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Send money directly to
people who need it most.
Your donation empowers families in poverty
to choose how best to improve their lives.
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Trusted by top reviewers, funders, and researchers
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Giving cash is
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Help someone transform their life.
Ndiwo’s parents couldn’t afford to send him to high school. With $197, he was able to re-enroll and buy farm equipment. He’s saving the profits to study engineering at a university.
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Help without conditions.
People in poverty deserve the dignity to choose for themselves how best to improve their lives — cash enables that choice.
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Help that works – and lasts.
There are 300+ studies on cash transfers – making it one of the most-studied aid interventions. Cash has been shown to drive a range of impacts, even 5+ years after a transfer.
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Help that is efficient and direct.
Cash has no shipping costs: your donation is delivered directly to a person in poverty via mobile money with support from in-country staff, not subcontractors or middle-men.
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Help someone transform their life.
Ndiwo’s parents couldn’t afford to send him to high school. With $197, he was able to re-enroll and buy farm equipment. He’s saving the profits to study engineering at a university.
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Help without conditions.
People in poverty deserve the dignity to choose for themselves how best to improve their lives — cash enables that choice.
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Help that works – and lasts.
There are 300+ studies on cash transfers – making it one of the most-studied aid interventions. Cash has been shown to drive a range of impacts, even 5+ years after a transfer.
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Help that is efficient and direct.
Cash has no shipping costs: your donation is delivered directly to a person in poverty via mobile money with support from in-country staff, not subcontractors or middle-men.
Receiving cash catalyzes change
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Hawa invested in a farming business and restarted construction on her home
“When I received the money, I invested $50 into farming. Since I don’t have a farm land here, I asked a land owner for over a lot to plant cassava. I paid people to brush, clean, and plant. The rest of the money, I traveled to Monrovia where I have a half lot with a foundation that stopped several years ago because I did not have the money to continue with the project.”
Liberia
Didier upgraded his barbershop and doubled his income
“When I arrived in Kenya from Congo as a refugee in 2008, life was a struggle. After staying for quite some time, I located a place to run a barber shop. The transfers allowed me to improve my shop. My shop is thriving. I increased my service charge from $1 to $2, and my income has risen to $400 per month. I even hired another employee, paying him on a commission basis. This move has contributed to the increase in my earnings.”
Kenya
Francoise started a sewing business and is returning to school to pursue her dreams
“I got pregnant when I was seventeen years old and dropped out of school. I used $70 to buy a sack of beans as a way to save money profitably and purchased a sewing machine for $150. With the remaining cash, I saved it to buy school materials and uniforms because I wanted to go back to school.”
Rwanda
Mirriam paid her daughter’s school fees, grew her business, and improved her home
“As any single mother, after my divorce, all I thought of was how I would provide for my children. With the second transfer, I bought iron sheets, a bicycle and clothes for my last born in secondary school. My greatest achievement so far has been paying school fees for my daughter. For the first time, I have paid it in full.”
Malawi
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Denis bought a motorcycle and revamped it for his ‘boda boda’ business
“I got my first transfer of $120 in September 2022, I saved it and waited for the second transfer with a plan to purchase a motorcycle. I got one on sale at $600 and purchased it. I majestically rode to the GiveDirectly office to show them how the transfers have changed my life.”
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Rabeca built a brick house and powered it with a solar panel
“My name is Rabeca and from an early age my life was marked by a lack of money that affected and limited all areas of my life. With the transfers, I realized my dream of building a brick house. I was also able to buy a solar panel which has brought light into our lives! Now, we live as if we were in the city, not the village, because we have light all the time. We can charge our mobile phones and my children can do their schoolwork at night without any difficulty.”
Mozambique1.5 million people reached
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Support programs that meet local needs at a global scale
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Explore highlights from the field
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Early findings from the world’s largest UBI study
We worked with researchers to compare the impacts of a short-term UBI vs. long-term UBI vs. lump sum transfer. These results look at just the first two years, when all three groups had received roughly the same amount of money.
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Cash relief for earthquake survivors in Morocco
Our team has delivered cash to 9,000+ people in poverty in Morocco since 2019 and is working to reach survivors as quickly as we’re able to raise funds and establish secure payment channels.
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Why too few disaster survivors get cash aid and what we can do about it
People impacted by a crisis prefer cash relief over in-kind aid (e.g. food, tarps), as it allows them to meet their own needs rather than having others guess for them. However, responders are not pivoting from in-kind aid fast enough…
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What we got right and wrong when sending cash to flood survivors
We ran pilots to send cash remotely to flood survivors: in Nigeria, we sent funds to survivors weeks after flooding and in Mozambique, we sent funds days before predicted floods. Here are 4 things we got right and wrong…
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For refugees in cities, large cash transfers support self-reliance
Half a million refugees have fled insecurity in their home countries to try to build a new life in Kenya. Having left nearly everything behind, many struggle to restart without a big missing piece: money. Watch how cash aid helps them restart…
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The power of getting a mobile phone
16% of Africans do not live within reach of a mobile network, with the biggest gaps in the poorest regions due to a lack of demand. Our project reaching 15K families in Kiryandongo, Uganda motivated two telcos to extend coverage and mobile money agents to the area…
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How AI helped 6x our disaster response speed
When natural disasters hit, the economic impact is immediate for people already living in poverty: wages are interrupted, homes and cars are damaged, spoiled food is thrown out. The sooner affected families receive cash, the sooner they can begin to put their lives back together…
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Sharing stories of poverty but not ‘poverty porn’
People in poverty are often documented without their consent. GiveDirectly only documents recipients with their formal consent, or in the case of minors, both their and their parents’ consent. They opt to sign a plain-language form translated into local languages…