Our Projects

The Policy and Housing Opportunity initiative is a collaboration between students of CSD’s Dr. Molly Metzger and community partners in the St. Louis region. The initiative is designed to broaden housing opportunity in metropolitan St. Louis and particularly in the region’s majority-white, inner-ring suburbs.

This collaboration with the University of Ottawa and an international team of researchers has collected and analyzed data from partner organizations in 10 countries to examine the roles international development volunteers play in advancing gender equality and empowering women.

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

We investigate social innovations in the voluntary sector at the intersection of nonprofits and social enterprises

In collaboration with researchers at the University of Ottawa and the University of Technology Sydney, we investigate volunteering as a pathway to more effective foreign aid development policy, exploring how international volunteers engage in alternative public diplomacy roles.

The Financial Capability & Asset Building in Africa (FCAB Africa) initiative aims to increase financial capability and asset holding among socially and financially marginalized populations in Africa. By improving financial stability and security in these populations, the initiative seeks to strengthen their social and economic well-being.

The “Envisioning Community Land Trust” series reflects a collaboration between students of CSD’s Dr. Molly Metzger and two community partners: elected officials and community organizations in Webster Groves, Missouri, and the Green City Coalition in the City of St. Louis, MO. The intention of this series is to make scholarship on CLTs more accessible to the public, in order to foster robust community engagement concerning new possibilities for this model in the St. Louis region.

CSD’s work at the intersection of disability and asset building continues to inform policy as well as practice.

We address the gap in professional FCAB training of social workers and other human service practitioners who serve low- and moderate-income households.

The SEED OK experiment, which began in 2007, is a large-scale policy test of universal, automatic, and progressive Child Development Accounts. The CDA uses the Oklahoma 529 College Savings Plan platform.

HomeGrown StL’s research focuses on building capacity in St. Louis City and County to better serve and foster the positive development of young black males ages 12 to 29.

We sponsored the Child Well-Being Symposium in 2014 and continue to build this program to test strategies and use knowledge to inform policies and practices.

Our project assisted the Taipei City government with policy and research design for its Taipei Family Development Account pilot program.

Our research focuses on societal inclusion and ways to promote engagement across the life course.

We build social capacity to reduce incarceration rates in ways that are effective, sustainable and socially just. This requires major shifts in the criminal justice system. 

We work with the Israeli government to develop an asset-building policy of national Child Development Accounts. 

This initiative investigates what social conditions and policy supports can make life with a low or moderate income stable, secure, satisfying and successful.

We examine race, opportunity and social mobility with an emphasis on informing policies and interventions to reduce inequality in adolescents’ transition to adulthood.

The first statewide Child Development Account (CDA) in the U.S., Maine’s Harold Alfond College Challenge, stands as a shining example of universal and progressive accounts at birth. We study the College Challenge and document this CDA’s evolution.

CSD seeks to inform and put in place an inclusive 529 platform for educational savings to increase postsecondary degree success among lower-income children, youth, and non-traditional students.

We use our expertise to assess and test innovations that remove barriers to voting and enhance voter participation.

CSD is leading a global research agenda to study volunteerism as a strategy for meeting global sustainable development goals.

Our experiments measure the effect of interventions informed by behavioral economics that seek to increase saving at tax time.

Through research, we assess whether such programs offer a promising strategy for building financial security among workers.

We collaborate with St. Louis criminal justice entities to research, design, implement, and evaluate evidence-based policies and practices to reduce the incarcerated population.

We are building a body of evidence in financial capability, defined as both the knowledge to make optimal financial decisions and access to appropriate and beneficial financial services. 

We examine social vulnerability to environmental change, and strategies for social action and adaptation.

We engage with community partners in developing a social capacity framework to promote behavioral health for people involved in the criminal justice system.

We assist China with creating its first asset-building program and conduct ongoing research with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Our research examines the effectiveness of asset-building policies in Native communities and seeks to inform policy design to make inclusive asset-building policies. 

The Support4Families program is designed to assist families who struggle with the emotional strain of providing support to loved ones releasing from prison.

In partnership with the University of Ottawa, we surveyed more than 300 volunteer partner organizations operating in more than 80 countries in the Global South.

We advance “deferred prosecution” programs. People charged with certain offenses can be diverted from traditional court proceedings and possibly avoid incarceration. 

We partner with St. Louis Integrated Health Network, City of St. Louis and others to improve health outcomes for minorities in transition from jail to communities.

The policy set up an account for every Singaporean ages 7 to 20. It is one of three asset-building programs that create a cradle-to-grave asset-building system for all.  

This initiative in Colombia, Ghana, Kenya and Nepal was to understand conditions for delivery of savings products and services to improve the lives of low-income youth.

We partner with the Brookings Institution to research avenues for meaningful participation in international volunteering and service. 

We test whether a brief social belonging intervention will increase retention rates at a community college.

Washington University and Duke University held a think tank about the relationship between social innovation and civic engagement in higher education.

We investigate corporate volunteering and its association with various dimensions of corporate philanthropy. 

We conducted a study involving nearly 500 veterans in more than 400 nonprofit organizations in 42 states. 

We work to expand the audience of testimonies from youth and children affected by the cycle of incarceration, violence and disenfranchisement.  

Our collaboration with the New America Foundation’s Asset Building Program seeks to inform and promote development of asset-building policies and programs worldwide. 

We examine the effects of embedding a yearlong service learning program into existing school curricula for students in a middle school setting. 

Led by the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship at Haverford College, we surveyed students from multiple institutions of higher education who participated in global service learning.  

