Siprosa, Jane, and Teresia spoke to our backcheck team this week about their hardest moments, their proudest moments, and how they plan to spend their cash transfers. Interestingly, all three randomly selected recipients are widows. Our enrollment data shows that widows make up about 24% of those surveyed in this community.Siprosa Siprosa lives in the […]
Blog
Candid thoughts from staff, donors, and recipients on our work and the broader movement towards cash transfers.
Opinions
Doing Good Better (at Scale?)
Will MacAskill’s excellent new book, Doing Good Better, is now on bookshelves. The book lays out the thinking behind the Effective Altruism movement, with thoughtful perspectives on how to do the most good with both money (donating) and time (choosing a career). GiveDirectly features throughout as a highly effective way of working and giving. We […]
Opinions
Announcing $25M grant from Good Ventures
This week, Good Ventures announced an unrestricted $25M grant to GiveDirectly (some coverage: Good Ventures post, GiveWell post, Vox, Inside Philanthropy, CNBC, Huffington Post, Forbes). A large investment like this reflects a lot of confidence in the team and the vision, and we’re grateful for that. In just a few short years, the discussion around […]
Recipients
In their own words: Homelessness and hope
Recipient Charles, a 42-year-old farmer, recently spoke to our backcheck team about his greatest hardships, greatest accomplishments, and hopes for the future (added explanation in italics). Charles was one of 16 recipients selected for in-depth followup this week. We selected his story to share because the translation was relatively clear (something we’re working at getting […]
Opinions
Why I give directly: The power of choice
In the second post of our “why I give directly” blog series, Charlotte Grinberg writes about why she and her husband give directly – and encourage others to do the same. When my husband proposed, in front of our closest friends and two kind strangers with a cellphone, he did what I dreamed he would […]
Operations
Targeting innovation in Kenya
Anti-poverty programs must often start with a rather obvious step: finding poor people. This may seem like a simple exercise, particularly in countries with high poverty rates. However, consider the potential pitfalls of some common approaches: a simple asset test (questions like “do you have a bicycle? A cow? A radio?”) may be easy to […]
Recipients
In their own words: I am aging very fast
Recipient Charles, a 72-year-old farmer, recently spoke to our team about his challenges and hopes for the future (added explanation in italics). On hardship: Looking back, I feel the biggest challenge was that my wife and I only had one child, a daughter. So at times I think that if God blessed us with more […]
Recipients
In their own words: GiveDirectly’s first recipients reflect on the past three years
Last week, I met with six randomly-chosen recipients from the first villages GiveDirectly enrolled in 2012. We gathered in the home of Joshua, one of the recipients, who had used part of his transfer to build a permanent home for his family. We discussed challenges, goals, and the various ways these recipients had invested their […]
Recipients
In their own words: Half-broken house
Recipient Nyadeje, a 55-year-old farmer and mother of four, recently spoke to our backcheck team about her current living situation, and what she hopes to accomplish with the transfer (added explanation in italics). On hardship: My biggest hardship has been to raise money to make a better house since I lost my spouse. The house […]
Opinions
Why I give directly: I won the lottery
We have recently begun inviting donors from a variety of backgrounds to reflect on “why I give directly.” To start off the series, we have a post from Jake Stein, cofounder of Philadelphia-based data analytics software company, RJMetrics. Read more about why Jake gives directly.I am a lottery winner. I’ve never played the Powerball or […]
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