The tagline is pretty easy to understand:
That was the scheme cooked up by Ashby Monk when Oregon State Treasurer Tobias Reed gave him a call in April.
Monk is the . He鈥檇 spent much of his career studying institutional investing before turning his attention to a thornier question: how to motivate people to make smarter long-term personal finance decisions.
On the phone, Reed was looking for creative ways to convince more people to get vaccinated. Oregon鈥檚 vaccination rate had been strong for several months, but demand was beginning to taper off as the most vaccine-hungry Oregonians had already scheduled their appointments. The state still had a long way to go to hit its aim of a 70% vaccination rate by July 4, President Joe Biden鈥檚 target.
How do you help the vaccine-ambivalent get off the fence and get their shots, quickly?
Monk鈥檚 answer was also elegant in its simplicity: make it a game.
Monk said convincing the vaccine-hesitant to sign up for a shot carries a lot of the same challenges he saw when he was researching how to motivate people to begin saving money. In both cases, there are a lot of up-front challenges, and the long-term payoff is hard to visualize.
鈥淢any people are intimidated by personal finance,鈥� he said. 鈥淭here鈥檚 tons of misunderstanding, there鈥檚 high cost, you have to put money away.鈥�
With COVID-19, the combination of uncertainty about the vaccine itself, an unwieldy scheduling process and competing obligations for personal time was preventing many individuals from prioritizing their vaccine appointments.
Monk said the one thing that 飞辞耻濒诲苍鈥檛 work, though, was telling people what鈥檚 best for them.
鈥淭here鈥檚 a whole world in the personal finance space that鈥檚 focused on financial literacy,鈥� Monk said, 鈥渨hich is another way of saying 鈥楲et鈥檚 just try to teach everybody how to behave.鈥欌��
Research shows that the approach doesn鈥檛 really do much. found traditional financial literacy programs only result in a 0.1% change in individual financial behaviors.
鈥淵ou could almost say the takeaway from all these financial literacy programs is they don鈥檛 make you worse at personal finance,鈥� Monk said.
Monk found a solution in prize-linked savings accounts. to motivate people to save money by incentivizing them with the chance to win cash prizes as long as their money stays in the bank. The practice was signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2014, and it has proven to be a success: A recent found that 110 bank branches with prize-link savings programs saw a 41% increase in new personal savings accounts being opened.
鈥淟ook: This is the era of games,鈥� Monk recently told OPB鈥檚 Weekend Edition.
With the omnipresent rise of smartphones, more and more of our daily decisions are being gamified. Want to eat better or work out faster? There鈥檚 an app for that. We use games to sleep better, to track our steps, even to meet new people: Just look at the swipe-culture of online dating.
Monk said the trick is providing people extrinsic motivation to make better decisions based on the hope of an uncertain but potentially huge payoff.
鈥淧eople play for the chance to change their lives with luck,鈥� Monk said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like, 鈥業f I win, the change is just going to be astounding. And I鈥檓 not really feeling the cost.鈥欌��
In designing Oregon鈥檚 vaccine lottery, he pushed the governor鈥檚 team to focus on three priorities. First, there needed to be a variable reward prize.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a type of game prize where not everybody wins,鈥� he said.
That big million dollar prize would motivate people to opt in, even generating a bit of fear of missing out (yes, he used the term 鈥淔OMO鈥�). Why play if there鈥檚 no big reward?
Second, there needed to be a chance to feel some proximity to the winner. That鈥檚 why he urged a smaller $10,000 prize in each of Oregon鈥檚 36 counties.
鈥淲e wanted every community and region to have winners so that maybe somebody you know won,鈥� Monk said, 鈥渟o you could really visualize yourself winning this thing.鈥�
Finally, it needed to be risk-free for participants. Monk acknowledges this is one of the biggest problems for conventional lotteries. 鈥淚 can find you losers,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hese are people who often struggle to make the money they鈥檙e holding in their hand and sadly, it goes away.鈥�
Since Oregon鈥檚 announcement, vaccine lottery fever has swept the country. Both and have announced their own lottery programs to pump up vaccination efforts.
Initial findings suggest the incentive may be working here in Oregon. Daily vaccinations are up in several rural counties: Marion County is reporting a 2.3% increase, Sherman County is up 2.5%, Gilliam County up 2.1% since before the lottery was announced. These are places where previous trends had anticipated a decreasing vaccination rate.
On Friday, we鈥檙e closer than ever to reaching the 70% vaccination threshold that will allow the state鈥檚 economy to reopen, and that we鈥檙e even running ahead of schedule. The Oregon Health Authority estimates that we will reach that goal by June 21 at the latest.
But Monk said the biggest change might come once governments wrap their heads around how effective games are as a motivator.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a carrot,鈥� he said. 鈥淔or those freedom loving folks out there, there鈥檚 something here that鈥檚 pretty interesting because there鈥檚 no mandate, right? It鈥檚 about building an incentive and allowing you to choose.鈥�
One of the major tensions in American life this year has been the friction between well-intentioned government regulation and the bristling of individuals and communities who feel their rights are being trampled. Monk hypothesizes there are countless ways governments could create more systems that incentivize people to opt-in to healthier, more productive behaviors, rather then penalizing them for opting out.
鈥淚鈥檇 love to see it applied to education, maybe welfare-to-work or personal health. What if instead of a healthcare mandate there were healthcare prizes?鈥�
Listen to Ashby Monk鈥檚 full conversation with OPB Weekend Edition host John Notarianni using the audio player above
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