Emerging Lessons from the MyGoals for Employment Success Program

Nina Castells
James Riccio
MDRC

Quinn Moore
April Wu
Mathematica

MyGoals for Employment Success (MyGoals) is an employment program that combines executive skills coaching with financial incentives to help recipients of government housing subsidies increase their economic mobility and security. It was tested in two housing agencies in Baltimore and Houston as part of a random assignment demonstration. This article describes the MyGoals model and the rationale behind its approach. It also presents emerging findings on the operation and effects of this 3-year program mid-way through participants’ enrollment. Those findings show that coaches and participants alike viewed the MyGoals coaching approach more favorably than other forms of case management, and that participants’ engagement was steady and sustained. The impact analysis, covering the first 21 months of followup after random assignment, shows that MyGoals had positive effects on participants’ goal-setting and attainment skills and their likelihood of participating in education and training programs. However, the program had not affected participants’ levels of earnings or economic hardship during that interim period. The article considers how these lessons and future findings can inform program improvement for the Family Self-Sufficiency program.