| Notes |
Project Overview
Family Rewards was an innovative approach to poverty reduction in the United States that was modeled on the conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs common in lower- and middle-income countries. The program offered cash assistance to poor families, contingent on their meeting certain criteria related to family health care, children’s education, and parents’ work, in the hope of reducing long-term poverty. The first version of Family Rewards was evaluated in New York City starting in 2007 and had positive effects on some outcomes.
The early lessons learned from that study led to Family Rewards 2.0, the second iteration of the model. Like the first version of the model, Family Rewards 2.0 included rewards in each of the three domains of children’s education, family preventative health, and parents’ workforce efforts, but it was modified in several ways.
The program and evaluation was funded by the Social Innovation Fund (SIF), an initiative enacted under the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, that targets millions of dollars in public-private funds to expand effective solutions across three issue areas: economic opportunity, healthy futures, and youth development and school support. This work seeks to create a catalog of proven approaches that can be replicated in communities across the country.
In 2010, the Corporation for National and Community Service made its first set of Social Innovation Fund (SIF) grants. Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity (NYC Opportunity) and the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City received a grant to replicate and evaluate five of NYC Opportunity’s most promising antipoverty programs. Family Rewards was one of those programs.
The Family Rewards demonstration was overseen by a collaborative, which included staff members from The Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City, NYC Opportunity, and MDRC. The Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City is a grant-making institution that facilitates public-private partnerships throughout New York City. NYC Opportunity, a unit in the New York City Mayor’s Office of Operations, sponsors and manages innovative antipoverty programs and evaluations. MDRC worked in close partnership with NYC Opportunity to design the Family Rewards program and led the evaluation. |