This guide addresses whether incentives work, concluding that they influence business decisions but are not solely responsible for them, and that they generate positive outcomes only with sound program design and implementation, supported by project monitoring and reporting. It presents the features evaluations associate with effective programs, including targeting, discretion, leveraging significant private capital, limited duration, transparent rules and reporting, accountability, caps or limits, simplicity, and alignment with state strategy. It argues for crafting competitive packages by combining multiple program components and partner offerings, and for shifting from a program-management mindset to an investment-partner one — viewing incentives as investments and companies as partners, and investing in workforce, site, and infrastructure that stay with the community. It supplies questions to ask before offering an incentive (how it supports strategy, what outcomes are sought, whether the timeframe fits, who tracks costs and benefits, what risks exist) and points to fiscal and economic impact analysis, performance agreements with milestones, and results reporting as accountability tools.