Cash Relief for Families in DRC

You can send funds directly to families displaced by the current conflict in eastern DRC.
Over 500,000 people in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have been displaced by the fighting between M23 rebels and Congolese government forces for control of the city of Goma (home to 2 million people) and surrounding regions.
Three in four people in DRC are living in extreme poverty and are especially vulnerable after displacement. Fleeing civilians have to abandon their already precarious livelihoods and most of their possessions to seek safety elsewhere.
Despite the fighting, markets and shops are reopening, which means cash in hand can help displaced families meet their immediate needs like food, water, and shelter.
Your donations can reach impacted families quickly and fully remotely.

With our partners, GiveDirectly has developed a first-of-its-kind method to deliver money remotely to civilians as they flee, getting cash in their mobile wallets just days after a displacement incident.
This quick cash can be life-saving, helping families make rapid decisions like paying for transport to safety, stocking up on food, buying urgently needed medicines, preventing them having to sell their belongings to meet these urgent needs.
You’ll also support a new technology that could transform humanitarian aid.
Imagine as you are fleeing with your family to safety, your mobile phone pings with a ten-question enrollment survey that you can complete in two minutes over text message. GiveDirectly takes less than an hour to confirm your identity before sending funds to your phone, fully remotely.
This is how we sent 490 people ~$125 each fully remotely on January 17 and January 23, each a week after they fled outbreaks of violence in North Kivu. We partner with local mobile network providers to obtain anonymized subscriber cell-tower ping data. After a thorough background check and identity verification, we enroll and pay them fully remotely.
This is a major breakthrough, as it can take ~100 days for aid groups to get cash aid to families after they were displaced and ~130 days for in-kind food aid according to the SAFER Consortium. That is because most aid organizations carry out in person surveys of recipients, which are often made difficult due to access constraints and security considerations. Our method can reach them about 20x faster.
Your donation can help us reach even more families fleeing crisis and scale up the use of this new technology, though we may also deliver funds to impacted families using other targeting methods.

Our other emergency relief programs in the news:
Partners
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is eligible to receive money?
So far we’ve used cell tower metadata to identify people fleeing confirmed violent incidents, then enrolled and paid them remotely through mobile money. We may adapt our method of identifying and paying families as our response continues.
What if we raise more or less than the fundraising goal?
Any excess funds will help us deliver cash to more families impacted by the conflict. If for any reason we are unable to deliver all funds to families in the Eastern DRC, donations will be delivered to survivors of the next global emergency or conflict we respond to.
How much will each family receive?
As we assess the situation on the ground, we’re still determining the size of future cash payments and at what cadence. The transfer amount will be designed to help them meet their immediate needs and support them in this unstable period.
When will people receive my donation?
We’ve already started sending cash to displaced families as of January 17 and are continuing to identify, enroll, and pay communities in greatest need as quickly as possible.
What is GiveDirectly?
We’re a nonprofit that lets you send money directly to the world’s poorest, no strings attached. In the last decade, we’ve delivered cash to over 1.6 million people across 15 countries and research the impacts it can have for families in need.
Is there a risk this cash will be lost to fraud or end up in the wrong hands?
Working in conflict-affected areas means that armed groups or proscribed organisations could attempt to divert our cash transfers, though we are not aware of any instances of this in our decade of operation (and research shows that cash transfers are no riskier than other forms of aid in terms of diversion). Read how we mitigate this risk on our blog →
Following a notable 2022 cash diversion fraud in the DRC, GiveDirectly has improved our systems, rebuilt our in-country team, and restarted payments for impacted recipients. Read more on our blog →
What if I’d like to make a major gift?
We’d love to hear from you! Reach out to us at [email protected].
Is my donation tax-deductible?
Yes, donations are tax-deductible in the United States. We accept all major credit and debit cards, PayPal, checks, wires, stocks, cryptocurrencies, and more.
If you’re giving outside the U.S., you can still give to this campaign but your gift may not be tax-deductible. You can donate via our international partners to claim tax benefits, but due to partner processing delays those donations may not come in before the campaign ends.
Reach out to us at [email protected] with any questions or for more information on ways to give.