Communities & Banking
Spring 2017 
The Gamification Effect: Using Fun to Build Financial Security
Using a game-based approach, new financial-education and savings programs are putting the power to save in the palm of users’ hands and reinforcing and rewarding smart savings decisions.
Land Installment Contracts: The Newest Wave of Predatory Home Lending Threatening Communities of Color
Designed to fail, land installment contracts exploit low-income would-be homeowners, especially in communities of color, draining them of resources and often leaving them homeless. Regulation can change that.
Anchor Institutions: The Economic Benefits of Putting Community First
Making it feasible and enticing for anchor institutions to work consistently and at a larger scale with local businesses requires a better understanding of the system, its players, its incentives, and the policies and procedures currently in place that may limit how anchors can engage community businesses for procurement.
A Pay-for-Success Opportunity to Prove Outcomes with the Highest-Risk Young People
Preventing recidivism among formerly incarcerated youth is a difficult challenge, but pay-for-success approaches like this one are beginning to show that supportive interventions can turn lives around and provide significant benefits to the youths’ communities.
The Importance of Entrepreneurship in Black and Latino Communities in Massachusetts
Entrepreneurship opens up opportunities that are hard to come by in minority communities. In Massachusetts, public schools can encourage it by exposing young people to its life-changing possibilities.
Sparking Change in New England’s Smaller Cities: Lessons from Early Rounds of the Working Cities Challenge
A multiyear, multistate funding initiative in New England is making great strides in smaller industrial cities with community-based efforts to tackle social and economic challenges. Key lessons learned from the first rounds of participating cities in Massachusetts are now informing the planning process for the cities that follow and the regional initiative as a whole.
Do Community Benefits Agreements Benefit Communities?
Fifteen years into their use, community benefits agreements have revolutionized the land-use approval process for large, public-private economic development projects. Now, developers and coalitions representing low-income communities can settle their disputes directly, outside of formal approval processes.
