Recently, I have had things like this happen several times and cannot think of a term/phrase that fits.
I have offered to do “something good”. That offer brings me accolades from those who know about my offer. The need for the offer vanishes, and I am left with the accolades without having performed the task offered.
Say, for example, a popular person needs a bone marrow transplant. I am a match and offer my marrow. Everyone says nice things about me, but the patient dies before I donate.
The appreciation is still legitimate, though, I think. People who didn’t know you were the sort of person to donate your marrow for example now know, and judge you accordingly. Maybe they now think you are someone they could turn to in need.
This. The appreciation* you receive for offering to do something is not an advance on the appreciation you will (may?) receive for actually doing it: it is appreciation for the offer. Whether being willing to make the offer required bravery, compassion, or some other intangible aspect of your personality, that is what you are receiving appreciation for at this point.
After you actually do the good deed, the appreciation* you receive at that point is for doing that, mixed likely with a lot of latent appreciation from people who didn’t even know you had made the offer initially.
So, in answer to the question of the OP, I call it “appreciation.”
“Taking the will for the deed”, meaning to recognize somebody’s good intentions even though they weren’t actually carried out, is the closest thing I can think of to an existing proverbial expression that conveys the sort of thing you’re talking about. I don’t know if that counts as a “word”.
It’s not unrealized. In terms of human psychology (rather than zoology, where the term is used differently) altruism is the concern for others and the impulse to help, in itself. It was “realized” at the moment the bone marrow offer (for example) was made.
