Rebecca – GiveDirectly

GiveDirectly has a song?

Rebecca — Thu, 08 Jan 2015 19:27:00 +0000

Recently, we found out that one of our recipients used his transfer to start a band; he bought instruments and hired seven other musicians and four dancers. They play paying gigs around their community and have even put out an album. Our favorite track is a song about GiveDirectly. It’s not only catchy and fun to listen to – especially as the hold music on our conference line – but a reminder of…

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How our recipients celebrate Christmas

Rebecca — Tue, 30 Dec 2014 15:44:00 +0000

Sometimes it feels like we’re worlds apart from our recipients: (most of) our domestic team is based in NYC, whereas our recipients live in rural Kenya and Uganda; and the $1000 we send is more than a year’s income for our recipients, but it’s just another month’s rent in NYC. Despite these differences, some things aren’t so different after all: for example, how we celebrate the holidays.

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What’s $1 worth?

Rebecca — Tue, 16 Dec 2014 20:15:00 +0000

People often ask us how far a standard GiveDirectly cash transfer – approximately $1,000 – goes for a recipient household in Kenya. The easy answer is: a lot further than it would go in the U.S. In order to understand exactly how much further, I recently asked my colleagues in Kenya about the average cost of some of the most common purchases that recipients report during our follow-up calls to…

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Why so few stories?

Rebecca — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 19:11:00 +0000

If you regularly check our website, blog, or Facebook page, you may have noticed something you don’t often see: stories and photos of our recipients. Given how closely we interact with recipients and how prominently stories feature in most nonprofits’ messaging, you may be wondering if we’ve completely missed the marketing boat. We try to anchor everything we do in data and rigorous evidence…

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How would you explain what a PIN is?

Rebecca — Fri, 03 Oct 2014 23:18:00 +0000

M-Pesa is famously ubiquitous in Kenya, with more than half the adult population using it or some other form of mobile money. M-Pesa agents, who take users’ deposits and provide cash-outs, operate in most towns and even small villages. The breadth of the network has certainly made our work delivering cash transfers, even in rural, hard-to-reach areas without a banking infrastructure, easier.

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Does the GiveDirectly team believe in giving cash to the homeless?

Rebecca — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 20:19:00 +0000

We asked members of our team who are from or have spent a lot of time in the U.S. a simple question: Do you give cash to the homeless in the US? We were inspired by a blog post in which Chris Blattman asks: “Why do I think it’s a good idea to give cash to the poorest in Uganda, but not to the homeless of NYC?” The question resonated strongly with many of us, including those of us in our NYC…

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