by Karl Widerquist | Apr 15, 2016 | News, The Indepentarian
GiveDirectly, a charity which has used direct cash distribution in one-time, lump-sum payments to fight poverty in Africa, announced it will launch a full basic income trial. The project will involved at least 30 million dollars and academic support from leading researchers at the MIT. The charity is relying on donations from all around the world. The trail will fully adopt the basic income model by making regular cash payments to every resident in several villages in Kenya.
GiveDirectly’s appeal for support it below:
Dear friends,
We’re announcing something new. Something that’s never been done before.
GiveDirectly is launching a universal basic income trial — this year, we’ll begin paying everyone in multiple Kenyan villages a regular income that’s enough to meet their most basic needs, and keep doing so for more than ten years.
People have long debated whether we should provide a guaranteed minimum floor for everyone (a “basic income”), and what would happen if we did. Would it spur risk-taking and creativity, or would people just stop working? Would it drive growth or reduce it? Would people spend more time on entrepreneurship, or on education and parenting? With the idea being hotly debated around the world, it’s time we found out.
We’re teaming up with leading researcher Abhijit Banerjee from MIT and have calculated that we can run and study a real trial for $30 million, and we’re willing to match the first $10 million donated.
To make this happen, join us and contribute a small amount to help the world find out if a guaranteed basic income could be the tool that ends poverty.
Together, in the last five years, we’ve raised $100 million, helped shift a worldwide policy discussion, and served over 150,000 individuals based on the proven principle that giving poor people cash works. Now it’s time for us to take the next step. It’s because of you that we’ve made it this far, so we hope you’ll join us for this newest project.
Visit our website to learn more or to contribute to the project.
If you do decide to give to this trial, at a minimum your money will help shift the life trajectories of thousands of low-income households. At best, it will change how the world thinks about ending poverty.
All the best,
Ian Bassin
Chief Operating Officer – Domestic
You can read more about GiveDirectly’s new basic income project at the following links:
by Toby | Nov 25, 2014 | Research
Alleviating poverty
The author discusses the success of unconditional cash transfer programs in reducing poverty and providing a number of benefits. Cash transfer programs are a form of basic income limited to those with low income.
Leila Gharagozloo-Pakkala, “Social protection may be the key to uplifting Africa’s poor”, Mail & Guardian, 2014 November 17
by Karl Widerquist | Aug 29, 2013 | News
[Jason Burke Murphy – USBIG]
Reporters David Kestenbaum and Jacob Goldstein interview the founders of GiveDirectly and travel to a village in Kenya where they gave many inhabitants $1,000 with no conditions. Most of these recipients were getting by spending about that same amount every year.
Bernard Omondi got $1,000 from GiveDirectly. -Jacob Goldstein/NPR
Reporters were able to verify that many recipients made purchases with long-term beneficial consequences. These included roof repair, motorcycles for a taxi service, and a dowry for marriage. Interestingly, many recipients had a very low assessment of their neighbor’s use of the money. Reporters found that most neighbors were making good choices.
GiveDirectly is conducting very intensive surveys to compare their approach to that made by other charities. They have received support from Google Giving.
GiveDirectly is not issuing a Basic Income Guarantee. They only give once to each recipient and they do not give to everyone in an area. They often choose recipients based on simple indicators of deep poverty-like grass roofs. They are giving money unconditionally and their arguments for their approach mirror closely argument for a BIG.
Planet Money also talked about another charity, Heifer Project International, which gives livestock to poor people alongside training in how to raise them. Recipients promise to give the next offspring as a gift to someone else in need.
Planet Money asserts that future research would determine which approach solves more problems for poor people. The podcast mentions government cash transfer programs like those found in Mexico and Brazil. These have soft conditions like school attendance and immunizations. They are also a regularly occurring source of income.
More people are hearing about unconditional cash transfer and government development programs like Brazil’s Bolsa Familia. This is likely to make a guaranteed income more familiar when people do hear about it.
