active.
o Project period: August 2016-April 2018
We look forward to working with NLC, a valued partner in our endeavors to connect Boston families to asset building opportunities and improve their financial wellbeing.
For more information on Boston’s Children’s Savings Account program, click here or read this Boston Globe story. Our pilot program will begin during the 2016-17 school year at Harvard/Kent Elementary School in Charlestown, James Otis Elementary School in East Boston, McKay K-8 School in East Boston, Franklin D. Roosevelt K-8 School in Hyde Park, and Conley Elementary School in Roslindale.