Paul – GiveDirectly

What are we learning from Texas?

Paul — Tue, 24 Oct 2017 18:05:00 +0000

Disaster response is, sadly, often a disaster. We give hundreds of millions of dollars to big organizations with great name recognition but poor track records executing. Sometimes we collect truckloads of random stuff and ship it ourselves, hoping that it happens to be what people need. (Guess how that story ends.) If ever there was a scenario where direct giving is needed, it’s after a disaster.

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On accepting fundraising donations

Paul — Thu, 09 Mar 2017 02:47:00 +0000

Donors have been asking us why they can’t direct online donations to pay for fundraising, which could potentially generate tremendous leverage for them (details below). It’s a fair question. Here’s how we think about it. For context, we’re not happy with the status quo in which donors typically have very little information about how their dollars will be used. For instance…

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Long term impacts of cash transfers here at home

Paul — Tue, 20 Sep 2016 19:56:00 +0000

In April, a team of researchers from Brown, Toronto, Northwestern, and UCLA published a fascinating study on the long-term impacts of cash transfers in the United States, looking at impacts on kids whose mothers received transfers from a pension program in the 1910s-1930s. The paper isn’t experimental (the US government probably hadn’t seen the memo on randomized controlled trials in the 1930s)…

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Measuring effects

Paul — Mon, 29 Aug 2016 13:18:00 +0000

Today we’re introducing a small but substantive change to the way we present impact evaluation results on our landing page. Previously we reported the size of impacts relative to average values in the control group (e.g. a 58% increase in assets); now we report the size of impacts relative to total transfer costs (e.g. a $430 increase per $1000 spent). The bottom lines are all the same…

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What is (and isn’t) in the new ODI review of cash evidence?

Paul — Fri, 05 Aug 2016 13:50:00 +0000

The Overseas Development Institute has just released a systematic review of the evidence on cash transfers, which is timely as I think we all felt that FCDO’s 2011 review had probably passed its sell-by date. The review is a massive undertaking, covering 165 distinct studies of 56 programs and reviewing impacts on a wide range of outcomes – poverty, education, health and nutrition, savings…

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Doing Good Better (at Scale?)

Paul — Thu, 13 Aug 2015 03:19:00 +0000

Will MacAskill’s excellent new book, Doing Good Better, is now on bookshelves. The book lays out the thinking behind the Effective Altruism movement, with thoughtful perspectives on how to do the most good with both money (donating) and time (choosing a career). GiveDirectly features throughout as a highly effective way of working and giving. We expect lots of great discussion to follow.

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Announcing $25M grant from Good Ventures

Paul — Fri, 07 Aug 2015 21:29:00 +0000

This week, Good Ventures announced an unrestricted $25M grant to GiveDirectly (some coverage: Good Ventures post, GiveWell post, Vox, Inside Philanthropy, CNBC, Huffington Post, Forbes). A large investment like this reflects a lot of confidence in the team and the vision, and we’re grateful for that. In just a few short years, the discussion around cash transfers has shifted from “crazy new idea”…

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GiveWell (re-)recommendation

Paul — Wed, 10 Dec 2014 21:28:00 +0000

We’re thrilled that GiveWell has listed us as one of their top recommended charities once again this year. It’s not an easy mountain to climb: GiveWell reviews hundreds of organizations in unbelievable depth, and recommends very few – this year, only four. I’m grateful to my teammates here at GiveDirectly, as their strong performance is what earned us this recognition. GiveWell has and will…

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Corruption: The Elephant in the Room

Paul — Wed, 14 Aug 2013 18:39:00 +0000

In discussions of international development, corruption is often the elephant in the room. Funders don’t like to hear about it; nonprofits and governments don’t like to talk about it. During routine visits to recipients, our field team uses technology that automatically records a time and GPS marker for each piece of data they collect. But in my experience, the hard reality is that when any…

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The Other Blattman Study

Paul — Fri, 28 Jun 2013 16:52:00 +0000

I believe we should be putting more money and more power directly into the hands of the poor. When given the chance, they have a consistent track record, across dozens of rigorous studies, of using money sensibly to improve their own lives. This evidence base was already compelling – and then along came Chris Blattman. In the last few weeks Chris, a development economist at Columbia…

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