Individual Development Accounts

Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) encourage savings efforts among low-income people by offering them matches for their own deposits to help them acquire significant assets such as a first home, post-secondary education, or a small business. IDA programs typically are implemented by community-based organizations (CBOs) in partnership with a financial institution that holds the deposits. The CBOs provide financial education and program management, while public and private sources provide matching funds.

A wealth of information about IDA programs, policies, and research is available through the Corporation for Enterprise Development and the Center for Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis.

The Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law administered the FLLIP IDA program through CBOs in Moline, Wheaton, and Champaign, Illinois. The two-year pilot program launched in 2001 in partnership with the Illinois Department of Human Services.  Approximately 150 participants completed the program by the end of 2003. See some of our participants' stories.

The PAID coalition in Champaign continued its IDA program beyond 2003 with additional funding from the federal Assets for Independence Act. For information about other IDA programs in Illinois and throughout the United States, go to www.idanetwork.org.