How can governments and nonprofits design aid programs that afford dignity and facilitate beneficial outcomes for recipients? We conceptualize dignity as a state that manifests when the stigma associated with receiving aid is countered and recipients are empowered, both in culturally resonant ways. Yet materials from the largest cash transfer programs in Africa predominantly characterize recipients as needy and vulnerable. Three studies examined the causal effects of alternative aid narratives on cash transfer recipients and donors. In study 1, residents of low-income settlements in Nairobi, Kenya (N = 565) received cash-based aid accompanied by a randomly assigned narrative: the default deficit-focused “Poverty Alleviation” narrative, an “Individual Empowerment” narrative, or a “Community Empowerment” narrative. They then chose whether to spend time building business skills or watching leisure videos. Both empowerment narratives improved self-efficacy and anticipated social mobility, but only the “Community Empowerment” narrative significantly motivated recipients’ choice to build skills and reduced stigma. Given the diverse settings in which aid is delivered, how can organizations quickly identify effective narratives in a context? We asked recipients to predict which narrative would best motivate skill-building in their community. In study 2, this “local forecasting” methodology outperformed participant evaluations and experimental pilots in accurately ranking treatments. Finally, study 3 confirmed that the narrative most effective for recipients did not undermine donors’ willingness to contribute to the program. Together these studies show that responding to recipients’ psychological and sociocultural realities in the design of aid can afford recipients dignity and help realize aid’s potential.

政府和非营利组织如何设计能够给受助者带来尊严并促进受益成果的援助计划？我们将尊严概念化为一种状态，这种状态在抵制与接受援助有关的污名化和使受援者获得权能时都以文化上共鸣的方式表现出来。然而，来自非洲最大的现金转移计划的材料主要将接受者描述为有需要和脆弱的人群。三项研究考察了替代援助叙述对现金转移接收者和捐助者的因果关系。在研究1中，肯尼亚内罗毕的低收入住区居民（N =565）获得了基于现金的援助，并附带了一个随机分配的叙述：默认的以赤字为重点的“扶贫”叙述，“个人赋权”叙述或“社区赋权”叙述。然后，他们选择花时间建立业务技能还是观看休闲视频。两种关于赋权的叙述都提高了自我效能感，并提高了预期的社会流动性，但是只有“增强社区能力”的叙述才极大地激发了接受者选择技能和减少污名的选择。鉴于提供援助的环境多种多样，组织如何才能在上下文中快速确定有效的叙述方式？我们要求接收者预测哪种叙述最能激发他们社区的技能建设。在研究2中，这种“本地预测”方法在准确地对治疗进行排名方面优于参与者评估和实验飞行员。最后，研究3证实，对接受者最有效的叙述并没有损害捐助者为该计划做出贡献的意愿。这些研究共同表明，在援助设计中回应受援国的心理和社会文化现实，可以使受援国享有尊严并帮助实现援助的潜力。