In 2024, the U.S. saw the highest number of people unhoused — 770,000 on a given night — despite $10B+ in federal spending on homelessness. There is existing evidence that a large lump sum of cash can help homeless families become stably housed, which is why GiveDirectly launched a program in Chicago doing just that. We […]
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Operations, Recipients
The power of getting a mobile phone
Recipients get your donation through ‘mobile money‘ Rural poverty in sub-Saharan Africa can mean disconnection. Too poor to afford telephones or travel, some families struggle to keep in touch. Many cannot bank or send money securely. Global news can be slow to reach areas without a cell network. Those without a mobile phone are given […]
Operations, Recipients
How to explain AI/ML across the digital divide
When a crisis hits a low-income country, aid groups often struggle to quickly find and help those most in need because governments have incomplete or outdated information on their citizens (‘social registries’). This is why GiveDirectly has used mobile phone metadata and AI to predict people’s level of need and send them emergency cash quickly—often […]
Operations
Rethinking efficiency to better reflect our diverse cash programs
Minimizing costs maximizes our impact for the world’s poorest: in a million-dollar GiveDirectly program, increasing efficiency from 75% to 80% might allow us to give an additional 100 people cash.1 But efficiency is not the only important metric, as some higher-cost programs reach more vulnerable populations or unlock new funds to go directly to people in […]
Research
Survey: fewer people support direct cash transfers than you may think
In May, GiveDirectly ran a panel survey of 750 Americans who fit our common donor profile to better understand their familiarity and sentiments around direct cash. Below, we outline the most relevant findings and how they’ll inform our communications and marketing strategy. Note: we’ll continue to update this blog as we further analyze the survey […]
Operations
How AI helped 6x our disaster response speed
For nearly two weeks after Hurricane Ian hit Ft. Myers, Florida, Shannon P. went without power. Shannon relies on food stamps to make ends meet and is dependent on insulin, which must be refrigerated. To power her fridge, she had to purchase a generator and a constant supply of gas to run it, costing hundreds […]
Operations
Why and how we invest
We have a strong incentive and desire to transfer the majority of the funds we receive to our recipients as quickly as possible. GiveDirectly is a service – donors use GiveDirectly to transfer funds to the extreme poor – and our donors expect that service to be efficient and timely. And beyond that, transfer speed […]
Operations
Improving our call center
Our call center team is a critical part of GiveDirectly’s work in Kenya – it includes about 20 staff, who are based in our main office in Nairobi and handle a range of recipient-facing issues. They contact recipients to confirm that transfers are received successfully and they capture recipient responses for GDLive. The call center […]
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 […]