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GiveDirectly focused on scale & innovation with Oyin Solebo joining Board of Directors | GiveDirectly Read about Oyin Solebo joining GiveDirectly’s Board of Directors as we enter a new phase of scale and innovation toward delivering $5 billion by 2035.

GiveDirectly is excited to welcome Oyin Solebo to our Board of Directors. GiveDirectly.org/oyin-solebo

Cutting aid could kill children. Giving cash could save them Cutting aid could kill children. Giving cash could save them

Opinion: Maternal deaths are rising for the first time in decades, and every year, children die before their fifth birthday, mostly from preventable causes. But the answer may not entirely lie in medicine — it's also a question of money.

Study: Giving cash to mothers cut infant deaths in half | GiveDirectly Read about a Kenya study where cash cut infant deaths by 48% and GiveDirectly’s new pilots to reach more expectant mothers.

Over in Kenya,
Direct Cash Transfers save lives, with a 1,000 @give-directly.bsky.social cash transfer immediately cutting infant deaths by 48% #UBI
zurl.co/q3r29

In rural Africa, too many newborns die not from rare diseases, but from poverty: no hospital nearby, no money for transport, not enough food for a healthy pregnancy. A landmark UC Berkeley & Oxford… How giving cash to moms cut infant deaths in half | GiveDirectly

Can cash transfers save lives? The latest @nber.org paper by the CSAE's @eggerdennis.bsky.social & co-authors finds giving cash to pregnant women in rural Kenya reduces infant & child deaths.

Watch this @give-directly.bsky.social video about the study👇
www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7x-...

1/ NEW: A study in Kenya found that giving families $1K cut infant mortality rates by nearly half. The infusion of cash meant mothers could afford prenatal visits, rest instead of working late into pregnancy, and deliver safely at hospitals. @give-directly.bsky.social

Giving mothers cash before they give birth could halve infant mortality, study finds Households given a one-off payment of $1,000 dollars saw infant mortality drop by almost 50 per cent

"Giving women a cash payment just before they give birth could halve infant mortality rates and provide a cost-effective way of saving lives in the face of shrinking aid budgets" - @the-independent.com

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...

Study: Giving cash to mothers cut infant deaths in half | GiveDirectly Read about a Kenya study where cash cut infant deaths by 48% and GiveDirectly’s new pilots to reach more expectant mothers.

Dig into the full results at GiveDirectly.org/mortality2025

“This is easily the biggest impact on child survival that I’ve seen from an intervention that was designed to alleviate poverty" Read the full story: www.nytimes.com/2025/08/18/h...

Study: Giving cash to mothers cut infant deaths in half | GiveDirectly Read about a Kenya study where cash cut infant deaths by 48% and GiveDirectly’s new pilots to reach more expectant mothers.

Incredible work here by @give-directly.bsky.social that absolutely obliterates that recent NYT story. The NYT saw 4-yr-olds whose brainwaves weren't significantly changed by cash, and in this Kenya study, half of 5-yr-olds who would have died, stayed alive. This is a vaccine-level massive impact.

Of every 1,000 children born in Kenya, 32 don’t make it to their first birthdays. Study after study has explored how to improve those staggering numbers, in Kenya and elsewhere. On Monday, a decade-long study on alleviating poverty stumbled onto a straightforward solution. Giving $1,000 to poor families lowered infant mortality rates by nearly half, and deaths in children under 5 by 45 percent. Those are much bigger drops than have been credited to routine immunizations, for example, or bed nets to prevent malaria. “This is easily the biggest impact on child survival that I’ve seen from an intervention that was designed to alleviate poverty,” said Harsha Thirumurthy, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania who was not involved in the work. The decline in infant mortality is a “showstopping result,” he said. The outcomes suggest that delivering even smaller amounts of money to families — especially those that live near a hospital — immediately before or after the birth of a child might allow women to seek medical care and drastically improve their children’s chances of survival. The study was published on Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

A new long-term study is out today that got covered by the NYT, absolutely destroying their own recent story about cash not helping poor kids.

“This is easily the biggest impact on child survival that I’ve seen from an intervention that was designed to alleviate poverty."

45% ⬇️‼️

archive.ph/ct2o0

What we make of null & negative results from U.S. cash programs | GiveDirectly Many U.S. studies show cash can have positive impacts, but some have found no impact or even negative impact. Null results can have many causes, while negative results can help us design better progra...

One study doesn’t overturn the case for cash; it sharpens it. And the evidence on cash in U.S. is still overwhelmingly positive. www.givedirectly.org/null-negativ...

Rx Kids: Cash Allowance Program in Michigan | GiveDirectly Send cash to moms and babies born in participating Rx Kids communities of Michigan – with no strings attached.

So what does work?

