The story of Eunice and 144 more in the Kibera program

Eunice lives in the Kibera slums of Nairobi, Kenya and was one of 494 people who received ~$1,125 between November 2020 and June 2021 as part of a GiveDirectly COVID-19 relief program focused on entrepreneurs.  This program, funded by Google.org, provided women with cash transfers plus elective budgeting and entrepreneurial training from SHOFCO, a local […]

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How receiving a basic income affects elderly women

Since October 2016, GiveDirectly has been sending monthly cash transfers to 95 adult residents in a remote village in Kenya. This village is the pilot site for our broader universal basic income initiative. “Remote” is often a code word for “poor.” But other vulnerabilities in age, gender and marital status contribute as much, if not […]

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Uncurated communication from recipients

In addition to enrolling 31,000 new families and launching the world’s first long term, universal basic income study in 2016, GiveDirectly also released GDLive – a new way to receive unfiltered, unedited communication from cash transfer recipients.This product is made possible by our end-to-end (donor to recipient’s door) operating model, in which we collect all […]

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A turning point in my life

Joice was living in poverty when she received a cash transfer from GiveDirectly’s donors in 2014. Now she is a GiveDirectly field officer whose job includes telling new recipients about GiveDirectly. This is her story.  I was born in Kisumu County and I was married in Siaya County. I had great dreams of improving my […]

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