This report on the Opportunity NYC-Family Rewards program, prepared by MDRC, draws on in-depth interviews and looks at how families viewed the education incentives, communicated about them with their children, reinforced educational rewards, and advanced their quality of life through the program.  This research helps to inform the new, second-generation Family Rewards program to be launched as part of CEO’s Social Innovation Fund initiative.
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This report highlights CEO’s successful programs and provides an overview of the CEO poverty measure, an improved measure that captures the impact of policies and programs on low-income families. The report also describes ongoing efforts to replicate five of CEO’s most promising initiatives in New York City and cities across the country.
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The NYC Center for Economic Opportunity's new working paper, titled "Policy Affects Poverty" tracks the change in the CEO poverty rate during the Great Recession. The paper explores the extent to which policy initiatives - including the Presidents Bush's and Obama's stimulus programs and the City's effort to increase Food Stamp enrollment - kept the New York City poverty rate from rising.
Download Policy Affects Poverty: The CEO Poverty Measure, 2005-2009 (March 2011) (in PDF)

This report, prepared by Westat and Metis Associates, examines the literacy and numeracy gains for the young adults enrolled CEO’s Young Adult Literacy program who were also offered a paid internship.  Using a cluster randomized design, the study suggests that adding paid internships conditioned on attendance in education services led to increased attendance and program retention, as well as an increase in participants’ math gains.
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Targeted toward low-income families in six high-poverty New York City communities, Opportunity NYC-Family Rewards offers cash payments tied to efforts and achievements in children’s education, family preventive health care practices, and parents’ employment.  This report, prepared by program evaluator MDRC, shows that Family Rewards substantially reduced poverty and material hardship and had positive results in improving some education, health-related, and work-related outcomes during the first two years.  Additional evaluation reports will be released after the conclusion of the pilot, assessing the program’s long-term effects.
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CEO's annual report, titled Evidence and Impact, provides an overview of activities and accomplishments in 2009, highlighting program impacts and CEO’s ongoing evaluation agenda.  The report also identifies CEO programs that have been scaled-up with public and private investments in New York City and beyond.
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CEO's first working paper on poverty in New York City, issued in August of 2008, contrasted poverty rates for 2006 derived from CEO's application of the NAS methodology against those based on the official method. This report focuses on how and why poverty rates using our methodology have changed over time, using the one-year ACS samples for 2005 to 2008.
Download The CEO Poverty Measure, 2005-2008 (March 2010) (in PDF)

This report looks at three CEO initiatives under the Department of Small Business Services: Advance at Work, the Workforce1 Transportation Career Center, and the Community Partners Program.  The programs were evaluated using comparison groups in the general Workforce1 Career Center (WF1CC) system.  The analyses, performed by Westat, show that all three CEO programs results in higher placement rates than the WF1CC system.
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The NYC Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) Office of Financial Empowerment has released A Progress Report on the First Three Years, 2006-2009. The report describes the multitude of financial empowerment innovations, strategies, and approaches OFE has implemented thus far-and the national implications for its work, which include building the new field of municipal financial empowerment and founding the Cities for Financial Empowerment (CFE) Coalition.
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This Metis Associates report offers a comprehensive account of the program from the initial start-up phase, July 2008 to September 2008, through the first nine months of the program’s launch (through June 2009). Many of the challenges, lessons learned, and recommendations for improvement identified in the report have been incorporated for the second program year, which began in September 2009.
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The LIFE Transitions evaluation included two components: a quantitative survey of participating youth in juvenile detention, as well as focus groups and interviews with youth participating in the community portion of the program.  Findings from the surveys and the focus groups indicate that youth understand how school and work could be of benefit in their lives. A lack of an obvious comparison group means that the findings are limited.
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In November 2009, the City University of New York (CUNY) released its Early Outcomes Report on CUNY ASAP, a CEO program designed to increase community college graduation rates. The Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) initiative provides participating students at the City's six community colleges with academic, social, and financial supports. In the first two years, CUNY ASAP had a 30% graduation rate, compared to 11% for a group of similar students.
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This qualitative assessment of the NYC Center for Economic Opportunity’s impact on New York City agencies and provider organizations was completed in October 2009. The report documents replication of CEO programs, changes in agency practice, improved collaboration, an increased focus on poverty issues. This report was prepared for CEO by Metis Associates.
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This report is a focus group analysis on License Practical Nurse (LPN) Program.  The analysis, performed by Metis Associates, indicates a high level of satisfaction with the program among participants.  Participants spoke of the significant impact the program has had in their lives.  The report further notes that a common challenge is the financial difficulties experienced by students while they are in school.
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The research brief is an evaluation of the first-year results of the City's $aveNYC Account Program pilot, which found that, contrary to commonly held beliefs, individuals with low and very low incomes can and will save when given simple and safe banking products.
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This research note, prepared by MDRC, provides an update to the funders of the Opportunity NYC demonstration of preliminary results from the evaluation of the Family Rewards program.
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