About Us

Commonwealth is a national nonprofit building financial security and opportunity for financially vulnerable people through innovation and partnerships.
Our vision is to make it possible for all people to build wealth.

Tens of millions of people in the U.S. live with chronic financial insecurity, inadequate savings, and no meaningful wealth, with deeply harmful consequences for themselves, their children, families, communities, employers, and the economy.  

Black, Latinx, and women-led households disproportionately experience financial insecurity due in large part to longstanding, systemic racism and gender discrimination. Addressing these issues is critical to Commonwealth’s work of making wealth possible for all.

Over two decades, Commonwealth’s fundamental purpose has remained to create a stronger and more prosperous society where everyone has financial opportunity. Our work has enabled over 2 million people to save nearly $8 billion on a path to greater financial security and wealth.  

We have moved employers to prioritize worker financial security, the financial service industry to bring products to market that better serve financially vulnerable people, and policymakers to pass legislation and take action to enable savings and financial security.  

We collaborate with people living on lower incomes, employers, innovators, the financial services industry, fintechs, recordkeepers, payroll providers, gig platforms, policymakers, and nonprofits to build solutions that make wealth possible for everyone. We conduct rigorous research to find original insights and use these findings to design, scale, and amplify solutions in partnership with major corporations, entrepreneurs, and policymakers.


Our work has enabled over2 million peopleto save nearly$8 billion.

About Commonwealth

Below are just a few highlights of recent projects: 

As part of BlackRock’s Emergency Savings Initiative, we are elevating awareness of the emergency savings crisis in the U.S., testing innovations and spurring complex systems with reach and scale to help millions of low- and moderate-income (LMI) people be more financially secure. 

Through original research and partnerships, we are building a portfolio of wealth creation tools and pathways where we see opportunities for innovation that can have a sustainable impact on the income, race, and/or gender wealth gaps.

Enabling widespread financial security and wealth creation requires pioneering imaginative new ways to reach and serve low- and moderate-income workers. Tens of millions of working people interact daily with powerful financial infrastructures in mass transit, wireless telecom, and digital payments. Through research and innovation, we are advancing practical ideas to harness these channels to meet the savings and other financial needs of underserved populations.

Conversational AI and other powerful technologies hold unprecedented potential to meet the unique financial needs and aspirations of lower-income people. Through this body of work, we aim to influence fintechs and other innovators to ensure that solution designs include the unique needs of underserved populations.

Our History 

The late 20th century saw huge innovation in financial services, yielding an array of new products and services most often geared toward wealthier consumers. At the same time, social scientists were rethinking strategies to help low-income people achieve their financial goals. The asset building field emerged in response, emphasizing wealth creation—rather than just current income—to foster economic security and launch social mobility.

Commonwealth emerged from the intersection of these two developments in financial innovation and asset building social policy. In the late 1990s, Commonwealth co-founder and Harvard Business School professor Peter Tufano recognized that promising demonstration asset building programs were not necessarily scalable. Having successfully helped build one such demonstration program, former Human Resources executive and co-founder Timothy Flacke joined Tufano to pursue a novel idea: converting pilot results into impact for millions of families by applying the techniques of financial innovation that drive new product offerings for more affluent consumers.

Tufano’s observation and Flacke’s on-the-ground experience led to Commonwealth’s first focus, a web-based infrastructure to support a national savings program with reach, scale, and efficiency. From the lessons of this first effort, Commonwealth developed an approach to innovation that marries private sector capabilities and scope with nonprofit ideals. Commonwealth aims to make the “mass market” attractive to serve, designing appealing financial products that break down traditional barriers to access and participation.

At the core of this approach is innovation, such as a reduction in the cost to serve working families, imaginative new products and delivery channels, subtle changes in public policy, and new tools to inform and incentivize consumers. Over the last 20 years, Commonwealth’s efforts have led to new financial products and public policies used by over 2 million consumers to create nearly $8 billion in savings. The organization has thrice changed federal policy to facilitate saving, and influenced the workplace and the financial services industry to introduce a range of new products.