Family Independence Initiative

At the heart of the FII model is a trust that low-income families working in peer groups can lead their own change. We know there are systemic barriers that challenge a family's abilities to leverage their assets, strengths, and capacities. Our work aims to remove these barriers.

FII’s community-focused and technology-based approach has five major components:
Family Owned Solutions: Families work together and on their own to set goals and find solutions to the problems they face — from childcare, to savings, to affording tuition.
Monthly Feedback: Families report monthly on their activities, finances, and progress and strengthen both their existing and new networks of support through FII’s social networking and data platform, UpTogether, and their family groups.
Analyzing & Sharing Family Trends: FII compiles and analyzes data from UpTogether to capture trends among families. We also reflect family data back to them so that families can follow their own progress in financial and non-financial areas of life. By tracking their progress, families take control of their own success and gain financial literacy.
Data Driven Resources: Based on our analysis and family trends, we make capital resources available to families through the UpTogether Fund. Families use these resources to accelerate their mobility.
Shared Lessons: We inform stakeholders — like foundations, and policymakers— about what works so that they too can steer resources directly to family-driven solutions.