Jonathan Clements Getting Going on Savings Initiative

Financial columnist Jonathan Clements has spent decades writing about how to save, invest, and manage finances for his Wall Street Journal column “Getting Going,” his platform HumbleDollar.com, and many books about personal finance. In 2024, Jonathan was diagnosed with a terminal illness and decided to use the proceeds from a final book to kick-start a new program that will directly help young adults (especially from low-income households) to set themselves up for long-term financial success. The John C. Bogle Center for Financial Literacy, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, is proud to assist by administering charitable donations to the initiative.

You can can make an immediate tax-deductible contribution to the Clements initiative or learn more about how to contribute on our Donate page.

Clements Initiative Design and Partners

As envisioned by Jonathan, the Jonathan Clements Getting Going on Saving Initiative will provide direct $1,000 grants to selected qualifying individuals to fund a Roth IRA.

The team making Jonathan’s vision a reality includes representatives of the Bogle Center, J-PAL North America (a research center based at MIT), the city of Boston’s Office of Youth Employment and Opportunity, as well as other individuals close to Jonathan. In addition to directly benefiting the individual recipients, the program will enable J-PAL researchers to evaluate whether grants like this are an effective tool to help young adults, including those from lower-income backgrounds, establish an early habit of setting money aside for later in life.

Members of J-PAL’s network of affiliated researchers — including Matthew Notowidigdo of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Raymond Kluender of Harvard Business School, and Alicia Modestino of Northeastern University — will conduct a randomized controlled trial to measure the impact of gifting $1,000 to young adults to fund Roth IRAs. The program will be piloted during the summer of 2025, with the full study to launch the following summer.

Program recipients will be young adults aged 18+ who participate in the City of Boston’s Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP). This program targets underserved communities and places qualifying youth in jobs with a local government agency, community organization, or business for a few weeks over the summer. Their goal is for youth to gain work experience, earn a steady paycheck, and develop the soft and hard skills that will help with future employment opportunities.

Immediate and Long-Term Benefits

Discussing the new initiative, the University of Chicago’s Matthew Notowidigdo, who also serves as Scientific Director of J-PAL North America, said, “There is a large academic literature studying why many Americans lack savings, but much less evidence on effective solutions. This is an exciting opportunity to test whether a simple, well-timed intervention can set young adults on a path of financial planning that begins early and supports long-term economic stability.”

For decades, noted Alicia Modestino of Northeastern University, the Boston Summer Youth Employment Program has aimed “to reduce inequality of opportunity by increasing access to early employment experiences for disadvantaged youth.” With the Clements initiative, she said, “We now have an exciting opportunity to add financial planning to their toolbox and sustain the positive impacts of the program into the long-term.”

More information on the research study associated with the Clements initiative can be found on J-PAL’s Building Retirement Savings for Young Adults page.

Said Christine Benz, President of the Bogle Center: “The Jonathan Clements Getting Going on Saving Initiative is a natural extension of Jonathan Clements’ life’s work of helping people improve their financial well-being. It’s also a reflection of Vanguard Group founder Jack Bogle’s lasting legacy that all investors, regardless of their levels of wealth, should have a ‘fair shake’ at investing well. The leadership of the Bogle Center, a 501(c)(3) public charity, is proud to help make Jonathan’s vision a reality by administering contributions to this initiative.”

To learn more about the new The Best of Jonathan Clements book, the Bogle Center, and J-PAL North America, please see the press release announcing the book and the initiative.

Ready to contribute? Visit our Donate page.