Incentivizing Good Deeds

I would make good deeds easy to start, affordable to sustain, meaningful to do, and appreciated by others. Then I would check whether the help actually improved someone’s life.

For the kind of world with less unnecessary suffering you’ve been thinking about, I would build around this question:

What would make useful care easier to give and more dependable to receive?

That leads to several kinds of incentives—money, time, belonging, recognition, learning, and the satisfaction of seeing something improve. I would use them differently depending on the contribution.

1. Remove the costs that prevent people from helping

My first step would be to ask willing people what gets in their way.

Someone might want to visit an isolated neighbor but lack transportation. Another person might want to mentor students but be unable to lose wages. Someone else might have time but no idea where their help would be useful.

Each obstacle calls for a different response:

For example, a neighborhood could offer:

“A resident has requested help collecting groceries on Thursday. It should take about 30 minutes. Transportation costs are covered, and a coordinator will arrange the details.”

That is a concrete opportunity a person can assess and accept.

I would also cover expenses upfront when necessary. Requiring someone to spend money and wait for reimbursement still excludes people who cannot advance the cost.

A person should not need substantial spare money or free time to participate in caring for others.

2. Pay people fairly for work society needs reliably

I would distinguish between occasional kindness and ongoing responsibility.

Helping someone carry a bag can remain an ordinary act of generosity. Providing dependable elder care, maintaining public spaces, coordinating volunteers, or regularly supporting people through difficult situations requires a sustainable arrangement.

If a community needs something done every week, I would budget for the people doing it:

• Fair wages for substantial, ongoing responsibilities.
• Expenses and equipment for volunteers.
• Paid training where the work requires skills.
• Adequate staffing and time off.
• Additional compensation for difficult assignments or inconvenient hours.

The language of kindness should not become a justification for expecting people to work indefinitely without adequate support.

Money can help—but its effects need to be measured

In a large American Red Cross field experiment involving roughly 98,000 donors, offers of $5, $10, or $15 gift cards increased blood donations. Researchers did not detect an overall decline in donations during the nine months after the intervention. Some of the local increase, however, came from people moving their donations from other locations. That shows both the usefulness of financial incentives and the importance of measuring the total additional contribution. mariomacis.net

There is also evidence that some rewards can undermine subsequent voluntary engagement. A widely cited meta-analysis of 128 experiments found that several kinds of expected, contingent rewards reduced freely chosen engagement after the reward phase. Much of this research concerned activities people already found interesting; it does not establish that paying caregivers or reimbursing volunteers reduces kindness. PubMed

My design judgment would be to make contributions financially sustainable while preserving choice, purpose, and a sense of ownership.

I would also accept mixed motives. Someone can care about their community, enjoy the company, appreciate the pay, and want to develop a skill. A useful incentive system does not require proving that everyone’s motives are perfectly selfless.

3. Let people experience the meaning of their contribution

I would give helpers clear, truthful feedback about what their work made possible.

For example:

• A person who repaired a ramp learns that the resident can use their entrance comfortably again.
• A volunteer who translated instructions learns that someone successfully completed an application.
• A mentor hears which part of their support the student found useful.
• A maintenance team sees that a recurring problem has stayed resolved.

The feedback should connect a specific contribution to a specific benefit, while acknowledging uncertainty and other contributors.

There is some experimental support for making impact visible. In small field experiments, Adam Grant found that information about the significance of work for beneficiaries improved aspects of job performance. One study involved university fundraisers receiving stories about the people their work helped. These were small studies, so I would treat impact feedback as a promising design choice, without promising a particular increase in participation. selfdeterminationtheory.org

Let the person receiving help define what was useful

Before recognizing a deed, I would ask questions such as:

• Was this something the person wanted?
• Did it address their actual need?
• Were their choices respected?
• Did it make the situation easier?
• Did it create another burden or problem?

That matters because the helper’s idea of a good deed can differ from the recipient’s experience.

A person might prefer help arranging transportation to an unsolicited visit. They might want money for groceries rather than a meal they cannot eat. They might want practical assistance without photographs, publicity, or an expectation of friendship.

Feedback should be voluntary and private when appropriate. Receiving help should never create an obligation to perform gratitude.

4. Offer appreciation, belonging, and opportunities to grow

I would offer several forms of recognition and let people choose what suits them.

Some useful options are:

I would give attention to quiet contributions: showing up reliably, doing preparation, coordinating people, maintaining equipment, and helping someone whose needs take a long time to resolve.

Public recognition should be optional

The evidence on recognition is mixed.

In a yearlong experiment in Zambia, hairdressers and barbers who received a visible star display for selling female condoms sold more than twice as many packs as the other groups. The financial reward treatments did not significantly increase sales in that setting. povertyactionlab.org

But a 2024 study of registered blood donors in Italy found that a simple request to donate performed better than an offer to acknowledge donations publicly on Facebook. In the main WhatsApp comparison, public recognition reduced the response relative to the simple request. egontripodi.com

Even gratitude does not guarantee more future giving. Field experiments involving 500,000 new charitable donors found that standard thank-you calls had no detectable effect on donor retention. That result concerns a particular fundraising practice; appreciation can still have value as a way of treating people well. American Economic Association

So I would thank people sincerely, offer publicity by consent, and evaluate participation directly.

Make helping part of an enjoyable social life

I would create recurring activities where contribution comes with companionship:

• A repair group followed by lunch.
• A community garden with shared meals.
• A regular neighborhood maintenance morning.
• A mentoring group whose members also support one another.
• A small team that shares responsibility for practical errands.

