Direct cash is proven to improve lives
All of GiveDirectly’s programs are simple, dignified, proven, and scalable — but we do a wide range of work supporting different types of people in different types of need. Use our different giving funds to decide how you want to maximize your impact.
Choose a fund to match your priorities
-
Global Poverty
One-time cash transfers to families in extreme poverty
- Support communities in extreme poverty
- 1,000+ academic studies
- Very efficient and reliable
-
Emergency Cash
When crisis strikes, send cash to families within days
- Support vulnerable survivors of crisis
- Fast, worldwide coverage
- Potential system change
-
Innovation
Research, pilots, and advocacy to advance the impact of cash
- Research and advocacy
- Higher risk, much higher return
-
U.S. Poverty
Donor restricted funding for low-income families living in the U.S.
- Support low-income Americans
- Improve the U.S. safety net
- Unlock U.S. government funds
Give where it’s needed most
Maximize your impact by donating unrestricted. We move your gift to wherever it will have the most impact, including our core operations and fundraising. In 2026, 90%+ went to global poverty.
We have the ability to deploy an additional:
$1.9B over the next 12 months
This is our capacity beyond the funding we’ve already received — but this is not a forecast of funding, we need your support to do it. Gifts committed earlier make this target more achievable as we can invest in expanding our delivery capacity.
- Global Poverty $1.1B+
- Emergency Cash $117M+
- Innovation $132M+
- U.S. Poverty $559M+
These figures will evolve as funding is committed and operations scale.
Why cash
GiveDirectly has delivered $1B+ to 2M+ recipients, and rigorously studies its impacts at scale
-
A field officer and recipient in Malawi Evidence and cost-effectiveness
1,000+ independent studies affirm positive impacts across income, assets, health, food security, wellbeing and more with high cost-effectiveness.
-
Anna, Eswin and Daniel in Malawi -
A cash transfer arriving by phone in Kenya Speed, simplicity and scalability
A dollar donated arrives and transforms someone’s life quickly. It doesn’t rely on large complex supply chains and becomes more efficient at scale without losing effectiveness.
Review your funding priorities
Thinking about a donation of $50K or more? Our team will be happy to talk through these funding opportunities.
Frequently asked questions
How to donate stock, where unrestricted funding goes, how room for more funding is defined, and more!
How can I donate?
We accept all donation types across donor-advised fund grants, publicly traded stock and securities, cryptocurrency, ACH, credit card, check, qualified charitable distributions, wire transfer, and legacy gifts.
Reach out to majorgifts@givedirectly.org for more information or support on how to donate, including if you’d like to restrict your donation to one of the specific opportunities above.
Where does my donation go if I give unrestricted?
Unrestricted dollars are directed toward wherever they will have the most impact, based on our assessment of the programmatic and operational needs and opportunities when we receive them.
We’ve historically allocated the vast majority of unrestricted funding to people in extreme poverty via our flagship global poverty programs (in 2026 this was 92.7%), in addition to covering our core operations, staff, and fundraising (in 2026, this was 7.3%).
Fundraising investments are very high ROI — over the past two years, we spent ~$0.03 to raise each $1 – one of the strongest rates in the nonprofit sector.
How would GiveDirectly allocate a marginal dollar across these priorities?
We treat flexible funding like a portfolio. Most funds our highest-confidence global poverty programming, which can also scale most quickly, with a smaller share to newer bets with potential for significant impact and scale in the future.
Historically, the vast majority of flexible funding has gone to our Global Poverty program. That split may shift as our funding gaps and impact priorities change, but as of today we expect to allocate ~80% of new flexible funding to it with the remainder likely to fund newer bets like emergency response and innovation.
Note: US programs are funded by restricted donations, not flexible dollars.
How do you define your 12 month room for more funding (RFMF)?
RFMF is the additional funding we can confidently commit to cash programs over the next 12 months, beyond existing donations.
We expect most of our 12 month RFMF to be delivered to recipients within 2027, and the rest in early 2028.
We will always get funds into recipients’ hands as quickly as is feasible without compromising program quality, impact, and recipient experience and safety at scale.
How valuable are commitments now vs. later?
Very – a commitment is worth more now than later, even if the cash arrives on the same schedule.
Scaling well means investing in advance: hiring and training teams, building the technology and payment systems that larger volumes require, and signing government agreements. Firm commitments are what let us plan those investments with confidence.
The timing of your actual donations typically matters less than the commitment itself. Payments can be staged to match when we actually deploy the money, so committing early doesn’t mean giving early.
Ultimately, earlier commitments help get cash to families sooner. For someone living on less than $3/day, a dollar today is worth far more than the same dollar years from now.
Do you have an endowment I can support?
We’re exploring setting up an endowment fund, i.e. a long-term investment fund where donated assets are invested to generate annual returns that can be delivered to people in extreme poverty.
We’d love to hear from folks who may be interested in catalyzing it – reach out to ilan.wallentin@givedirectly.org if you’re interested or have any questions.