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Initiative on Financial Security
History of Aspen IFS
The Aspen Institute Initiative on Financial Security believes the effort to improve household financial security requires leaders who understand the value of preserving the American characteristic of stakeholding and know how to create the financial products that will enable millions of individuals to save and invest for the future. But for decades, the two key indispensable players in creating such a savings system—the public policy thinkers who provide the ideas for new savings vehicles, and the private firms that must ultimately offer and administer them—have not collaborated in developing savings policy that works for industry, government, and households. Aspen IFS was founded on the guiding principle that effective savings policy must leverage the expertise of all stakeholders, most notably policy experts and the financial services industry.
To that end, in December of 2004 Aspen IFS began a groundbreaking partnership between the financial services industry and public policy experts to address the nation’s deepening savings crisis. To lead this effort, Aspen Institute Initiative on Financial Security assembled a carefully selected Advisory Board. The Aspen IFS Advisory Board unique mission was to realize the founding principle of Aspen IFS by bringing the expertise of the financial sector and the policy community together to tackle the growing problem of American household financial insecurity. Together, Aspen IFS and the Aspen IFS Advisory Board engaged the best minds in finance and public policy to find common ground on which to build a new set of savings vehicles that would help more Americans save, invest and own.