Rad Geek People's Daily

GiveDirectly has set up an emergency relief project to directly assist low-income families impacted by Covid-19 in the United States. They are also preparing to develop an international response program. If you think that emergency relief to households struggling between the disease, quarantine conditions, job losses and insecurity, then here is a well-tested way that you (we) can make that happen, now, without petitions or politicians, without politicking, without parties, without delay and without hanging it on a Christmas-tree bill of trillion-dollar corporate bailouts.

We're delivering cash to families impacted by COVID-19 in the U.S.

We're responding to this crisis by doing what we've done for a decade: delivering cash. Each household will receive $1k, and we expect the main constraint on how many we can reach will be how much we can raise.

We also plan to respond internationally, and are finalizing those details. Will share shortly.

We're beginning by targeting vulnerable households enrolled in SNAP, living in the areas hardest hit by COVID-19.

In partnership with Propel, we're able to identify vulnerable households on SNAP, most of whom are single mothers. We'll begin by enrolling 200 households to receive the first payments and then expand, focusing on other populations in need who could be missed or underserved by other programs. We'll update payment size and structure as we learn more about the need.

We're doing this because we believe ...

1. Cash is the right instrument.

You won't be surprised to hear that from us, but to recap a decade of evidence and experience: it is fast, efficient, effective, and can have multiplier effects on the economy.

2. The government response will likely not be enough.

We're glad that the government is considering direct cash payments, but even if it does as we hope, we expect there will be delays and not enough money fast enough to the most vulnerable.

3. We can execute well.

We've been giving cash since 2008, and have delivered over $150M to poor people in situations as diverse as Liberia, DRC during Ebola, urban Nairobi, and Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. When we've responded selectively to US crises in the past, we've seen positive results both in terms of immediate impact and longer-term interest in giving internationally.

Send cash now

Send funds directly to those hardest hit by the economic effects of COVID-19.

Give now

— GiveDirectly, COVID-19 emergency relief
World Wide Web. Accessed March 25, 2020.

GiveDirectly’s Donate link is here. They can accept Credit/Debit Cards, PayPal payments, checks, wire transfer, stock transfer, or Bitcoin.

If you’re not familiar, here’s more information about GiveDirectly and an independent, measurable-output based evaluation of their programs.^[1] Frequently Asked Questions about Covid-19 donations, operations, and Emergency Cash Response are available on the GiveDirectly page.

1. ^[1]Evidential Note: From November 2018. Of course, they just began the Covid-19 relief program, so the evaluation does not speak to that new program. However, it does discuss the operations and effectiveness of several of their existing direct cash assistance programs, which focus on relief of extreme poverty in the developing world.↩