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Based on your example, it sounds like you're looking for stakes in the form of "If (protagonist) doesn't help these people who need help, then (something bad) will happen." You want stakes in the form of a motivating force.

As Mark Baker pointed out, this boils down to desires. One of your character's desires is to remain in his comfortable life. He needs something to compel him out of it.

I've always found it helpful to distinguish internal from external conflict. I personally tend to write the internal conflict much more easily than externals, but let's look at examples of both and see how those might reveal a formula.

h3. Internal conflict
Something within the protagonist won't let him ignore pleas for help. He can't walk away from them. He might try to do so - and he might succeed at first - but then his conscience gets the better of him and he finds himself walking past the same street corner as yesterday, hoping he'll see the beggar once more, just so that he has a chance to act this time.

What would make someone do that? If we want an internal reason, we need an emotional reason.
- Guilt 1: He feels guilty when he sees someone in need. Is this because he narrowly escaped their same fate? Why is he the lucky one?
- Guilt 2: Did his father admonish him to never look down on people who appear weaker? Even though dad died ten years ago, his shadow still looms.
- Guilt 3: Did he cause their affliction? Was he a corporate overlord who thoughtlessly used his employees until they were used up?
- Empathy: Did he used to be like that? Does he know what it's like?
- Fear: Is he one wrong step away from poverty/illness/misfortune himself?

Internal conflict usually means looking into a character's past and finding formative experiences. Their ghost, if you will. The way to do this analytically would be to work backward. We know the effect: protagonist helps people. Now we need a personal, emotional reason he does so: pick an emotion (guilt, empathy, fear) to explain his actions. Finally, we need a source for that emotion: a tragic event, an inspirational role model, a vision of his own past or future. Once you have the ghost, you have a changed character capable of actions that work against their own goals.

As a side note, the story become so much more compelling when you work this ghost into it in other ways. What other effects does it have upon your protagonist? Who does he owe a favor to for saving his life, or who owes him? Does he overcome his ghost by the end? If so, that's a powerful emotional arc.

h3. External conflict
Something in the world has made it more logical to help people than to only think about himself. What could do that?
- Bullying: If he takes 5 minutes to help someone cross the street, does he have a chance of missing the elevator ride with his cranky coworker?
- Romance: If he takes 5 minutes to help someone cross the street, does he have a chance of bumping into his crush? Or perhaps it's not timing-related, but it won't hurt if she sees him being a gentleman. Or is he aware that she volunteers at the homeless shelter on the weekends?
- Long-term goals: If he gives his money away to the beggar on the corner, does that allow him to walk right by the store/bakery without being tempted to buy?
- Appeasement: Does he need to befriend three strangers by the end of summer or else he forfeits his inheritence?
- Resources: Does the street urchin notice everyone who walks by, including the man the protagonist is tracking?

External conflict means finding a reason for someone to act a specific way using outside pressure. I think we'd take a similar approach to internal conflict and look for the chain of cause and effect. With externals, the cause has to be something outside of the protagonist's head which means we have other actors in this drama. Someone else's desires are calling the shots, and the protagonist is just reacting in the most advantageous way he can.

Conflicts and stakes work best when they're layered together. Give your protagonist internal and external reasons to be kind. Ultimately, there needs to be something more important - more emotionally dangerous, more physically irresistible - than his desire for comfort, and suddenly he will perform the plot actions you need.