Recently, a village of about 70 households in Malawi was selected to receive GiveDirectly transfers. The village first refused funds — then changed its mind. Here’s what happened.
Blog
Candid thoughts from staff, donors, and recipients on our work and the broader movement towards cash transfers.
Opinions
Reflecting on the Last Decade: 10 Things We Got Right & Wrong
These are 10 impactful things we’ve gotten right and wrong over the last decade. From these wins and misses, we’ve gleaned important learnings to help guide us in better serving recipients.
Recipients
A Spotify Playlist by Women Recipients in Nairobi
We compiled a Spotify playlist featuring the favorite songs of five women enrolled in GiveDirectly’s urban youth program in Nairobi, Kenya.
Operations
Behind the scenes at a GiveDirectly call center
Meet Sithembile Nyondo, who works in the GiveDirectly call center in Malawi fielding hotline calls from recipients. Every successful customer-facing company has mechanisms for ensuring quality service. We think recipients of aid deserve the same and have designed our call center processes accordingly.
Recipients
A photo update from 5 families receiving a basic income
Photos of recipients in our Universal Basic Income Program highlight the diversity of investment decisions families make when receiving cash transfers.
Recipients
In 9 minutes, meet everyone in this Liberian village
All 7 households in the Liberian village of Matay Ta have received a GiveDirectly transfer of USD $750. Even in this tiny village, spending choices vary widely.
Research
What’s the best way to help the people who supply the things we buy every day?
Our latest research in 4 sentences: Over the course of 3 payments in 4 months, GiveDirectly delivered $1,000 to 3,415 households in coffee growing communities. One year later, we surveyed them to measure their economic well-being and coffee production. Recipients of the cash consumed more, earned more, had more assets, and greater food security. Also, coffee […]
Operations
How facial identification technology could help our field ops
We’re not interested in tech for the sake of tech. So, there were plenty of skeptics on the team when the possibility of integrating facial identification into our operations came up. Good for iPhones? Yes. Necessary for enrolling recipients in our program? Not obvious. The jury is still out on whether we’ll pursue it at […]
Operations
Solving the last mile payment challenge in Liberia
Think of the longest ATM line you’ve seen in the US…and multiply it by 80. On the World Bank index of ATMs per 100,000 people, Liberia comes in at fewer than 2 (by comparison, the US has 174). Not surprisingly, it’s the kind of place where delivering cash as an aid intervention is often deemed […]
Operations
Getting our bearings in Malawi
How big are villages in Malawi? The answer, our team has been learning, is not entirely straightforward. But it matters, for two key reasons: First, the randomized control trial we are running in partnership with USAID requires us to achieve a certain sample size (i.e. number of villages), within a budget constraint. If villages are […]
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