Several different version of this report were broadcast on different NPR programs:
A family in western Kenya received this cow as part of a Heifer International program. -NPR
A 28-minute report was broadcast on This American Life:
David Kestenbaum and Jacob Goldstein, “Money for Nothing and Your Cows for Free,” as part of the one-hour episode, “I Was Just Trying to Help“, This American Life, August 16, 2013
A 6-minute report was broadcast on Planet Money:
David Kestenbaum and Jacob Goldstein, “The Charity That Just Gives Money to Poor People“, Planet Money, August 23, 2013.
Morning Edition and All Things Considered broadcast a two-part story on this report:
David Kestenbaum and Jacob Goldstein, “The Charity That Just Gives Money to Poor People“, Morning Edition, August 23, 2013 and David Kestenbaum and Jacob Goldstein, “Cash, Cows, and the Rise of Nerd Philanthropy,” All Things Considered, August 23, 2013.
by Karl Widerquist | Aug 26, 2013 | Research
Discussion of BIG has gained strength in the United States recent with editorials in Slate, Bloomberg Businessweek, and it even got a mention from Paul Krugman. Although not by name, the discussion of BIG has now reached the New York Times Magazine. A column by Jacob Goldstein reports very positively on GiveDirectly and the Kenyan study on cash dividends, which essentially follows a BIG model.
See past BI News reports on these issues:
Karl Widerquist, “OPINION: Important study finds that giving money without conditions to the poor increases both employment and wages”
USBIG, “Google Gives $2.5 Million to a Direct Cash Transfer Charity”
BIEN, “New non-profit uses unconditional cash transfers”
If you would like to support GiveDirectly, go to: https://www.givedirectly.org/.
Jacob Goldstein, “Is It Nuts to Give to the Poor Without Strings Attached?” the New York Times, August 13, 2013
Illustration by Andrea Wan, the New York Times Magazine
by Karl Widerquist | Jan 20, 2013 | News
A new Massachusetts-based non-profit, called GiveDirectly, transfers donations to poor Kenyans with no conditions attached whatsoever. According to GiveDirectly, their model of giving is based on a simple, four step process: “1. You donate through our webpage. 2. We locate poor households in Kenya. 3. We transfer your donation electronically to a recipient’s cell phone. 4. The recipient uses the transfer to pursue his or her own goals.” No conditions or restrictions are imposed on the recipient. The nonprofit was founded in 2008 by four people who were then graduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Paul Niehaus, Michael Faye, Rohit Wanchoo, and Jeremy Shapiro. GiveDriectly went public in 2012, and it has recently received a grant to expand beyond Kenya.
According to a recent story in the Atlantic Monthly, initial results of the transfers appear extremely positive. Although the popular stereotype of the poor is that they will spend money they receive on vices such as alcohol and prostitution, “recipients are spending their payments mostly on food and home improvements that can vastly improve quality of life, such as installing a weatherproof tin roof. Some families have invested in profit-bearing businesses, such as chicken-rearing, agriculture, or the vending of clothes, shoes, or charcoal.”
Although the GiveDirectly website makes no mention of basic income, the organizers are inspired by, “a wealth of evidence on the positive impacts of cash transfers,” and their values are similar to those usually behind support of basic income. For example, their website compares their values to what they call “industry standard” values (i.e. values of most charities working in Africa; under the value of “respect,” the website reads, “Industry standard: Empower experts to decide what is best for the poor based on an assessment of needs or on personal ideology. Our standard: Empower the poor to set their own priorities.”
GiveDirectly’s website is online at:
https://www.givedirectly.org/
The two following news stories have additional info on GiveDirectly:
Goldstein, Dana, “Can 4 Economists Build the Most Economically Efficient Charity Ever?” the Atlantic Monthly, Dec 21 2012, 9:51 AM ET 4
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/12/can-4-economists-build-the-most-economically-efficient-charity-ever/266510/
Yglesias, Matthew, “Fighting Poverty By Giving Poor People Money” Slate Magazine, Dec. 25, 2012, writes, “I’ve come to think that directly transfering [sic] cash money to people in need is the most underrated tool around for fighting poverty.”
https://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/12/25/give_directly_the_new_charity_that_fights_money_by_giving_poor_people_money.html
