“The sight of a child so starved he’s too weak to cry… it’s enough to make the angels cry,” says Sally Struthers, strolling through a slum in an unidentified south Asian country. These Christian Children’s Fund ads, which ran for two decades, exemplify the ‘poverty porn’ trope still employed by many charities––a practice so ubiquitous […]
Blog
Candid thoughts from staff, donors, and recipients on our work and the broader movement towards cash transfers.
Operations, Opinions
More climate funding should go directly to people in poverty
Last month, negotiators at the U.N.’s COP27 secured agreement from wealthier countries to create a fund to help low-income, vulnerable countries cope with climate disasters. This builds on the $100B per year pledged by wealthier countries for a similar purpose, a financial acknowledgment that those living in the poorest nations bear the brunt of but […]
Operations
A new tool to give even more directly
Our goal is to simply be a delivery system: a donor doesn’t give to GiveDirectly, they give to someone in extreme poverty. Now, we’re taking the next step in this effort by letting donors see where their money is going, hopefully bringing them closer to those they’re trying to help. We’ve built a new tool […]
Operations
Canva partnership tackling extreme poverty in Malawi one year on
Last fall, GiveDirectly and Canva, the visual communication platform, announced a partnership to give money directly to some of the world’s poorest people – a $10 million pilot that is sending a basic income through mobile money payments to people in extreme poverty in Khongoni, Malawi. The pilot, launched this March, will deliver ~$50 per […]
Recipients
Inflation is worst for people in extreme poverty
You’ve likely been impacted by the cost of living crisis: U.S. gas prices spiked this summer and energy prices are still at all-time highs across Europe. While overall inflation in high-income countries is at 6%, in low-income countries it’s at 9%. Consumers in wealthy countries can often switch from higher-quality goods to lower-quality ones, an […]
Donation Info
Charitable Donation Deadlines for 2022
If you’re planning to make a donation around the holidays, we’ve pulled together details below on United States tax deadlines.
Opinions
Why we work in the United States
GiveDirectly began delivering cash donations in Kenya, but we’ve run programs in the United States for the past five years: first responding in 2017 to Hurricane Harvey in Texas and Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. When COVID-19 hit, we launched Project100, the largest donor-funded cash aid program in U.S. history. Beyond emergency response, we have […]
Opinions
Why giving directly still means giving well
When we set out to build GiveDirectly, we hoped not only to shift resources and decision-making to those in extreme poverty but also to increase the effectiveness of the sector as a whole. The effective altruism movement and organizations including the Centre for Effective Altruism, GiveWell, The Life You Can Save, and many others have […]
Research
Research on our U.S. COVID-19 program found little measurable impact. We’re adapting.
Between March 2020 and October 2021, GiveDirectly distributed $1,000 one-time relief payments to nearly 200,000 low-income households as part Project100, the largest privately funded cash transfer program in U.S. history. Researchers at University of Michigan ran two randomized controlled trials to evaluate this program, focusing on the impact on recipients’ material and mental well-being. The […]
Recipients, Research
We asked people in poverty how they prefer to receive money
In the past two years, 182 countries launched cash aid programs, recognizing the autonomy they provide people in poverty to make decisions for themselves. In many cases, however, aid recipients have limited control over exactly how they get their cash transfers. While the total amount might be fixed, the frequency and size of payments and the […]
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