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ideas42 Toggle navigation Celebrating 15 Years Learn Behavioral Science 101 ideas42 Academy The A/B Testing Tool The B-Hub Behavioral Scientist What We Do How We Work Policy Lab Embedded Behavioral Design Teams Behavioral Design Center Machine Learning Publications Focus Areas Civic Engagement Climate Economic Justice Financial Health Giving Global Development Global Health Postsecondary Education Safety & Justice U.S. Health Who We Are Our People Our Partners Thought Leadership Blog Press Donate Celebrating 15 Years of Insight to Impact Learn more We use behavioral science to design scalable solutions for health We use behavioral science to design scalable solutions for wealth We use behavioral science to design scalable solutions for justice We use behavioral science to design scalable solutions for sustainability 34.5 Million Lives Improved 55 Countries Impacted 513 Insights Developed 42 Meaning of Life Where We Focus Our Work We work to generate social impact across a range of issues, with an emphasis on benefiting those with the least in unequal societies around the world. That is the only way to truly improve millions of lives. Active civic participation is the bedrock of a functioning democracy. However, in the United States, engagement in civic life is low and does not reflect the diverse makeup of the country as a whole. This leads to distorted policies and weakened accountability structures, and therefore, a government that fails to equitably serve all the people it represents. Multiple factors influence a person’s decision and/or ability to engage in civic life. These can range from laws that either make it easier or harder for people to vote, to human behavioral barriers stemming from how people perceive themselves, their community, and the options they have. Our civic engagement team draws on our expertise in applied behavioral science to design and deploy innovations that encourage participation. For example, our team created VoterCast, which creates custom voter outreach materials for election officials, tailored to the specifications of their jurisdiction. Our interventions with government, fellow nonprofit, and civic tech partners ultimately help to inspire popular engagement with government, ultimately bringing about a government that is accountable at every level to the true will of the people. Civic Engagement We’re focused on the most critical challenges of the foreseeable future: reducing carbon emissions and helping people adapt equitably to the inevitable effects of climate change. The decisions that are made every day by people across the world — whether in organizations, institutions, or at home — have ongoing impacts on climate change. Climate change is a long-term, vague threat that requires collective action to solve. Unfortunately, this plays to our behavioral biases, which favor short-term benefits and specific solutions, in the worst way possible. Behavioral science has a critical role to play in understanding and addressing this overall problem. We look for opportunities to deploy behavioral science to prompt action that meaningfully reduces carbon emissions, or helps individuals and communities adapt to climate impacts. By 2030, our bold goal is to avert 550 million metric tons CO2E annually — the equivalent of ~10% of projected 2020 US emissions. Climate The Economic Justice team at ideas42 envisions a U.S. where a shared, behaviorally informed narrative of poverty removes inequities that prevent all people from leading fulfilled lives of their own definition. To achieve that vision, we work closely with the communities we serve to design and advance solutions that make it easier for people facing economic hardship to exercise their power for individual, community, and systems change. We also believe that economic justice and racial justice are deeply entwined, and so we bring a racial justice lens into all of the work that we do. Our principles of equity include fixing contexts, not people; listening to and acting on lived experiences; and always promoting dignity, autonomy, and justice in our designs. Using a two-generational lens, we work with a diverse group of partners. We are also building new work focused on narrative change, as we seek to shift the harmful and false poverty narratives that lead to ineffective, and at times harmful, policies and practices. Economic Justice We envision a world where financial products, services, and programs are behaviorally-informed, and designed to meet the needs of people of all socio-economic statuses, ages, races, and genders so that they can have a financially secure present and a self-determined future. We do this work by partnering with a wide variety of organizations, including credit unions, banks, public agencies, governments, fintech startups, and nonprofits. Instead of assuming that increased knowledge or motivation are the sole keys to better outcomes, we seek to understand the context where decisions are made and remove barriers within the channels and systems through which people navigate their financial lives. Our ultimate goal – a financial system that works for everyone. Financial Health Nonprofit organizations help tackle the hardest problems facing society, improving the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world. Yet for many of these organizations, their ability to make this social change depends on an ever-changing resource: philanthropic giving. Fortunately, generosity is a powerful force for good. In 2022, donors in the United States gave $499.33 billion. The majority of this giving, 64%, came from individual givers—more than all other sources combined. However, for people who want to donate, making their dollars count is less easy than we’d like. Serious problems exist that philanthropic resources could solve, but not enough resources go where they are most needed. We have three goals: first, to help more people give, and give effectively, so their generosity translates to the social impact they envision. Second, to make it easier for non-profit leaders, regardless of their background, to get funding so they can spend their time on what they’re best at: pursuing social good. And third, to strengthen and build critical infrastructure across the giving ecosystem. Giving Maximizing the impact of existing and new global development and humanitarian efforts using insights from behavioral science can help improve life for millions in contexts of extreme poverty or instability around the world. Living in such contexts forces people to make tough trade-offs every day, in turn making it difficult to improve their well-being and long-term economic prospects. This can include: Spending cash transfer funds on immediate needs rather than making productive livelihood investments Sending children to work instead of school Spending time on income-generating work rather than vocational training programs Meeting immediate consumption needs at the expense of protection, health, or other long-term priorities Using behavioral insights to redesign the delivery of global anti-poverty and humanitarian programs will give millions the slack needed to minimize such trade-offs, maximizing program effectiveness and providing participants with tools to improve their economic well-being as they see fit. Global Development Health systems are human systems. At ideas42, we use behavioral science to study the unexpected and often curious quirks of human behavior. When we apply these breakthroughs and insights to global health programs, we can amplify impact and advance positive change. By better understanding how and why people make the choices they do, we can better help them see all the possibilities, chart their preferred path, reach personal goals, and achieve their fullest potential. Our goal is to transform global health practice to improve the lives of hundreds of millions of people worldwide with a focus on women and children under 5 years old in low-...