Freedom Futures
Freedom Futures is a first-of-its-kind accelerated Baby Bonds pilot program that seeks to understand how direct investments in young people can provide financial stability and accelerate their ability to build wealth. The program provides young people with an income support so they can meet their needs today and an investable sum to build long-term wealth. It’s cash for today, capital for tomorrow.
About Freedom Futures
Freedom Futures is a four-year-long pilot program that provides participants with the unique combination of direct financial resources and education:
An Investable Sum – Participants receive over $20,000 for wealth-building purposes such as homeownership, entrepreneurship, higher education, or investing in a retirement account.
Monthly Income Support – Participants receive $500 per month for four years to help meet their basic needs, no strings attached.
Financial Education & Advising – Online, group, and one-on-one financial advising to support informed financial decisions and goal-setting.
The program has two goals:
Support Participants & Communities: Through cash transfers, financial education, and other support, improve the financial stability, wealth positions, wealth trajectories, and other key outcomes of program participants.
Generate Policy-Relevant Learnings: Generate evidence and narratives to inform early wealth-building policy proposals and programs, like Baby Bonds. State-level Baby Bonds programs will not generate learnings for 18+ years. Our program will generate data, stories, and narratives within four years as well as learnings on various
Discover how Freedom Futures is a promising solution to help young people build wealth in Atlanta and beyond.
Amit Khanduri, our Director of Programs, discusses the Freedom Futures program.
Why Freedom Futures Matters
Wealth inequality is at crisis levels and is likely to worsen given current trends. The top 10% of US households have 67% of the overall household wealth in the US. The bottom 50% of US households hold just over 2% of overall household wealth.
Wealth is highly concentrated by race. In Atlanta, the average White household has 46x more wealth than the average Black household. The White-Black wealth gap is as large in Atlanta today (46:1) as it was nationwide when the Emancipation Proclamation was issued in 1863.
Unchecked wealth inequality isn’t just about fairness - it limits economic growth, destabilizes democracies, and corrodes social trust. Wealth inequality limits the economic futures of young people. Young people today face unprecedented challenges, from stagnant wages and soaring housing costs to the burden of college debt. Black young people, in particular, are disproportionately affected by a persistent racial wealth divide. For instance, the average white young person begins adulthood with $46,000 in wealth, while the average Black young person begins adulthood with only $2,900.
We are at a crossroads on wealth policy. Freedom Futures is designed to meet the moment - providing critical insights on an accelerated basis to advance early wealth-building proposals designed to address wealth inequality. Freedom Futures combines two policy proposals that address different but complementary root causes of wealth inequality: income precarity and structural wealth exclusion.
Freedom Futures offers $500/month cash transfers. This is supported by the evidence that cash transfer programs, like guaranteed income, effectively address income precarity which perpetuates wealth inequality by keeping people in survival mode, unable to save or invest.
Freedom Futures offers an investable sum of over $20,000 that can be used for wealth building, recognizing that lack of access to capital and generational wealth is a key driver of wealth inequality. This component of the program is modeled on Baby Bonds, a leading policy proposal that addresses wealth inequality by providing young people with significant sums for wealth building.
Freedom Futures will deliver learnings in 4 years. Early adopters at the state level are creating the proof points needed for national change. Over 10 states have introduced Baby Bonds legislation. But State-level Baby Bond programs won’t deliver learnings for 18+ years. Freedom Futures will be among the first pilot programs to deliver learnings for Baby Bonds and other early wealth-building policy proposals.
About Baby Bonds
Baby Bonds is a bold policy proposal designed to give every child a real chance to build wealth. Here’s how the Baby Bonds policy generally works: When a child is born, the government seeds an interest-bearing account and makes annual deposits, with the amount often depending on the family’s income. The funds grow over time, and by adulthood, the funds have grown into a significant sum that can be used for wealth-building assets like a home, education, or starting a business.
Pilot programs, like Freedom Futures, make policy tangible - providing data, evidence, and narratives that demonstrate what an inclusive economy can look like.
Get Involved & Support Our Work
When young people are empowered to build wealth, the entire community benefits. Join us in creating a more just and inclusive society.
Donate
Your contribution directly funds this transformative work. If you are interested in contributing to the GRO Fund please donate here.
Partner With Us
Interested in collaborating or other ways to support, please email our Director of Programs, Freedom Futures, Amit Khanduri at Amit@thegrofund.org.
Learn More
We invite you to learn more about Freedom Futures by visiting our FAQs page.