Along with Todd, I’ve struggled over the past few months to explain to people WHY, if BountyUp is such a good idea, it doesn’t already exist. And the answer seems to be “Market Coordination”. I found a great quote this evening (from “How to Change the World”, by David Bornstein) that illustrates this well, in the context of sending children from low-income backgrounds to college:

“Imagine that it costs $1000 to privde the guidance for a kid to get into college who currently has a 2.5 GPA and would otherwise become a parking lot attendant, which is fine, but does not fulfill her potential,” explains Furbush. “Say the kid goes to college and that $1000 investment yields a $500 net benefit for the firm which, five years from now, she’s going to end up working for; but, of course, we don’t know which firm that will be. Say $100 accrues to the high school which can brag about getting kids into college. Say $400 accrues to the city that wouldn’t have to pay to assist her and another $200 accrues to the college that’s paying people to find her, and so on, including tax collections, indirect effects on her peers, and most of all, the benefit to her wealth and well-being.

“What if it turns out that all those smaller amounts add up to a return to society well in excess of the $1000 that changed her life, but any single one of them wouldn’t be enough to economically justify paying to change her path? It’s hard for markets to arise when that coordination is difficult.”

In the context of this example, of course, it’s a leap of faith for any of those mentioned (organizations, the city, the future employers, etc) to contribute to such a program - since they have no way of knowing ahead of time if it will work. But in the case of a Bounty, no such faith is required. If it doesn’t work out - you get your money back. All that’s required is a temporary suspension of doubt.