GiveDirectly is a charitable organization that gives out direct cash payments to people living in extreme poverty, primarily in Africa and the United States. Since 2009, GiveDirectly has given over $800 million to over 1.6 million people. ¹

Major funders include the Google Foundation, Blue Meridian Partners,  the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, the George Kaiser Family Foundation, Good Ventures, the National Basketball Association’s global social responsibility program NBA Cares, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, ² the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. ³ Several billionaire philanthropists have donated to GiveDirectly, including MacKenzie Scott, Sam Bankman-Fried, Elon Musk, and Jack Dorsey. ⁴

Background

GiveDirectly was founded in 2009 by four Harvard and MIT economics graduate students: Paul Niehaus, Michael Faye, Rohit Wanchoo, and Jeremy Shapiro. ⁵ GiveDirectly identifies poverty-stricken areas in Africa and provides direct cash transfers using cellphones to those in need. Programs include one-time cash transfers as well as continuing basic income programs. ⁶ In 2017, it began operating in the United States providing emergency relief payments to hurricane victims, then extended its operations to state-specific universal basic income programs. It also performs research on unconditional cash transfer programs to determine their effectiveness through randomized control trials. ⁷

GiveDirectly claims that by providing relief in the form of direct cash transfers, intermediaries between donors and recipients are reduced and the recipients can spend the cash based on their own needs. ⁸ Since 2009, GiveDirectly has given over $800 million to over 1.6 million people living in poverty in Africa and the United States. ¹

Programs

In Africa, the cash for poverty relief program entails cash transfers directly to households living in extreme poverty. GiveDirectly donates a single cash payment of $1,000 to each household which can cover a year of basic household needs. ⁹ The universal basic income program provides monthly amounts of $40 to every eligible adult in a target region in Africa that exists at the extreme poverty level. ¹⁰

The emergency relief program provides emergency cash to survivors of natural disasters and civil conflict. ¹¹ In October 2024, GiveDirectly provided payments of $1,000 to households suffering from the effects of the 2024 hurricanes in Florida and North Carolina, leveraging artificial intelligence to identify higher-poverty areas with storm damage. ¹²

In the United States, GiveDirectly has several targeted cash programs that address poverty relief. It has partnered with the City of Chicago to create a guaranteed basic income program to 5,000 households. ¹³ Its guaranteed income program in Georgia provides cash to low-income Black women. Its program in Michigan is focused on reducing child poverty, and in Illinois, GiveDirectly runs a cash program for the homeless and has started a guaranteed income pilot program. ¹⁴

Funding

The GiveDirectly 2022 tax return reported $175,713,344 in revenues and $261,307,795 in expenses. ¹⁵

Major funders include the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Google Foundation, Blue Meridian Partners, charitable organization The Life You Can Save, the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, the George Kaiser Family Foundation, Good Ventures, the NBA’s global social responsibility program NBA Cares, and the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation. ²

Funders of GiveDirectly’s research programs include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, USAID, the National Institutes of Health, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. ³

Since 2020, billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott’s Yield Giving program has granted $125 million to GiveDirectly’s programs in Africa and in the United States “to reduce poverty by providing financial assistance directly to those in need.” ¹⁶

Other billionaire philanthropists who have donated to GiveDirectly include Sam Bankman-Fried, Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey, and Dustin Moskovitz through his foundation Good Ventures. ⁴

In 2022 GiveDirectly received over $72 million in government grants. ¹⁷

Leadership

Nick Allardice became president and chief executive officer in August 2024. Previously he held several leadership positions including CEO of civic action website Change.org for over 11 years. Prior, he co-founded and led the fundraising and awareness campaign Live Below the Line and has been a board member or advisor for several nonprofit organizations including the Horizon Institute and PL+US. ^{18 19}

Rory Stewart became president in September 2022 and is an advisor for GiveDirectly. He lives in London, England. Previously, he was a diplomat for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in England, a professor at Harvard University, a member of Parliament for over 10 years, and a Visiting Fellow at The Jackson Institute at Yale University. ²⁰ He ran for Conservative Party Leader and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 2019, losing to Boris Johnson. ²¹

Aly Jeddy is GiveDirectly’s board chair. He is a senior partner at global management consulting firm McKinsey and Company, serves as an advisor to the International Rescue Committee, and is a life member of think tank Council on Foreign Relations. ²²

Controversy

Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) Fraud

In January 2023, GiveDirectly discovered that team members, conspiring with others outside of the organization, participated in a fraud scheme that diverted approximately $1.2 million from intended recipients in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) over the course of six months in 2022. The intended recipients were those living in extreme poverty who had been told that they would be receiving cash payments. GiveDirectly paused the DRC program in January 2023 and restarted it in February 2024. ^{23 24}

The fraud resulted in a one-year delay in payments to poverty-stricken individuals who had been expecting them, causing “debt, loss of property, or broken relationships with family members and neighbors.” GiveDirectly has not commented as of 2024. ²⁵

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11.  “Send cash for emergency relief.” GiveDirectly – Programs. Accessed November 2, 2024. https://www.givedirectly.org/relief/
12. Gabriela Aoun Angueira. “AI is being used to send some households impacted by Helene and Milton $1,000 cash relief payments.” ABC News. October 25, 2024. Accessed November 2, 2024. https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/ai-send-households-impacted-helene-milton-1000-cash-115141054
13. Shruti Singh. “Chicago Taps Direct Cash Charity to Give Residents $500 a Month.” Bloomberg. June 15, 2022. Accessed November 2, 2024. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-15/chicago-taps-givedirectly-for-ubi-pilot-program
14. “GiveDirectly in the U.S.” GiveDirectly – Programs. Accessed November 2, 2024. https://www.givedirectly.org/united-states/
15.  Givedirectly. Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax. (Form 990 – Part I). 2022.
16. GiveDirectly.” Yield Giving grants database. Accessed November 2, 2024. https://yieldgiving.com/gifts/?q=givedirectly
17. Givedirectly. Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax. (Form 990 – Part VIII). 2022.
18. LinkedIn. Nick Allardice. Accessed November 2, 2024. https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickallardice/
19. “Nick Allardice.” World Economic Forum. Accessed November 2, 2024. https://www.weforum.org/people/nick-allardice/
20. LinkedIn – Rory Stewart. Accessed November 2, 2024. https://www.linkedin.com/in/rory-stewart-0169436a/
21. Dylan Matthews. “The rise and rise of GiveDirectly.” Vox. August 31, 2022. Accessed November 2, 2024. https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/8/31/23329242/givedirectly-cash-transfers-rory-stewart
22. “Aly S. Jeddy.” McKinsey & Company. Accessed November 2, 2024. https://www.mckinsey.com/our-people/aly-jeddy
23. Joe Huston and Stella Luk. “Fraud in D.R.C. – our apology and response. GiveDirectly. June 5, 2023. Updated September 24, 2024. Accessed November 2, 2024. https://www.givedirectly.org/drc-case-2023/
24. Jacob Goldberg. “EXCLUSIVE: GiveDirectly loses $900,000 in DRC mobile cash fraud.” The New Humanitarian. June 5, 2023. Accessed November 2, 2024. https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/investigations/2023/06/05/exclusive-givedirectly-loses-900000-drc-mobile-cash-fraud
25.  Claude Sengenya, Jacob Goldberg. “GiveDirectly cash aid fraud led to broken families and mounting debts in DR Congo.” The New Humanitarian. February 27, 2024. Accessed November 2, 2024. https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/investigations/2024/02/27/givedirectly-cash-aid-fraud-broken-families-mounting-debt-dr-congo