Our basic income trial continued to make headlines this week after our announcement in Slate two weeks ago. Cofounder Michael Faye spoke with Andrew Flowers of FiveThirtyEight, telling him, “To be honest, a full long-term universal basic income has never been tried, let alone rigorously evaluated.” In Fast Company, Ben Schiller reports: “After years of conjecture […]
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Candid thoughts from staff, donors, and recipients on our work and the broader movement towards cash transfers.
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BIG news! – Cash in the News
GiveDirectly made headlines this week when co-founders Michael Faye and Paul Niehaus announced our intention to run a basic income project. The story quickly got the attention of several writers and outlets (selections below). As Freakonomics’ Stephen Dubner says in an unconnected, but coincidentally timed podcast, basic income is “an idea whose time finally may […]
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A great upsurge – Cash in the News
From the Caribbean to the Philippines, cash transfers made it into the news this week as a way of reaching people in need. And in Canada, Senator Art Eggleton, in a letter to editor, argued forcefully for an adoption of cash transfers as a basic income, saying it would result in “a great upsurge in […]
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Will they sit on their couches comfortably? – Cash in the News
In an op-ed in The New Times Rwanda, Gitura Mwaura argues emphatically for African countries to start conducting their own Universal Basic Income experiments. He makes the case that research can help answer questions like, “Will the money encourage them to find a job or will they sit in their couches comfortably?” Meanwhile, other institutions were talking about […]
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‘Digital native’ & depth of skills – Cash in the News
Looking for a “digital native” NGO that’s “widely known to be good at tech”? Tom Steinberg lists GiveDirectly in his article “How Can Funders Know Who to Trust When It Comes to Tech Advice?” On the evidence behind cash transfers, Stephen Kidd asks, “To Condition or Not to Condition: What is the Evidence?” and an […]
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In the hands of our recipients – Cash in the News
We’re starting a new series, “Cash in the News,” where we will summarize the week’s news on GiveDirectly, cash transfers, and related topics like Effective Altruism and basic income. We will include a list of selected articles and posts, along with a brief, relevant excerpt from the post itself. Stay tuned for the latest and […]
Opinions
GiveDirectly featured in Google San Francisco’s Giving Week 2015
From November 30th to December 4th 2015, Google San Francisco hosted their annual Giving Week, highlighting one organization each day and encouraging employees to donate to their favorite organizations. GiveDirectly was chosen as one of very few charities featured during that week. Not only did Google employees step up to support direct cash transfers to […]
Opinions
Why I give directly: Reaching someone a world away
After hearing from Beverly Archer on one of our open conference calls, we asked her to share her perspective on why she gives directly. Here she describes her search for a better way to help. When I was a very little girl, I saw a picture of emaciated children in a magazine. It frightened and […]
Recipients
New Year’s notes from GiveDirectly recipients
Every day we talk to dozens of recipients to get feedback, find out how things are working out for them, and ask if there’s anything we can do to improve our own processes. This week we selected several recipients at random, and asked if they wanted to share any end of year thoughts with the […]
Opinions
Why we give directly to GiveDirectly
Benckiser Stiftung Zukunft, a forward-thinking German philanthropy, was looking for ways of giving that were efficient, effective, based in evidence, and had “the potential to improve the future of aid overall.” After visiting us in New York and Uganda, they decided to give directly, in addition to funding a randomized controlled trial to gather further […]