Cash Transfers, Conflict, and Assets that Earn their Keep

GiveDirectly’s work has always been guided by scientific evidence.  When we began sending unconditional cash transfers to Kenyan villagers a few years ago, we had every reason to believe that the money would change recipients’ lives for the better. A motorcycle is one asset that can continue to generate income for years after the initial […]

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Building Our Technology Team

Technology is at the heart of what we do. We’ve built a secure, scalable and efficient platform that we’ll use to deliver cash transfers to thousands of poor households this year, and now we’re planning the next generation technology that will let us scale this platform up to serve millions of the world’s poor across […]

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Looking Beyond the Buzz

GiveDirectly has received some media attention lately. We’re thankful for it, as it allows us to share our work and ideas with more people who might want to help. NPR’s in-depth profile on our work in Kenya reached a broad audience and sparked further discussion in other outlets and the blogosphere. While it’s exciting to […]

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Corruption: The Elephant in the Room

In discussions of international development, corruption is often the elephant in the room. Funders don’t like to hear about it; nonprofits and governments don’t like to talk about it. During routine visits to recipients, our field team uses technology that automatically records a time and GPS marker for each piece of data they collect. But […]

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The Other Blattman Study

I believe we should be putting more money and more power directly into the hands of the poor. When given the chance, they have a consistent track record, across dozens of rigorous studies, of using money sensibly to improve their own lives. This evidence base was already compelling – and then along came Chris Blattman. […]

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GiveWell’s First Full Update on GiveDirectly

Please visit the GiveWell website to read an in-depth report on GiveDirectly’s work in Kenya, our expansion into a second country, and our long-term outlook as we continue to scale up our cash transfer operations. The report covers our activities since November 2012, when GiveWell named GiveDirectly their #2 rated charity based on their criteria […]

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New Blog Format

Thanks to the time and efforts of a generous volunteer, this section of  the GiveDirectly website will now feature more frequent updates, including reports from our field team, lessons learned from our work, and the latest evidence on the impact our cash transfers have on the lives of the poor. If you have a question […]

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