Giving Compass' Take:

• Justin Milner et al. summarize a collaboration between Urban Institute and Urban Alliance that used behavioral science insights to modify an internship program. 

• How should organizations distribute funding and effort between tried-and-true approaches versus new or experimental strategies? How can funders bridge the gap for small organizations by providing the resources needed to engage in innovation?

• Read about how behavioral science helped to mobilize food for migrants. 

Nonprofit organizations are increasingly focused on demonstrating outcomes and impact of their work, not just providing services (Liket, Rey-Garcia, and Maas 2014). The reward for showing their effectiveness is clear: government and philanthropy often target contracts and grants to the interventions most likely to deliver positive outcomes (Haskins 2018; Zhang et al. 2017). For nonprofits moving in this evidence-based direction, most of their efforts will be focused on improving the core work of their programs— better counseling services or improved education supports, for example. However, nonprofits should also consider complementary interventions to improve their work’s overall impact.

Behavioral science offers a unique opportunity for nonprofits seeking to pursue this approach and improve program delivery and overall impact (Richburg-Hayes et al. 2014). Behavioral science takes a microscope to human behavior, focusing on how people make decisions and then act on those decisions. Insights from that research have already seen a wide range of applications. Government bodies have used behavioral science to make programs not only more efficient, but more impactful.1 Behavioral interventions can target both individual actors and the larger systems within which people operate, and they can be leveraged across different stages of program and policy processes, from initial planning and development to implementation. Behavioral science also spans many different policy areas, from education to financial security to public health (Mitra-Majumdar, Fudge, and Milner 2018).

There are several powerful examples of how these interventions can work. For example, filling out a form for federal financial student aid can be incredibly daunting; when some information was prepopulated, high school seniors were more likely to submit the form and enroll in college the next fall (Bettinger et al. 2012). Another example highlights how a low-cost text messaging program for parents of preschoolers sharing information about child development led to increased parental involvement at home and school and higher literacy scores for the children (York, Loeb, and Doss 2019).

Despite the increased focus on evidence and impact, as well as the growing prominence of behavioral science and its applications, most nonprofits do not take advantage of the latest social science research. Emerging lessons from implementation and behavioral science can support nonprofits in important ways. The approach is promising, and studies have shown that relatively minor environmental changes can lead to better outcomes and that newly designed processes can get people to act in ways consistent with program goals (Mayer et al. 2015).

Urban Institute recently collaborated with Urban Alliance (box 1) to connect behavioral science insights to the unique elements of their program delivery for participating young people. We created a pilot approach and tested it with Urban Alliance to improve the jobsite mentoring that youth receive. That approach—the behavioral insights implementation process (BIIP)—uses six steps representing a mix of collaboration and consultation. In this brief, we start with an introduction to behavioral science and then discuss our approach and the behavioral interventions we developed as a resource for other organizations similarly looking to apply behavioral science to their program delivery.