Our Projects

With the Indonesian Ministry of Social Welfare and State Islamic University, we designed an asset-based pilot to be implemented in poor areas of Indonesia.

We provided policy and research design support to the government of Hong Kong as it developed a proposal for a national Child Development Fund. 

Our pilot program tests asset-building innovations for impoverished households and communities in Uganda. 

We worked with local researchers to implement and test an asset-building intervention with orphaned children at seven primary schools in the Rakai district. 

We explore the general characteristics of schools in Argentina that run service-learning programs.

We assess activities and recommended performance measurement indicators to organizations aiming to increase asset ownership among low-income groups.

We develop an instrument that allows service and volunteer organizations to assess the impact of their programs.

We evaluated a pilot project in transnational youth service and its impacts involving Mexican, Canadian, and U.S. youth.

We investigate the characteristics and motivations of youth who serve in Germany’s voluntary cultural year. 

We explore the language, measurement tools and impetus for a broader and more balanced discussion of elder volunteerism and service.

We study the impact of the service experience on participants in two programs for voluntary national service in Israel. 

We assess the forms, purposes, activities, servers  and operations of all civic service programs worldwide.

In 1998, the Minnesota Legislature passed into law the Family Assets for Independence in Minnesota (FAIM) Pilot Project for IDAs. FAIM was the first statewide IDA program to be studied in this level of detail.

Our project with the United Way of Greater St. Louis implemented an IDA Pilot Program to explore a way to build assets in low-income households and communities. 

Our research investigates the impacts of service on the health and well-being of older adult volunteers and their potential to address critical social development needs.

We assess REAP and explore the role of financial and economic factors in domestic violence for low-income battered women in the St. Louis region.

We held a research and policy symposium on knowledge foundations and policy strategies to enable low-wealth individuals to build assets.

Our pilot programs focused on the rural poor with the goal of encouraging low-income families to save for assets for a better life.

We analyze the level of engagement of older adults in productive activities and their impact on the adults’ physical and mental health.

Our project identified factors that discourage or encourage older adults in voluntary service to society through 22 organizations in the St. Louis metropolitan area.

This study assesses African-American freshman and sophomore students’ decisions to remain in high school and their opinions regarding dropout prevention programs. 

We examine economic well-being outcomes among low-income individuals who took part in one of seven microenterprise assistance programs in the U.S.