Giving Compass' Take:

• MDRC shares learnings from the Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency program that worked to create effective nudges in human services.  

• How can funders work to use this information in local contexts? What behaviors could be changed to improve your community? 

• Learn about behavioral design teams working in cities to build effective nudges


The Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) project, launched in 2010, was the first major project to apply behavioral insights to the human services programs that serve poor and vulnerable families in the United States. The goal of the project was to learn how tools from behavioral science could be used to deliver program services more effectively and, ultimately, improve the well-being of low-income children, adults, and families.

Following a systematic approach called behavioral diagnosis and design, 15 state and local agencies participated in the project, which consisted of identifying problems that are appropriate for behavioral interventions, designing interventions, and conducting rigorous tests — where appropriate — to determine whether the interventions improved outcomes. The team launched 15 tests of behavioral interventions, involving close to 100,000 clients, in eight of the participating agencies. These tests spanned three domains: child support, child care, and work support.

Each of the BIAS studies suggests that the context of the program matters: For example, in some sites the intervention involved making deadlines prominent, among other concepts, while in other sites no work involving deadlines was explored. In most sites, clients were aided through reminders, multiple opportunities to perform a task, and additional help at critical junctures — all ways that programs can provide relief for cognitive burdens.