Giving Docs goes back to school

Do you know what behavioral economics is? Neither did we! We’re finding out though.

This month, Giving Docs formally began work at the Startup Lab at the Center for Advanced Hindsight at Duke University. Yes, that is a complicated title. The Lab was founded and is run in part by Dan Ariely, a global voice in behavioral economics.

The academic incubator is a 3-to-9 month program that leverages existing research in the field to allow companies, like Giving Docs, to integrate concepts from the discipline into our company from the start. We were one of three companies accepted out of thousands of applicants. We’re pretty excited about the opportunity.

So, what the heck is behavioral economics? It seeks to apply psychological insights into the how and why of our economic decision-making. Why do we buy the products that we do? Why do we throw away rational thought when making a (possibly significant) purchase? Humans are complicated, confusing, emotional beings, so let’s try and make some sense of it all.

Really, Dan is better at explaining all of this.

So, what are we going to be doing over the coming months? Well, we’re figuring out how to encourage people to take responsible actions and plan their estate for starters. We have a million different questions that we’d like to have answered. Only 14-percent of young people have a will. Why? What are the psychological benefits of charitable giving? How strong are these positive feelings?

Then, there’s figuring out how new knowledge impacts our work. It’s impossible to say exactly what the eventual outcome of the program will be, but it’s going to be very beneficial either way.