How Opportunity Passport Helped Young People in Foster Care in 2023

Posted February 5, 2025

By the Annie E. Casey Foundation

Youth in the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Oppor­tu­ni­ty Pass­port^® finan­cial learn­ing inter­ven­tion saved more than $895,000 toward their life, school­ing and career goals in 2023, new data show.

Cre­at­ed by the Foundation’s Jim Casey Youth Oppor­tu­ni­ties Ini­tia­tive^® in 2001 and launched in 2003, Oppor­tu­ni­ty Pass­port fills a need for youth ages 14 to 26 who are in and tran­si­tion­ing from fos­ter care. Par­tic­i­pants receive a dol­lar-for-dol­lar match for their sav­ings when they are ready to make approved pur­chas­es for edu­ca­tion or job train­ing, safe and sta­ble hous­ing, trans­porta­tion and more.

This inter­ven­tion for youth — espe­cial­ly those who don’t have an adult care­giv­er to help them man­age their mon­ey or learn to bud­get — forges finan­cial sta­bil­i­ty by teach­ing young peo­ple the basics of per­son­al finance, bank­ing and how to set and save toward goals. Par­tic­i­pants put what they learn into prac­tice to build and sus­tain their abil­i­ty to live inde­pen­dent­ly after fos­ter care.

In 2023, 3,600 young peo­ple in Oppor­tu­ni­ty Pass­port used their sav­ings and matched funds to invest more than $2.23 mil­lion in their future, accord­ing to data col­lect­ed in twice-a-year sur­veys of the par­tic­i­pants. With matched sav­ings from Jim Casey Ini­tia­tive part­ner sites, young peo­ple made 641 pur­chas­es that helped them achieve goals and meet long-term needs.

The sur­veys, which Child Trends ana­lyzes for the Foun­da­tion to pro­vide insights to improve finan­cial edu­ca­tion efforts, saw par­tic­i­pants also report out­comes such as:

• ade­quate access to work and school; 
• whether they have safe, sta­ble hous­ing; and
• their abil­i­ty to cov­er expenses.

Read full article