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GiveDirectly
GiveDirectly is a nonprofit organization operating in low income areas that helps families living in extreme poverty by making unconditional cash transfers to them via mobile phone. GiveDirectly currently transfers funds to people in Bangladesh, DRC, Liberia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Uganda and USA. In the past, it has worked in The Bahamas, Morocco, Nigeria, Turkey, Togo and Yemen.
GiveDirectly originated as a giving circle started by Paul Niehaus, Michael Faye, Rohit Wanchoo, and Jeremy Shapiro, students at MIT and Harvard, based on their research into philanthropy. In 2012 they formalized their operation into GiveDirectly.
In December 2012, GiveDirectly received a $2.4M Global Impact Award from Google. In June 2014, the founders of GiveDirectly announced plans to create a for-profit technology company, Segovia, aimed at improving the efficiency of cash transfer distributions in the developing world. In August 2015, GiveDirectly received a $25M grant from Good Ventures.
In April 2016, GiveDirectly announced a $30M initiative to test universal basic income in order to "try to permanently end extreme poverty across dozens of villages and thousands of people in Kenya by guaranteeing them an ongoing income high enough to meet their basic needs" and, if it works, pave the way for implementation in other regions. The initiative launched in November 2017 and is set to run for 12 years.
In 2017, GiveDirectly applied their model for the first time in the U.S., distributing cash-loaded debit cards to residents of Rose City, Texas, following Hurricane Harvey.
In 2022, GiveDirectly appointed British politician and diplomat Rory Stewart as their president. In 2023, Nick Allardice became president and CEO of the company.
In 2023, an investigation revealed that in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where GiveDirectly began operations in 2018, employees had diverted at least $900,000 from several hundred intended recipients in South Kivu to themselves, including the very audit teams tasked with identifying such cases. GiveDirectly paused its operations in the country in January 2023 and began an audit of its funds transfers in another African country.
GiveDirectly set up two emergency response programs to the COVID-19 pandemic: one in the US, for which it has raised US$118 million, and one in African countries, for which it has raised US$76 million. The organization has sent cash relief to 116,000 families in the US and 342,000 families in Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Rwanda and Togo.
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GiveDirectly
GiveDirectly is a nonprofit organization operating in low income areas that helps families living in extreme poverty by making unconditional cash transfers to them via mobile phone. GiveDirectly currently transfers funds to people in Bangladesh, DRC, Liberia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Uganda and USA. In the past, it has worked in The Bahamas, Morocco, Nigeria, Turkey, Togo and Yemen.
GiveDirectly originated as a giving circle started by Paul Niehaus, Michael Faye, Rohit Wanchoo, and Jeremy Shapiro, students at MIT and Harvard, based on their research into philanthropy. In 2012 they formalized their operation into GiveDirectly.
In December 2012, GiveDirectly received a $2.4M Global Impact Award from Google. In June 2014, the founders of GiveDirectly announced plans to create a for-profit technology company, Segovia, aimed at improving the efficiency of cash transfer distributions in the developing world. In August 2015, GiveDirectly received a $25M grant from Good Ventures.
In April 2016, GiveDirectly announced a $30M initiative to test universal basic income in order to "try to permanently end extreme poverty across dozens of villages and thousands of people in Kenya by guaranteeing them an ongoing income high enough to meet their basic needs" and, if it works, pave the way for implementation in other regions. The initiative launched in November 2017 and is set to run for 12 years.
In 2017, GiveDirectly applied their model for the first time in the U.S., distributing cash-loaded debit cards to residents of Rose City, Texas, following Hurricane Harvey.
In 2022, GiveDirectly appointed British politician and diplomat Rory Stewart as their president. In 2023, Nick Allardice became president and CEO of the company.
In 2023, an investigation revealed that in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where GiveDirectly began operations in 2018, employees had diverted at least $900,000 from several hundred intended recipients in South Kivu to themselves, including the very audit teams tasked with identifying such cases. GiveDirectly paused its operations in the country in January 2023 and began an audit of its funds transfers in another African country.
GiveDirectly set up two emergency response programs to the COVID-19 pandemic: one in the US, for which it has raised US$118 million, and one in African countries, for which it has raised US$76 million. The organization has sent cash relief to 116,000 families in the US and 342,000 families in Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Rwanda and Togo.