Finance Score: 5

Governance Score: -11

Support Score: 9

Strong growth: +2
Fundraising costs low: +3

No conflicts policy: -1
Only 3 Trustees: -2
Very static board: -5
All male board: -3

Grant maker support: +9

Overall GiG Score: 3

GIVEDIRECTLY UK

Overview

GiveDirectly helps families living in extreme poverty by making unconditional cash transfers to them via mobile phones. These families are primarily based in the African countries of Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda and rigorous impact assessment has confirmed that this type of intervention produces positive results. More than $300m has been donated in the past decade.

GiveDirectly was founded by a collective of students researching philanthropy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University.

The UK charity employs no staff and remits all donations to the US operation which historically has used them for donations to Africa.

Source: Giving is Great

Mission:

Aiding people living in poverty through unconditional cash transfers

Analysis by Giving is Great

Positives:

This charity is endorsed by respected charity impact evaluators
There has been strong growth in spending over the last 5 years
There have been no material income shortfalls in recent years
Fundraising costs are unusually low relative to funds raised

Regulatory & Governance issues to consider:

This charity does not have a Conflict of Interests policy
There are only 3 trustees
The Board is completely male
The Board composition appears to be very static

Financial Data ?

Income & Spending ?

Sources of Income ?

Y/E	Income £k	Spending £k	Surplus/ Deficit	Fundraising Cost £k	Total Funds £k	Unrestricted Funds £k	Mths Rsrvs
31/12/22	£2,634	£2,456	£178	£31	£923	£923	4.5
31/12/21	£2,953	£2,739	£214	£24	£744	£744	3.3
31/12/20	£2,078	£2,176	£-98	£21	£530	£530	2.9
31/12/19	£2,486	£2,063	£423	£10	£629	£590	3.4
31/12/18	£873	£810	£63	£10	£206	£206	3.1
31/12/17	£514	£393	£121	£9	£143	£143	4.4
31/12/16	£56	£33	£23	£0	£0	£0	n/a

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Financial Ratios

Fundraising Costs/Relevant Income: 1.2%
Fundraising Costs/Total Spending: 1.3%
Highest pay band: Less than £60,000
Liabilities/Assets: 0%
Liabilities/Income: 0%
Unrestricted Funds/Total Funds: 100%
Reserves/Spending: 4.5 months
Net Current Assets/Spending: 5 months
Quick Ratio: 179.8

Asset Split ?

Comment: GiveDirectly UK was founded to help UK taxpayers make donations to GiveDirectly US, either through payroll giving or enabling them to easily claim gift aid on individual donations. Before GiveDirectly UK existed, as an individual UK citizen, it was often difficult to make small donations to GiveDirectly US without a significant overhead. The total grants made by GiveDirectly UK have grown substantially higher since their founding due to substantially increased income from donations, and this trend is expected to continue moving forward.

Source: Giving is Great

Established: 8 years

http://www.givedirectly.org

uk@givedirectly.org

00000000000

Charity Commission for England and Wales

Tweets

How you can help

What it does

Givedirectly UK gives financial aid to households in developing countries via mobile phone-linked payment services. It targets extremely low-income households and people affected by humanitarian crises with the aim of relieve poverty by allowing beneficiaries to choose where they invest their grant.

Listed activities

The Prevention Or Relief Of Poverty

GiG Classification

International poverty relief

How it operates

Makes Grants to Individuals
Makes Grants to Organisations

Where it operates

Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda,

Who it helps

Other Charities Or Voluntary Bodies
The General Public/Mankind

Who's supporting them? ?

How do they operate?

