Non-profit organizations support New Yorkers in countless ways—providing essential health and human services, education and youth development opportunities, and resources to combat poverty and strengthen communities, among others. Too often, though, valuable services are underutilized, or clients and community members fail to complete the steps needed to achieve desired results. This can be puzzling to staff, who work hard to help as many people as possible.

We know there is often a gap between people’s intentions and actions—perhaps they intend to use a non-profit’s program or service but don’t follow through, don’t realize they are eligible for certain benefits, or have misconceptions about what’s possible or expected in a particular context. Applying a behavioral lens can help agencies address these issues, and in doing so make good programs even more effective—enabling them to help more people.

That’s why we created the NYC Behavioral Design Center with initial support from the W. T. Grant Foundation, The New York Community Trust, and the Booth Ferris Foundation; and current funding from The New York Community Trust, the Pinkerton Foundation, and Fidelity Charitable. Through educational workshops, technical assistance, and cooperative design projects, the Center helps non-profits based in New York City identify and ameliorate behavioral barriers that emerge in service delivery, with a particular focus on alleviating poverty and enhancing civic engagement. Center staff guides practitioners and program managers in applying insights and techniques from behavioral science to increase the utilization of their services and improve outcomes for the people they serve.

We’re accepting more requests for assistance from non-profits interested in applying behavioral insights to existing or new programs: you can find information here.

The Behavioral Design Center also offers weekly office hours to New York City non-profits interested in getting 1:1 applied behavioral science advice. Sign up for an office hour here.

Our recent and current project partnerships include:

• University Settlement — We will investigate the behavioral barriers limiting older adults’ participation in activities offered remotely, and suggest strategies to mitigate those barriers and increase engagement.
• Enterprise— This project will focus on developing a client survey for the FASTEN (Funds and Services for Tenants Experiencing Need) eviction prevention program, with the aim of maximizing responses and their value in informing program design and service delivery.
• Big Brothers Big Sisters of New York City—This project focused on identifying and mitigating behavioral barriers that discourage prospective volunteers from applying and following through to become Big Brothers.
• Community Food Advocates—We created a flyer and advised CFA  on outreach strategies to inform NYC students and their families about  the new Pandemic EBT benefits. We also identified barriers to school  lunch participation,  and offered guidance on how to mitigate them.
• Human Services Council—We examined factors limiting enrollment in HSC’s disaster response alert system, and recommended strategies to clarify the purpose and value of  the system and expand participation.
• Per Scholas —Based on our analysis of behavioral barriers that can discourage 17-24 year-olds from applying to Per Scholas’s free technology training programs, we designed sample outreach messages and recommended other changes to more effectively engage  these young people.
• Accion East—We focused on addressing behavioral barriers limiting the number of loan applications Accion receives from family childcare providers in NYC.  We designed sample outreach postcards and suggested other ways to increase applications and referrals. View project brief. 
• Arab American Family Support Center —We  helped identify barriers to effective data collection at AAFSC,  and prepared an intake training guide and referral template to address these barriers and improve intake and data practices. View project brief.
• Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation —Based on our analysis  of behavioral barriers that may prevent tenants  in affordable and mixed income housing from participating in an on- time rent payment credit-building initiative and other asset-building programs, we developed outreach materials and other strategies to increase engagement. View project brief.
• Sheltering Arms —We identified factors impeding Preventive Service referrals to the agency’s Health Home Care Management program, and recommended strategies to encourage referrals and facilitate the referral process. View project brief.
• Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation (NMIC)—We prepared a series of communications from NMIC to its education and training program participants, and additional program redesign recommendations, to increase client outcome reporting and utilization of NMIC’s follow-up services. View project brief. 
• NYC Kids RISE—We created a revised design for their savings program’s online interface and process to improve the user experience for families participating in the NYC Kids RISE Save for College Program. View project brief.
• CUNY Early Childhood Professional Development Institute (PDI)—We revised introductory correspondence with participants in PDI’s training and test preparation program, which provides training and support to early childhood teachers seeking Pre-K certification. We also outlined points and features to include in other communications and promotional material to enhance program recruitment and retention. View project brief. 
• Room to Grow—We designed a flyer for the opening of their new Bronx location and offered recommendations on how to communicate with referring agencies to increase referrals and applications to the program. They saw increases of 26%-85% in their monthly referral statistics for August— December 2019 compared to the same time period the year before. View project brief.
• Queens Community House—We redesigned a weekly progress report email and advisory session worksheet for students at a transfer high school, and offering other suggestions leveraging behaviorally informed strategies to improve graduation rates. Since implementing these changes, more students have stayed after school to finish their work and reached out proactively to teachers for help. As a result, students are doing better in classes and, critically, passing state Regents exams at higher rates.  View project brief. 
• Participatory Budgeting Project—We worked to identify ways to address behavioral barriers that contribute to drop-off in engagement among volunteer Participatory Budgeting Delegates. This work is expected to inform recommendations regarding citywide implementation of Participatory Budgeting, as well as enhancing delegate involvement in individual council districts. View project brief.
• LIFT-NY—We focused on identifying and addressing the behavioral barriers that keep some potential members from accessing LIFT’s supports and services. LIFT provides personalized coaching to help parents of young children achieve their long-term financial, educational, and/or career goals, ensuring a brighter future for their family as a whole. View project brief. 
• DOROT— Through its volunteer visiting programs, DOROT promotes intergenerational connections and combats social isolation among older adults. We helped them design an intervention to encourage volunteers to expand their involvement. Before implementing the BDC’s recommendations, volunteers were fulfilling 40% of the Response Team volunteer opportunities. Following initial implementation, in February 2020 volunteers were fulfilling 55%. View project brief. 

We’re eager to work with organizations to apply a behavioral lens to program and service design. Through the Behavioral Design Center, we hope to spread these behavioral insights farther and help more New Yorkers benefit from beneficial programs.

Interested in learning more about the NYC Behavioral Design Center? Sign up for our listserv to stay informed about upcoming workshops and other initiatives, or reach out to us at laura@ideas42.org or tweet at @ideas42 to join the conversation.