Our Approach

Innovation and Partnerships That Drive Systemic Change

Commonwealth collaborates with people living on low to moderate incomes, employers, entrepreneurs, the financial services industry, fintechs, recordkeepers, payroll firms, policymakers, community based organizations, and nonprofits to build solutions that make wealth possible for everyone. We conduct original consumer research to drive innovation, inspire action, and inform systemic change. We leverage our insights to develop scalable, sustainable innovations with leading private and public actors, generating systemic change that drives positive social impact for financially vulnerable people and the organizations that serve them.

To accomplish this, we have designed a human-centered innovation to scale solutions process. This integrated, iterative, and overlapping methodology includes: Learn, Define, Build, Test and Learn, Inform and Influence, and Scale.

Key Elements of Commonwealth’s Approach

Data-Driven Innovations and Actionable Insights

Commonwealth conducts consumer research to understand the unique needs of low- to moderate-income financially vulnerable people, employers, fintechs, financial systems, policymakers, and communities. We turn these findings into actionable insights and innovations, and work in partnership to design and test real-world solutions built for the unique needs of underserved consumers.

Partnerships for Widespread Adoption

We take the most promising of our innovations and design real-world pilots to test and scale them with leading actors across sectors. We advise and support partners in scale launch and deployment for impact with a particular focus on low- to middle-income people who are disproportionately women, Black, and Latinx people. These partnerships drive widespread systemic change, improving financial security and opportunity for millions of Americans.

Inform and Influence Strategy to Create Context and Momentum

We complement our direct relationships with critical industry and policy leaders by shaping relevant public and private conversations. Media coverage, webinars, conference presentations, convenings, publications, and social media open up new relationship opportunities, bolster allies within our partners, and help set the context in which we engage with business and policy leaders. Our work builds the case for social and business impact for the systemic change needed in order for financially vulnerable people to build financial security and wealth.

Race and Gender Equity Lens

Commonwealth focuses on improving financial systems to better serve low- to moderate-income people. We aim to foster race and gender equity in our work and innovations, ensuring that our work impacts populations that are disproportionately impacted by financial insecurity: Black, Latinx, and women-led households.