We assessed community partner perceptions of student volunteers, their preferred attributes and perceived impact from 2011-2013 survey data. 

We seek to increase the financial capability of Head Start families in the St. Louis metropolitan area through financial education. 

This is the first large-scale demonstration of Individual Development Accounts, with approximately 2,400 accounts opened at 13 sites across the country. 

We test a theoretical model that examines poor health behaviors as coping mechanisms for the stress of social disadvantage.  

Our work examines the prevalence of mental disorders in African Americans in primary care and community settings.

We examine racial and ethnic differences in depression, including the effects of socioeconomic position and discrimination.

We work to advance equity for girls of color. This project focuses on building resiliency, and it identifies assets that are protective factors.

We explore how black youth draw on personal and cultural resources to thrive despite challenges to their identities from institutional racism.

We aim to advance knowledge and practice of international service in the context of higher education through summits and collaborations. 

With the Buder Center for American Indian Studies, we investigate the potential of using the Earned Income Tax Credit toward poverty alleviation in Indian Country. 

Our partnership with Volunteer Organization and Service Enquiry Southern Africa examines the impact of international service in South Africa, Mozambique and Tanzania. 

We designed a randomized clinical trial measuring the impacts of volunteer-based health trainings on behavior in central Uganda.

Our project determines which features of voluntary service have the greatest impact on volunteers, host organizations, and community outcomes in Peru and Costa Rica. 

Our project examines challenges and emerging perspectives in international volunteerism in Asia through an online survey and in-country interviews.

Our research addresses saving for post-secondary education in American Indian communities in North Carolina. 

China’s growing older population includes many who are healthy and who want to be engaged. Their contributions are crucial for China’s social and economic development.

This collaborative research project with the Seoul Welfare Foundation focuses on a matched savings program modeled on Individual Development Accounts.

We expand the national methodology for basic income adequacy and economic security measure by including saving components. 

We assisted the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families in designing the next evaluation of the AFIA program. 

Our project with the Kathryn M. Buder Center for American Indian Studies examines the uptake and potential uses of Earned Income Tax Credit dollars by Native people. 

We test asset-building accounts for children and youth to create an inclusive system of Child Development Accounts in 12 communities across the U.S. SEED included more than 1,200 low-income children and their families.

We research how financial education and saving affect student’s financial literacy, academic engagement and plans for college. 

Our project enables families to save and make investments in the Nairobi Stock Exchange in Kenya. 

We designed an initiative to develop an integrated “equity” framework for community development to inform constituencies about effective redevelopment of a neighborhood.

We investigate the asset holdings of one Native community by asking members to define “assets” for themselves and for their community. 

Our research informs development of asset-building policies at the state level and is designed to include traditionally marginalized groups. 

We built an inclusive statewide and regional asset-building coalition in the South with Historically Black Colleges and Universities as partners.

We investigate the characteristics of civic service programs in Uruguay that most effectively recruit and retain older adults.

We created a tool for the American Dream Policy Demonstration to track demographics and savings of low-income individuals participating in a matched savings program. 

Experience Corps  is an inter-generational tutoring program that places older adults in public schools to help students who experience trouble with reading. 

We investigate youth civic service worldwide and measure its impact on volunteers and the individuals and communities they serve.

We assess the status of youth volunteer service in Latin America and the Caribbean and its potential to serve as a strategy for social and economic development.

We explore the impact of participation in a service-learning program at the college level on participants’ civic engagement following graduation.

We investigate the Technical Aids Corps Scheme in Nigeria to examine participation, its effects on servers’ civic nationalism and its impact on communities. 

We use the Social Network Analysis as a tool to measure the community-level impacts of the work accomplished by AmeriCorps volunteers in three U.S. cities. 

We examine whether Nepal’s National Development Volunteer Service enhances civic engagement, especially among the nation’s youth. 

We explore organizational factors promoting long-term civic service engagement at Habitat for Humanity International programs in Latin America and the Caribbean. 

We analyze civic service and volunteering initiatives in five Southern African countries and examined their implications for social development in the region.

We support innovative research on civic service in countries all over the world from a multinational network of scholars and researchers.

Our research finds that informal and formal civic service traditions in Lesotho are primarily a response to social necessity.

We compare American youth service programs City Year and Teach for America with French programs Unis Cite and AFEV. 

We analyze national policies in France, Italy, the Czech Republic and Poland to investigate how national frameworks can expand international voluntary service. 

Our project with the Urban Institute evaluates studies of asset building among low-income households for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 

We investigate the impact of service learning on environmental awareness and civic engagement.

We test intercultural competence and the impact of international youth service programs on Swiss and British volunteers and their Ecuadorian hosts. 

We focused on credit scoring for microfinance and poverty scoring to improve access for the poor to formal financial services. 

We examine the patterns and determinants of asset accumulation across the life course, using 35 years of data.

We develop a measurement tool to assess institutional capacity to engage older volunteers and collect data on volunteer programs and older adult volunteers.

We investigate the potential of youth civic service programs to serve as effective development tools for transitional countries through focusing on Mongolia. 

We explore the nature of service and citizenship in the National Youth Service Corps program in Nigeria and how political forces have affected the program. 

We examine the scope and nature of service learning in urban and suburban schools and across socio-economic levels.

We provide policy and research design support to the government of South Korea as it develops and implements programs that focus on social investment. 

We provide policy and research design support to nongovernmental organizations in Peru and Colombia as they develop three asset-based poverty alleviation initiatives. 

We test the role of state welfare asset limits on low-income households’ ability to build assets. 

We research asset development in rural America with a focus on underserved populations