A few things that come to mind: 1. Giving cash to individuals or targeted groups in need is called cash transfers in the nonprofit sector. More specifically, c

A few things that come to mind: 1. Giving cash to individuals or targeted groups in need is called cash transfers in the nonprofit sector. More specifically, conditional cash transfers or CCTs and governments spend more than $50 bn a year on this (depending on the definition, this can go up to $400bn a year!) 2. It would make sense for a lot of nonprofits to NOT EXIST in their current forms and instead be there to identify individuals and give them cash. If philanthropy was treated as a science with the objective of finding a method to maximize impact per dollar, there are good arguments to say that the null should be cash transfers for many cases. It's sad that that's not at all the case, especially for organizations funded by small private donors. 3. There are very few organizations/nonprofits/NGOs that do cash transfers in a way that you can reasonably know that almost all of your money is going to the poor: GiveDirectly and New Incentives. GiveDirectly gives unconditional cash transfers (no strings attached) to people in need. New Incentives gives conditional cash transfers (based on fulfilling pre-defined health goals) to poor pregnant women with HIV. 4. The biggest issue with giving cash to the poor is to make sure that most of it goes to the poor instead of spending on either verifying these transfers, or transferring the cash to the beneficiaries. This may sound easy but since cash is so liquid, it has a tendency of getting "lost" with very little of it actually making it the beneficiary. Very often people argue that poor people are poor because they don't know how to manage money and that they will do the same with the money you give them. Maybe they will, most likely they won't. They will likely use it in a way that benefits their life the most - to fulfill their greatest needs - which very often is food, shelter, and clothing. Still, if that's your only argument, than it should make sense to give to the very poor in developing countries who have likely not had the chance to escape the rigid cycle of poverty. -- If you think this article has merit beyond just being a great read, I would encourage you to donate to organizations doing cash transfers: www.newincentives.org www.givedirectly.com