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Kind things for a group to do together
For a team, a class, a congregation or a few friends. These either need more than one pair of hands, or get noticeably better when several people show up.
Showing 1–30 of 56 ideas
Keep including the person whose language it is not
Groups drift back into the majority language within minutes, and the one person left out never says anything.
5 minutesFreeA stranger1 person did this
Offer somewhere quiet without making it a thing
Loud rooms are genuinely painful for some people, and asking for quiet in a group is socially expensive.
5 minutesFreeA friend
Notice who eats lunch at their desk every day
It is sometimes a preference and often the visible end of being outside every group in the building.
Half an hourFreeA stranger
Make leaving early unremarkable
Chronic illness, anxiety and pain all mean sometimes going home. The hard part is having to explain in front of everyone.
5 minutesFreeA friend
Say something when the room lets it pass
A remark lands, everyone pretends not to have heard, and the target learns exactly who is in the room.
5 minutesFreeA stranger
Go to the celebration that is not yours
Turning up to somebody else's festival, service or national day is a bigger gesture than it costs you.
An afternoonFreeA neighbor
Invite the new family twice
The first invitation is often declined out of uncertainty. The second is the one that establishes it was real.
5 minutesFreeA neighbor
Ask someone to teach you their food
Being asked to share something from home reverses the usual direction, where the newcomer receives and thanks.
An afternoonUnder $10A neighbor
Put the real details in the invitation
How long, how far to walk, whether there is seating. Missing details mean somebody has to ring and ask.
5 minutesFreeA friend
Check the venue before you invite someone
Asking a disabled friend to check whether somewhere works puts the whole job on the person it affects.
Half an hourFreeA friend
Be the house where the friends come
Teenagers need somewhere that is not a bedroom and not a street. Somebody's kitchen is the whole infrastructure.
OngoingUnder $10A friend
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
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
Give one instruction at a time
Stacked instructions fail for anyone tired, anxious, learning the language or processing differently.
5 minutesFreeA stranger
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
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
Do the garden of a house that has stopped managing it
An overgrown garden is usually a signal — illness, age, or a household with no spare capacity at all.
An afternoonFreeA caregiver
Invite the child everyone stops inviting
Parents of disabled children describe the birthday party invitations drying up as the loneliest part.
5 minutesFreeA caregiver
Start the street group, and keep it about the street
A neighborhood group is genuinely useful for about six months and then becomes a place people argue about parking.
An afternoonFreeA neighbor
Go back in and say the food was good
Kitchen staff never meet the people who ate what they made. The feedback loop is completely severed.
5 minutesFreeA stranger
Keep inviting after the diagnosis
People stop inviting the seriously ill to ordinary things, assuming they cannot come. Being asked is the point.
5 minutesFreeA friend
Find out who is on their own at Christmas
People will not volunteer that they have nowhere to go. The question has to be asked directly and early.
5 minutesFreeA neighbor
Plan something that is not built around drinking
People in recovery, pregnant, on medication or simply not drinking are excluded from most adult socialising by default.
An afternoonUnder $10A friend
Take the notes nobody volunteered for
The admin of a meeting reliably falls to the same people. Doing it once, deliberately, breaks a pattern everybody has noticed.
Half an hourFreeA stranger
Knock, rather than posting a leaflet
Leaflets reach people who are already connected. The person most worth inviting needs someone at the door.
Half an hourFreeA neighbor
Go to the small thing nobody else will
The exhibition, the first gig, the talk to nine people. Attendance at the small things is what people remember.
An afternoonUnder $10A friend
Sit with whoever started this week
New starters eat alone for longer than anyone realizes, and decide how they feel about a place in the first fortnight.
Half an hourFreeA stranger
Turn up for the move
Helping someone move is the least fun and most remembered favor in the entire catalogue of friendship.
An afternoonFreeA friend
Face them instead of raising your voice
Shouting distorts speech and singles someone out. Facing them and slowing down works far better.
5 minutesFreeA neighbor