GiveDirectly UK Cash Transfers Programme

Objectives: To relieve poverty by providing financial assistance directly to the extremely poor and allowing them to choose where they invest

Beneficiaries: Those living in African countries that are extremely poor

Location: Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda

Description: GiveDirectly is a recognised leader in the use of modern technology to transfer funds directly to the extreme poor, and in the use of rigourous scientific methods to document its impact. The charity collects donations and makes grants to direct financial assistance to programs in Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda that are implemented on the ground by its partner GiveDirectly, Inc (a US non-profit organisation). In their 'one-time lump sum' projects, poor households living in rural areas are enrolled to receive $1,000 each, receiving their unconditional payments within the following nine months or so. The charity also makes smaller grants to 'cash for refugees' projects in Uganda and Rwanda. These projects deliver large cash grants to needy people living in refugee settlements and surrounding areas as well as providing test data on the effectiveness of these newer

....more

Comment: Due to the onset of COVID-19, GiveDirectly have initiated a fund to increase aid to those struggling to get by in the African countries impacted by the virus; Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Rwanda and Togo.

Source: Giving is Great

How effective are they?

	Outputs		Outcomes
Y/E	Grants to 'one-time lump sum' cash transfer projects in East Africa (Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda)	Grants to 'cash for refugees' projects in Uganda and Rwanda
31/12/2020	£890,000	£38,188	£	£
Y/E	Grants to ‘emergency cash relief for COVID-19’ projects in East Africa (Kenya, Malawi and Rwanda)
31/12/2020	£1,221,358

Commentary: The charity expect that for every £1 granted to their US counterpart, £0.85 ends up directly in the hands of the beneficiaries as cash with the remainder used for transactional and other operational costs including the selection process. A number of Randomised Control Trials have been undertaken to confirm impact both in terms of increased income generation and improved mental well-being.

See what you could achieve with a donation of: £

How do we calculate this?

How is it governed?

Trustees (3)

Current Trustees appointed

Gender Split

Commentary:Governance comments relate to the UK branch of the charity only.

JOSHUA FREEDMAN (Chair) Appointed: 2014 Occupation: Senior Software Engineer at Slack

Joshua is a Co-founder of GiveDirectly UK

PAUL NIEHAUS Appointed: 2014 Occupation: Associate Professor at University of California San Diego

Paul is Co-founder of GiveDirectly. He is also a co-founder of Segovia, which builds enterprise technology for the management of social programming in the emerging markets. He holds an academic appointment in the Department of Economics at UC San Diego, where he works with governments in India to improve the implementation of social programming.....more

ROBIN LINACRE Appointed: 2014 Occupation: Data Scientist

Robin is a Product Manager and Data Scientist. In the past few years he has worked in different government departments to expand the use of data science techniques and enable them to be used by more analysts.

Legal constitution

Charity registered in England & Wales on 29/06/2016, number: 1167938

Gift Aid

Registered with HMRC for Gift Aid

Policies in force

Complaints handling
Risk management

Filing Record

7 returns made; all on time

Recent reorganisation events:

Asset transfer in from WOOD GREEN MENNONITE CHURCH TRUST on 29/03/2022

Main office

9 Love Lane
KINGS LANGLEY
WD4 9HW

Objectives

THE OBJECT OF THE CHARITY (THE OBJECT) IS THE PREVENTION OR RELIEF OF POVERTY ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD BY PROVIDING: GRANTS, ITEMS AND SERVICES TO INDIVIDUALS IN NEED AND/OR CHARITIES OR OTHER ORGANISATIONS WORKING TO PREVENT OR RELIEVE POVERTY.

Data Sources

GIVEDIRECTLY UK

Overview

Mission:

Analysis by Giving is Great

Positives:

Regulatory & Governance issues to consider:

Financial Data ?

Income & Spending ?

Sources of Income ?

Financial Ratios

Asset Split ?

UN SDGs

How you can help

What it does

Listed activities

GiG Classification

How it operates

Where it operates

Who it helps

Who's supporting them? ?

Endorsed by:

How do they operate?

GiveDirectly UK Cash Transfers Programme

How effective are they?

Outputs

Outcomes

How do we calculate this?

How is it governed?

Trustees (3)

Current Trustees appointed

Gender Split

Legal constitution

Gift Aid

Policies in force

Filing Record

Recent reorganisation events:

Main office

Objectives

Data Sources

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