This Giving Tuesday, Help Lift 87 Families Out of Poverty

We're sending cash a Rwandan village. You can help.

Hello readers, and happy Giving Tuesday, a global day of donating to the causes we care about. This year, I’m joining Judd Legum of Popular Information and Matt Ygelisas of Slow Boring, and we’re working to send ~$1,100 to each of 87 families in Nyarutovu village in Rwanda. Your donation is tax-deductible, and I’m hoping you can all help get us to our goal.

Most residents of Nyarutovu live on less than $1 a day. A cash influx that families can spend as they choose may go to things like housing, healthcare, schooling, food, transport, water pumps, and more.

You can donate here.

The GiveDirectly model is a cash transfer: Instead of running the funds through NGO programs or other intermediaries who decide where the money goes, the money goes directly to people who need it. For this fundraiser, 85 cents for every $1 of donations will be sent as a cash transfer to families in Nyarutovu, who decide for themselves how it’s best spent (the other 15 cents is used to run GiveDirectly, including fraud protection, the cost of sending the transfers, and paying staff in Rwanda who provide customer service to recipients).

I’m a big fan of unconditional cash transfers for poverty alleviation. It’s a pretty simple idea: If people are poor, one answer is to give them money. But it’s also a pretty controversial one: There are all kinds of assumptions about how poor people will squander their funds, and fears that cash transfers will discourage work, as well as arguments that what people actually need are services provided by other entities and institutions. And people do need lots of services provided by other entities and institutions, including their own government. But poor people also need money. And given that most people have agency and want to be treated accordingly, one of the most empowering things you can do is trust a person to spend money in the way that would benefit them most. Plus, it works.

This isn’t just ideology talking. Unconditional cash transfers:

• Are more effective than job training programs in improving the economic situation of unemployed young people

• Result in more students attending school

• Decrease hunger and are more effective than shipping people food

• Empower women and significantly decrease domestic violence

• Do not decrease hours worked

• Contribute more than double to local economies

• Lead to higher earnings years later

Cash transfers aren’t the whole solution for addressing global poverty. But they’re an important component. If you want to get deeper into the nitty-gritty of direct cash transfers, Slow Boring has a post with many more details.

People often just need a little help, and once they get it, they can thrive. I’ve certainly had a lot of support in my life. Maybe you have, too. This is an opportunity to provide simple, straightforward, respectful support to people who need it, in a form that treats the recipients with trust, agency, and dignity.

The donation page is here. Please feel free to share widely, and of course let me know if you have any questions. I hope you’ll join me in putting cash into the hands of Rwandan families for whom it will make a world of difference.

xx Jill