Give Directly

Week 6: GiveDirectly

With rising skepticism around the efficacy of charity, concern over high overhead costs, and uncertainty surrounding where dollars end up, GiveDirectly is a breath of fresh air. I am a big believer is examining the results of charitable giving and interventions, but it is difficult to measure impact objectively. GiveDirectly is changing this. They aim to reshape international giving, making direct transfers to the poor the benchmark against which other, more expensive approaches are evaluated.

 

This week's organization has a simple premise: GiveDirectly takes money from donors and give it to the poor. They can do this because modern payments technology has drastically cut the costs of sending money directly to the extreme poor, at the same time as new research has shown the powerful effects this has on their lives. They believe that direct giving should be the benchmark against which other traditional models are evaluated.

Rigorous, experimental evaluation of impacts is rare among nonprofits. To me, it makes perfect sense that an intervention or program should be evaluated objectively against simply using that money to give directly to the people who would benefit.

GiveDirectly collaborates with third-party researchers to measure the impact of cash transfers. Researchers are fully independent and independently-funded to prevent any bias. GiveDirectly reports the results of their evaluations and also announce studies before the data are in, so that they can be held accountable for the results. They use rigorous experimental research (randomized controlled trials) to measure our impact and answer public policy questions.

This kind of transparency and rigorous experimentation that we expect of other disciplines and sectors being applied to good work is refreshing. I hope it represents the future of philanthropy. It is also my hope that top-down programs will utilize the results of these studies to compare against their own programs.

Here's to radical transparency, honesty, and experimentation. May we all be as bold and open in our own pursuits.

Have a terrific week!

Jodi

ACLU

Week 5: ACLU

Hi there! Welcome back to another week of GIVE52.

I had another organization lined up for this week, but given recent events, I felt that it was more important to go in another direction. So, this week’s organization is the ACLU.

 

For almost 100 years, the ACLU has worked to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the United States. The ACLU is nonprofit and nonpartisan.

Currently they are:
    Protecting free speech and the right to protest
    Defending reproductive freedom
    Fighting anti-LGBT discrimination
    Advocating for expanded privacy protections

It is an honor to be in touch with each and every one of you.

I’ll leave you with this quote. It is one of my favorites, and feels especially relevant today.

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.””
— Fred Rogers

Here’s to the helpers.
(That’s you!)

Wishing you all the love and light my heavy heart can hold,
Jodi

Development Media International

Week 4: Development Media International

Welcome to week 4 of GIVE52! This week's organization is a unique one. Working in global health, we often focus on the supply side, but often times a huge issue is that communities and families are unaware of health care services already available to them. Enter Development Media International.

Individuals and communities in developing nations often lack information vital to their health and well-being. Unlike traditional aid organizations, DMI works on the critical but much-neglected “demand side,” disseminating basic, yet crucial, information.

Media health campaigns reach large numbers of people in the developing world, raising awareness about how to identify and protect against potentially dangerous illnesses, and what to do if they occur.

DMI has run campaigns in over 30 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe and is currently running large-scale programs in Burkina Faso, Mozambique, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The focus areas of their educational media for vulnerable communities are:

 
  • Nutrition
  • Hygiene and Sanitation
  • Malaria Prevention
  • HIV/AIDS
  • Family Planning
  • Child Marriage

DMI works with local broadcasters to create informative and engaging programming, reaching wide communities via large-scale media campaigns of 500 to 8,000 broadcasts. They are currently running a major five-year campaign in Burkina Faso - the largest ever randomized controlled trial measuring media impact on health and mortality.

Hope you are as inspired by the work of this awesome and innovative organization as I am. Here's to novel approaches and health for all.

Have a fabulous Monday!

Thanks for all you do,

Jodi