Mission & History

Our Mission

APIC’s mission is to provide a new perspective on economic growth in California. We believe that policies and practices that enable all families to accumulate, leverage and preserve assets will grow our state’s economy and ensure that all Californians can prosper.

Our History

The Asset Policy Initiative of California (APIC) was established in 2003 in response to new data showing that nearly 30% of all Californians were living in asset poverty. These individuals and families were living paycheck-to-paycheck without sufficient assets to fall back on in the event of an unexpected financial emergency. And the fortunate few with investments were seeing their assets stripped by predatory mortgages, lack of health insurance and skyrocketing interest rates on consumer loans.

The Earned Assets Resource Network (EARN), with seed funding from the Ford Foundation, acted on their vision that all California families should have an opportunity to invest in assets like homes, education, microbusiness and retirements savings. EARN invited some of California's strongest thought leaders in diverse sectors—housing, government, philanthropy, banking, community development, business, and microenterprise, among others—to develop a vision for incorporating asset-building solutions into the already robust policy and advocacy efforts across our state.

The Taskforce underscored the interconnectedness of asset policies with many other factors that shape the lives of Californian families. An individual’s ability to build assets is affected by their access to quality healthcare, child care, affordable housing, financial services, education, transportation, employment, civil rights and other social needs. Thus, the policy recommendations that APIC develop should serve as an umbrella that overarches distinct sectors and connects non-traditional stakeholders.

By drawing on the expertise and perspective of each Taskforce member, APIC was able to articulate a vision, a mission and an early policy agenda to move its asset-policy work forward. Other significant outcomes from the inital Taskforce meetings included:

Developed an asset-developmng Framework for understanding and exploring the continuum of asset-building opportunities, which is gaining national attention.
Completed a first-ever Policy Inventory of asset-building policies in California.
Drafted a preliminary list of policy priorities for increasing opportunities for Californian families to accumulate, leverage, preserve and create financial assets.
Engaged 25 civic leaders across the state to guide APIC’s asset-building efforts moving forward. Click here to see the list of current Steering Committee members.

In 2005, APIC hosted California’s first statewide asset policy convening, "Setting the Wheels in Motion," with the goal of moving the policy agenda to action (notes from the Symposium can be downloaded here). We also launched our website and engaged in a series of regional asset briefings across California. Several states have since borrowed from APIC’s model to inform and lauch their own statewide asset-policy efforts.