We’re testing earlier, larger, universal cash with programs like #RxKid: $7,500 to every new mom in Flint, MI, starting in pregnancy. That’s ~75% more than Baby’s First Year and starts months earlier. Results out later this year. GiveDirectly.org/rxkids

😷 COVID muddied everything

The study ran during the pandemic, when many parents lost access to childcare, health services, and community support. And they also received other large government transfers (stimulus, tax credits), diluting the marginal effect of $333/month.

⏰ It may have come too late

Cash was delivered after birth. But research shows prenatal cash improves birth outcomes and reduces maternal stress at a critical window for development.

💵 The amount was small

$333/month = $4,000/year, less than 25% of the poverty line for a family of 2. Add in inflation, and the real value was even lower. That’s likely not enough to move big outcomes like brain development.

The Effect of a Monthly Unconditional Cash Transfer on Children’s Development at Four Years of Age: A Randomized Controlled Trial in the U.S. Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...

A new paper from Baby’s First Year found no measurable gains in early child development from giving $333/month to low-income American moms.

That’s disappointing but not surprising. And not a reason to back off cash. www.nber.org/papers/w33844

We should never ignore null findings. They teach us as much as a positive ones about how to design better cash programs. Here's what this one actually says 🧵

We added live metrics to show where cash transfers are being delivered

📢 GiveDirectly.org/live for unfiltered recipient voices
💸 GiveDirectly.org/about for donations and payments

Deogene was exhausted. His bike transport work meant long hours and little pay. Then he received ~$1,000 from GiveDirectly and chose a new path.

He used the money to open a small shop. Today, he’s earning more, resting more, and planning to get his motortaxi license.

Giving cash directly is a proven, dignified way to relieve poverty. But delivering it at scale also creates risks from fraud to abuse.

In sharing this, we hope to invite scrutiny, strengthen trust, and encourage other nonprofits to do the same.

Report: risks we faced delivering cash in 2024 | GiveDirectly We’re sharing a public summary of fraud, abuse, and safety incidents at GiveDirectly — highlighting key lessons from 2024, improvements made, and what we’re changing in 2025.

Transparency means sharing hard truths, not just successes.

That’s why we're sharing this report on risks we faced in 2024 – detailing fraud we detected, abuse we investigated, and protections we strengthened. givedirectly.org/risk-report-202

Very cool article from @give-directly.bsky.social‬ on using AI to make fine-grained predictions of flood-prone areas in Nigeria, allowing for more efficient cash transfers to high-risk households.
www.givedirectly.org/flood-forec...

📲 400+ low-income families hit by the #TexasFloods got a push notification to receive cash they can spend it on what they need most. They'll receive funds as early as Friday. GiveDirectly.org/texas

Cash Relief for Texas Flood Survivors | GiveDirectly Donate directly to Central Texas flood survivors to help them rebuild and recover.

If you’re looking for ways to support families in Texas impacted by the flood, @give-directly.bsky.social is sending cash directly to low-income families. Great way to make a big impact immediately: www.givedirectly.org/texasfloods/

Cash Relief for Texas Flood Survivors | GiveDirectly Donate directly to Central Texas flood survivors to help them rebuild and recover.

Send cash directly to families impacted by the Texas floods, reaching them quickly and remotely + empowering them to spend on what they need most. givedirectly.org/texas

How AI helped send cash just before floods hit in Nigeria | GiveDirectly Learn about how GiveDirectly used AI flood forecasts to deliver early cash to people in Kogi, Nigeria, helping families evacuate, protect assets, rebuild, and paving the way to scale this model to oth...

We used AI to forecast floods in Nigeria and sent early cash aid to 4,600 families before the waters peaked.

🍲 Food insecurity dropped 90%
✅ 93% felt better prepared for future floods
🛰️ Our pre-targeted areas were the most impacted

givedirectly.org/flood-forecast-ai

We could help 2.7M more people this year with the same aid budget—just by giving more humanitarian aid as cash: givedirectly.org/switch-to-cash

TIME100 Philanthropy: Nick Allardice Find out why Nick Allardice is on the TIME100 Most Influential People in Philanthropy 2025 list.

In a moment of global crisis, we’re not playing it safe—we’re launching practical moonshots to make aid more effective, scalable & dignified.

More from our CEO Nick Allardice in #TIME100Philanthropy ⬇️
time.com/collections/...

Policy and Advocacy | GiveDirectly GiveDirectly’s policy and advocacy work focuses on positioning cash at the center of global aid reform. We work with governments, multilaterals, civil society, and philanthropic leaders to normalize c...

👉 Explore the full platform and see how you can support smarter, more dignified aid: givedirectly.org/policy-and-advocacy

🕊 Drive the use of large cash transfers to support refugee and IDP self-reliance

Cash helps displaced people rebuild lives, start businesses, and regain control.