The design goal would be that someone can think: “I enjoy being part of this, and what we do matters.”

People should also be able to contribute through different values—compassion, faith, solidarity, justice, gratitude, or pride in doing something well. I would leave room for those motivations rather than prescribing one acceptable reason to care.

5. Make useful service lead to better opportunities

I would connect sustained contribution with genuine opportunities to develop.

For example:

• An experienced volunteer could receive funded training.
• Someone who reliably coordinates a community activity could move into a paid coordination role.
• A mentor could receive a reference describing specific skills they demonstrated.
• A person contributing to a repair project could enter an apprenticeship.
• A successful community initiative could receive resources to expand.

There is relevant evidence that career opportunities and public service can support one another. A field experiment during recruitment for community health workers in Zambia found that emphasizing career opportunities led to the hiring of more talented workers with comparable measured prosocial motivation, and those workers subsequently performed better. The result depended on the recruitment and selection process; it was not a finding that career incentives improve every applicant’s motivation. American Economic Association

I would keep these pathways accessible. Requiring a long period of unpaid service before someone can qualify for a job could exclude people who need income immediately. Paid entry routes and recognition of existing caregiving or community experience would matter.

6. Change what institutions reward in everyday work

For a whole society, this is where I would put substantial effort.

A company, school, public agency, or community organization should make its ordinary incentives consistent with the care it asks people to provide.

For example, I would design:

• Promotion criteria that recognize useful mentoring and cooperation. Give credit to people who help others succeed, with evidence of their contribution.
• Stable funding for maintenance and prevention. Support work that keeps problems from becoming crises.
• Protected routes for raising concerns. Give people a workable way to identify harm and help correct it.
• Service arrangements that support difficult cases. Provide adequate resources for people whose needs require more time and expertise.
• Recognition for teams and supporting roles. Credit the people who organize, prepare, maintain, and follow through.

A useful question for any institution would be:

What happens to a person here when they take the time to do the caring thing well?

If the answer is that they fall behind on targets, lose pay, or absorb an unmanageable workload, I would change the workload and reward structure.

This also means assessing an organization’s everyday conduct. Charitable activity should not erase responsibility for avoidable harm in its ordinary operations.

7. Measure useful outcomes alongside activity

I would track what people do, but also examine whether it helped.

I would avoid making someone’s entire payment depend on a distant outcome they cannot control. A mentor cannot guarantee a student’s results. A caregiver cannot guarantee recovery. An organization serving people with complex needs should not be penalized simply because improvement takes longer.

The arrangement I would aim for is:

Stable support for necessary work, clear standards for conduct and reliability, and careful evaluation of results over time.

Several questions would help detect misleading success:

Is the program creating additional help?
Some recorded contributions might have happened anyway, or might have moved from another program.

Who is being left out?
An incentive could encourage helpers to select convenient tasks and people with easily resolved needs.

Is quiet prevention being recognized?
Keeping a problem from recurring deserves attention even when it produces no dramatic story.

How much burden does verification create?
A simple errand should not require so much documentation that participation becomes difficult.

Can the person receiving help report a problem safely?
Feedback should not put their future access to assistance at risk.

8. Keep participation voluntary and dignity unconditional

If a program used points or badges, I would keep them limited and optional—for example, marking training completed or helping a group track progress toward a shared project.

I would keep food, housing, healthcare, and civic rights available independently of anyone’s participation record.

That is an ethical design choice: people deserve care when they need it, including when they cannot give anything back.

I would also preserve the ability to help privately. Someone should be able to decline recognition, take a break, or contribute in an unrecorded way. Caregiving, disability, illness, and demanding work schedules can all affect what participation is possible; a public ranking would be a poor basis for judging someone’s character.

Reciprocity can exist at the community level: we support one another as our circumstances change. A particular recipient should not owe a particular helper a favor in return.

What I would actually build first

I would start with a modest neighborhood program and fund the practical support needed to make it work.

For illustration, imagine a 12-week pilot with a paid coordinator and a few dozen participants. Those are planning choices, not an established optimal size.

Start with needs residents have expressed

Choose two or three activities that people want and that the program can deliver responsibly—such as practical errands, shared-space maintenance, or requested companionship.

Offer a phone or in-person route as well as any online system. Let people describe what they need, what would help, and what they are comfortable with.

Give participants a dependable foundation

Provide clear assignments, appropriate training, expense coverage, supplies, and someone to contact when plans change.

Make it easy to accept a small commitment. Provide paid roles for substantial responsibilities. Arrange backup so one person’s absence does not leave someone without essential help.

Try a small number of additional incentives

Once that foundation works, test options such as:

• Private appreciation and updates about impact.
• Opportunities to learn or join a regular group.
• Resources for a community project participants help choose.
• Appropriate additional payment for particular hard-to-fill assignments.

I would compare these against the same practical support and clear invitations. Otherwise, it would be difficult to know whether a reward helped or whether one group simply had better coordination.

Evaluate what changed

At the end, I would examine:

• Whether more wanted, useful assistance reached people.
• How long people waited and whose requests remained unmet.
• Whether recipients felt respected.
• Whether helpers could sustain their participation.
• The total cost, including coordination and unpaid time.
• Complaints, unintended burdens, and displacement of existing help.

A small pilot would reveal practical problems and promising approaches. Larger comparisons would be needed to estimate effects confidently. If a temporary bonus ended, I would continue observing participation while maintaining necessary expense coverage and ordinary services.

The outcome I would want is that when someone says, “I need help,” useful assistance arrives—and the person providing it has the support to keep caring.