The library

Kind things you can actually do

Every one of these is specific enough to do today. No grand gestures, no fundraising page, nothing that needs a free weekend.

Know roughly what is going on but not what to search for? Start from a situation — fourteen short lists of what actually helps, from somebody new on the street to somebody having the worst year of their life.

Showing 61–90 of 293 ideas

• Tell someone about money they are entitled to

  Billions in benefits, reliefs and refunds go unclaimed every year, mostly by people who do not know they qualify.

  Half an hourFreeA friend

• Tell a teacher what they did for your child

  Teachers hear from parents almost exclusively about problems. Specific praise is rare enough to be kept for years.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Find a chair before anyone asks

  Standing is the hidden barrier at parties, queues and exhibitions, and asking for a seat means explaining why.

  5 minutesFreeA friend

• Praise the effort where the result was bad

  A young person who worked hard and failed will be told the result was disappointing by everyone else.

  5 minutesFreeA friend1 person did this

• Return it better than you got it

  The borrowed car with a full tank, the returned dish with something in it. The margin is what people remember.

  Half an hourUnder $10A neighbor

• Help with the deposit, not the rent

  A one-off lump unlocks a situation. Ongoing help postpones one, and is far harder to stop.

  5 minutesMore than $10A friend

• Turn the one-off donation into a standing order

  Charities can plan against regular income and cannot plan against appeals. Five pounds monthly beats sixty at Christmas.

  5 minutesMore than $10A stranger

• Hand over your good tradesperson

  The reliable plumber, the honest garage, the dentist taking patients. Newcomers pay a premium for not knowing.

  5 minutesFreeA neighbor

• Leave credit on the machine behind you

  A parking meter, a laundry card, a photo booth. The next person gets a small unearned piece of luck.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Talk to the child who is not performing

  At any family gathering one child holds the room and another is under the table with a book.

  5 minutesFreeA friend

• Split the bill by what people can actually pay

  Dividing equally is simple and quietly excludes whoever ordered the cheapest thing for a reason.

  5 minutesUnder $10A friend

• Put it back exactly where it was

  In the home of a blind or partially sighted person, a tidied object is a lost object.

  5 minutesFreeA friend

• Be the reference someone has no way of getting

  Renting, banking and jobs all require a history that anyone newly arrived by definition does not have.

  Half an hourFreeA stranger

• Give one instruction at a time

  Stacked instructions fail for anyone tired, anxious, learning the language or processing differently.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Believe someone about their own symptoms

  People with invisible illness spend years being doubted, most often by people who mean well.

  5 minutesFreeA friend

• Be the second person to volunteer

  The first person to speak up takes all the risk. The second one makes it safe for everyone after.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Tell someone how you got in

  Careers look like merit from outside and like luck and contacts from inside. Saying so out loud helps someone enormously.

  Half an hourFreeA stranger

• Say plainly that you are glad they came

  Anyone new spends months privately unsure whether they are wanted or merely tolerated. One sentence settles it.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Explain how the system here actually works

  Registering with a doctor, council tax, school places. Obvious to you, opaque and consequential to a newcomer.

  An afternoonFreeA neighbor

• Pay a bit more at the place that employs people

  The difference between the independent and the chain is usually small per item and decisive per year.

  Half an hourUnder $10A stranger

• Tell someone what you actually earn

  Pay secrecy is maintained by people like you staying quiet, and it costs the people with least information the most.

  5 minutesFreeA friend

• Ask what the hardest part actually is

  We assume we know which part of someone's situation is worst, and we are usually wrong.

  5 minutesFreeA friend

• Tell a carer what you noticed

  Carers watch someone decline daily and lose sight of who they were. An outsider's observation gives that back.

  5 minutesFreeA caregiver

• Add alt text to your images

  An image without a description is a blank space to anyone using a screen reader. Writing one takes twenty seconds.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Ask again the person who always says no

  People who decline every invitation are usually not uninterested. Often they are waiting to be asked a fourth time.

  5 minutesFreeA neighbor

• Notice the deadline someone is drowning in

  People rarely ask for help at work because asking reads as not coping. Offering removes the admission.

  An afternoonFreeA friend

• Return the thing you have had for two years

  Everybody is holding something borrowed and mildly embarrassing. Giving it back is easier than the story you have built around it.

  5 minutesFreeA neighbor

• Say the spare room is available before they need it

  People leaving bad situations often have nowhere to go for two nights, and cannot bring themselves to ask.

  5 minutesFreeA friend1 person did this

• Correct your own mistake where you made it

  Misinformation spreads further than corrections. Correcting yourself in the original place is the only version that works.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Find out who quietly fixed the thing

  Something broke, then it didn't. Somebody did that, usually out of hours, and nobody has said anything to them.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

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