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If you find this persuasive, consider donating to http://www.givedirectly.org/ http://www.givedirectly.org/, which performs unconditional cash transfers to the

• milsorgen 13y ago
  Are there any similar programs for people in developed countries?
  • cjbprime 13y ago
    Well, there's http://www.nbcnews.com/business/2-800-month-every-adult-it-could-happen-switzerland-8C11354757 http://www.nbcnews.com/business/2-800-month-every-adult-it-c... . I wouldn't donate to it, though -- Switzerland doesn't need the money. (And if we're performing a comparison, neither do other developed countries compared to the people being targeted by Give Directly's program. We should give to wherever it will do the most good, right?)
    • juliajuli45 13y ago
      my classmate's half-sister makes $72 every hour on the internet. She has been without a job for eight months but last month her payment was $16159 just working on the internet for a few hours.Here's the site to read more...... ------------------->http://www.works23.com http://www.works23.com
    • justin66 13y ago
      > We should give to wherever it will do the most good, right? It's not obvious that the welfare of Kenyans is more important than, for example, the welfare of Americans or Swiss. > Switzerland doesn't need the money I don't know much about Switzerland but the same sort of rationale could be used for directing charitable donations to Africa instead of America. Meanwhile, a lot of people in the United States suffer in various ways. The "that country has so much money that people there certainly don't need any donations" line of thought is very obviously wrong.
      • cjbprime 13y ago
        What's the phrase? "One man's modus ponens is another man's modus tollens." Yes, I do think it's an obvious logical implication of the above that if you want to donate to where it will have the largest impact on welfare, you should be donating to Africa instead of the US. As a result, I live in the US and do donate to effective aid organizations that aim to help people in extreme poverty, who are usually in Africa. I don't think there's anything very obviously wrong with this. I wrote a bit more about my approach to charity here: http://blog.printf.net/articles/2012/11/27/celebrating-seven-years-with-seven-percent/ http://blog.printf.net/articles/2012/11/27/celebrating-seven...
• jcroll 13y ago
  Why not hand the next beggar you see a $20?
  • justinpombrio 13y ago
    Presumably because $20 goes further in Kenya than in wealthier countries.
    • jcroll 13y ago
      My only point is that to me, giving cash to Kenyans and giving cash to beggars seems morally equivalent. Not saying you shouldn't do either but I do think if you give Kenyans cash but have qualms with giving beggars money, well I don't think that makes much sense.
      • deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
      • twotwotwo 13y ago
        If giving $20 to a Kenyan does more good, and you think the most moral thing is to direct your efforts where they do the most good, then there's how they're not morally equivalent.
      • repiret 13y ago
        I believe there are people with the necessary character to be economically successful, but who have never had the economic opportunity to move beyond their basic needs and are therefore poor. I also believe there are people who have had many economic opportunities, but have squandered them, and are therefore poor. In the context of the adage "give a man a fish and he'll be fed for a day, teach him to fish and he'll be fed for life," one can expect cash given to the first group to be spent on fishing rods, while cash given to the second to be spent on fish. I find giving cash to the first group to be morally different than giving cash to the second group, and I suspect that poor Kenyan villagers are likely to belong to the first group, while beggars in wealthy developed countries are likely to belong to the second.
      • deleted 13y ago
• nether 13y ago
  It was also covered by Planet Money and written up: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/magazine/is-it-nuts-to-give-to-the-poor-without-strings-attached.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/magazine/is-it-nuts-to-giv... PM also followed an American building contractor who was attempting to build a schoolhouse in Haiti. The guy landed in the country pretty gung-ho, ready to apply his extensive experience to building something relatively simple. He had never done aidwork in a developing country. After many delays and run-ins with corruption, he did manage to complete it, but he concluded that just giving them money would have been more efficient.
  • willvarfar 13y ago
    Would just giving them money combat corruption?
    • vanderZwan 13y ago
      I might step on a few people's politically correct toes for saying this, but based on my experience with traveling through Africa I'd say that the richer people think you are, the more corruption you have to deal with, and that the "whiter" you look, the richer people presume you are.
      • Terretta 13y ago
        This effect is countered by speaking with a local accent. My experience living in central Africa is that "whiteness" of a "cochon gratté" has nothing to do with skin color.
        • vanderZwan 13y ago
          Yes, that also fits my experience in Ghana.
• twotwotwo 13y ago
  More from one of cjbprime's sources: GiveWell does a lot of evaluation of charities, trying to find where an individual donor's dollar can make the most difference. They hold donations to GiveDirectly to a pretty high standard, comparing it against stuff like antimalarial bednets and deworming, and think it comes out looking alright. In addition to cjbprime's link, they've written: 1) Cash transfers intervention report--talking about where recipients spend the money, GiveWell's worries about transfers, and studies on the topic: http://www.givewell.org/international/technical/programs/cash-transfers http://www.givewell.org/international/technical/programs/cas... 2) The Case For Cash--posted after their recommendation of GiveDirectly, talking about how a one-time cash transfer can have long-term benefits and how giving to the third-world poor differs from giving to the U.S. poor: http://blog.givewell.org/2012/12/26/the-case-for-cash-2/ http://blog.givewell.org/2012/12/26/the-case-for-cash-2/ 3) Responses to objections on cash transfers--mostly about more in-the-weeds issues, like how to interpret their numerical comparisons among cash, bednets and deworming: http://blog.givewell.org/2013/07/31/responses-to-objections-on-cash-transfers/ http://blog.givewell.org/2013/07/31/responses-to-objections-... They produce a lot of thoughtful research with a lot of effort to ground their recommendations in reality--browsing around their site a bit is a pretty rewarding use of time if you're interested in this kind of thing.
  • vanderZwan 13y ago
    > They hold donations to GiveDirectly to a pretty high standard, comparing it against stuff like antimalarial bednets and deworming, and think it comes out looking alright. There's this line of reasoning (coming from African economists that have spoken out against the latter two forms of aid[1]) that if you give the poor money, they can spend it on antimalarial bednets and deworming themselves, which is is effectively the same as the former but with the added benefit of bootstrapping the local economy (provided the facilities are there of course, but that is more likely to develop if the local population has money...). Of course that's a gross oversimplification of a complicated problem, but it's an interesting counterpoint to traditional forms of aid. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dambisa_Moyo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dambisa_Moyo
    • twotwotwo 13y ago