Background
The Indigo network in Europe was founded by the Levi Strauss Foundation (LSF) whose commitment to asset building programmes grew out of early support of the American Dream Demonstration in 1997, a pioneering pilot scheme that matched savings accounts for the working poor devoted to purchasing a home, paying for college or skills training or starting a small business. The findings of this five-year programme have powerfully influenced policies and initiatives in the United States and, more recently, abroad.
In Europe, the Levi Strauss Foundation is supporting the asset building field by focusing on model development, policy advocacy and direct services that enable low-income people to accumulate and protect assets. To date, through the Indigo Asset Building Program, the Levi Strauss Foundation has supported asset building innovation in nine European countries.
For the Foundation, the ultimate value of the Indigo network is that it will bring together the experience of asset building and begin to catalyse the synergies present in the knowledge of so many practitioners and innovators. Indigo will act as a laboratory of information exchange and learning, enable the use of innovative tools that support asset building, enable a consulting and advisory role for practitioners for each others’ project and act as a resource centre.
Members of the Indigo network also form the European Microfinance Network's Asset Building Working Group.
What is Asset Building?
The term ‘asset building’ describes a continuum of opportunities and activities, including access to mainstream financial services (including affordable loans), savings and investment opportunities, and asset preservation measures. ‘Assets’ can also refer to a range of physical and human capital – e.g. skills and personal attributes, social networks, cultural capital – which are critically important to individual and community development. The Indigo network, while recognising the value of all of these, focuses on savings.
The emphasis in asset building is on savings as opposed to relying solely on credit and loans as a strategy to help people out of poverty. Assets enable people to plan for the future, make choices and weather unexpected financial storms. Ultimately, asset building can make home ownership and entrepreneurial job creation a genuine possibility. As such, asset building represents a long-term, innovative anti-poverty strategy that pushes the limits on what is possible.
Membership
The Indigo network includes not-for-profit organisations, microfinance providers, networks, research consultancies and thinktanks. All are involved in developing and implementing innovative approaches to asset building – piloting savings schemes for marginalised groups, for example – or in research and policy work around asset building. The partners are linked by their commitment to ending financial and social exclusion through asset building.
The International Association for Community Development (IACD) facilitates the Indigo network by providing support to help make the network an active community of practice.