Promise or Pay: Creating social change through individual action

Promise or Pay is an innovative social platform whose vision is to transform personal promises into wide scale social change. It uses a combination of publicly declared promises and pledges to charities (if promises are not kept) to ensure a win-win outcome with guaranteed impact.

I was absolutely inspired by this concept created by founder Jay Boolkin, an Australian social entrepreneur who used behavioral and motivation research to create this concept. He explains:

Research shows that making a formal declaration of your intentions increases your chance of actually achieving your goal by 33%, and by 72% if money is put on the line.

By using the power of social media sharing as leverage, his aim is to inspire millions of people from around the world to be the best (and happiest) they can be, while encouraging and promoting donations to worthwhile charities.

I recently created my own promise – to exercise 5 days a week (next 3 months) or pay $50 to a mental health charity (Open Minds), inspired by my Happiness Project. Consider sweetening the deal, by becoming one of my supporters, or better yet creating a promise or pay account yourself! You can also check out their free resources (like a 30 day program on how to build a lasting habit).

What goal would you like to accomplish? Did you make a new years resolution that needs refreshed attention? Are you following your own happiness project? Share your ideas below – or links to your own promise or pay pages!

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