Blog

Thoughts and insights from our work applying behavioral science to social problems.

Alleviating Poverty with EdTech Innovation: The College Success Prize

We’re excited to announce that ideas42 is working with the Robin Hood Foundation on a new $5 million prize challenge to address the critical problem of low college completion rates. The Robin Hood College Success Prize will identify innovative solutions that provide first-time, full-time community college students who must take remedial courses with the tools they […]

Project Update: Joining with Three New Partners to Improve Postsecondary Success

Over the past several months, ideas42 engaged in a competitive ‘Request for Problems’ process to gather the most pressing behavioral problems in the postsecondary education sector. The team received 56 applications from a variety of organizations, including four-year institutions, non-profits, national networks, high schools, and education technology start-ups. The problems submitted fell across the postsecondary […]

Findings and Implications from Testing: The BETA Project

In the social sector, it’s not always possible to test the impact of a designed solution. This often leaves us wondering whether resources are spent in ways that have real effects on welfare. The BETA Projectwas a unique opportunity to design behavioral solutions for three partner sites and test each solution to see whether or […]

Testing in the Social Sector: The BETA Project

What organization doesn’t want to describe itself as “outcome oriented” and “data driven”? These two buzz phrases highlight a growing interest in the social sector for measuring and tracking concrete outputs in order to demonstrate organizational impact. Beyond the usual metrics, however, is the need to measure the impact of specific program changes or initiatives. […]

How to Know What You Know: The BETA Project

How do we understand the world around us? As individuals, we have five senses that will reveal some truth about the world, and they serve us pretty well when we’re trying to survive. But how do you see an atom? Can you touch a burgeoning social movement? Can you hear the migratory behavior of the […]

New Project: BE For Innovations in Family Planning and Reproductive Health

For families across the world, the ability to decide whether to have children, when to have children, and how many children to have is strongly linked to economic, mental and physical well-being. Yet despite recent advances in the availability of family planning and reproductive health (FPRH) services, many developing countries are affected by low uptake […]

Using Behavioral Economics for Product Design

Design is about solving problems, and great design is about solving hard problems successfully. At ideas42 we’ve found that incorporating insights from behavioral economics at every stage of the design process can yield amazing results – whether solving problems in health, energy usage, or economic development. We’re just wrapping up a project looking at the […]

New White Paper: The Power of Heuristics

People are presented with many choices throughout their day, from what to have for lunch to where to go on vacation to how much money to save for emergencies. In many situations, this ability to choose enhances our lives. However, having too many choices can sometimes feel like a burden, especially if the choices are […]

The BETA Project Wrap-Up: Small Changes, Real Impact

Reflecting back, 2013 was an exciting year for ideas42, CFED and the Citi Foundation. Through the BETA (Behavioral Economics Technical Assistance) Project, we worked with Accion Texas, the Cleveland Housing Network, and Neighborhood Trust Financial Partners to design and test new solutions for their programs using insights from behavioral economics. We defined the problems to be […]