our cost structure
Enrollment costs. We have enrolled 538 recipient households at an average cost of $35, or 3.3% of total costs.
Transfer costs. We have negotiated foreign exchange fees of 1.5% and pay standard M-Pesa tarrifs of 1.6% of the amount transferred; together these amount to 2.9% of total costs.
Follow-up costs. Follow-up with recipients after sending them transfers costs an average of $2.50, or 0.2% of total costs.
how your money gets spent
GiveDirectly commits to using your donation for one purpose: making transfers to the poor. Based on performance to date we expect to spend 6% of your donation on identifying and tracking recipients and on wire costs, and put the remaining 94% in recipients' hands.
Our performance appears to compare well with standard benchmarks; for example, the American Institute of Philanthropy rates charities that spend more than 75% of their budgets on "program services" as "highly efficient." "Program services" is itself a vague category, however, that includes the costs of staff salaries, field operations, and payments to subcontractors and local partners with their own administrative costs. By this definition we spend 100% of your donation on program services. We prefer not to use this meaningless metric and instead define our performance in terms of dollars placed in the hands of the poor.
Besides making transfers, we have spent $7,395 on IT costs, $850 in registration fees, and $247 in legal fees to date. These costs were covered entirely by the Board of Directors. As a US 501(c)3 non-profit corporation and a registered entity in Kenya, we file annual reports with tax authorities that summarize our financial position.
financial statements
