Examples of Successful Wealth Building in Rural Areas

The purpose of this paper is to describe successful examples of wealth building in rural areas through the mechanism of individual development accounts (IDAs). A review of available literature, supplemented by a limited survey of selected programs, provides an overview of the issues associated with operating IDA programs in rural America, a set of ‘action factors’ that help define success, and some initial observations on rural IDA programs. an appendix gives details on each of the selected programs. This paper is one of a series on wealth building in rural America.