The simplest charity idea is to hand poor people cash and let them decide. GiveDirectly has done that at scale since 2011, and since 2017 it has run the largest test of a basic income anywhere: about 200 villages in rural Kenya, some 20,000 recipients, with 100 more villages surveyed as a control.
The design
Villages were assigned to one of three treatments or to control:
- Long-term basic income: $22.50 a month per adult for 12 years.
- Short-term basic income: the same $22.50 a month, for two years.
- Lump sum: about $500, once.
After two years the short-term and long-term groups had each received $540 per adult, so the first results compare monthly money against a lump sum of roughly the same size.
What happened after two years
People did not stop working. Hours in wage farm labor fell, and hours in non-farm self-employment rose by slightly more. The study’s authors describe “no evidence of UBI promoting laziness, but evidence of substantial effects on occupational choice.”
Income and savings went up. Household income rose in every treatment arm. Savings, including in rotating savings groups, rose too. In the lump-sum villages, the total household income effect was about 50% of control-group income.
Lump sums did more, at least so far. People who received $500 at once started more businesses and earned more than people who received the same total in monthly payments. The monthly short-term group had smaller effects on income, though better diet variety. The authors’ reading is that a chunk of capital is more useful than a trickle when the constraint is starting something.
Alcohol did not increase. Recipients reported fewer neighbors drinking daily and were less likely to see drinking as a local problem.
The long-term arm runs until 2029, and its promise of 12 years of income is the part with the least evidence anywhere in the world. The study will keep reporting.
Why cash is the yardstick
GiveWell for years expressed every program’s cost-effectiveness as a multiple of unconditional cash: “10x cash” meant ten times the benefit per dollar of simply giving the money away. In November 2025 it replaced that with a benchmark defined as doubling consumption for a person at the $2.15-a-day poverty line, a fixed reference that no longer moves when GiveDirectly’s program changes. The value came out about the same, so old and new numbers are comparable.
Cash earns that role because it is the one intervention where the benefit is almost definitionally real: people get money and are better off by about that much, plus whatever they earn with it, minus delivery costs (GiveDirectly’s are low, in the range of 10 to 15 cents per dollar delivered depending on the program).
Why cash still ranks below the top charities
GiveWell’s top charities are estimated at several times its benchmark. A child’s death averted for $3,500 to $5,500 buys more welfare, by most people’s values, than $3,500 to $5,500 spread across a village. That is the whole argument, and it depends on how you weigh a life against income. GiveWell publishes the weights it uses; you can disagree with them and the ranking can flip.
In June 2026 GiveWell said its new livelihoods team had concluded GiveDirectly’s flagship program “currently falls below our cost-effectiveness threshold for livelihoods interventions,” and that it had funded three pilots to test whether variations, such as timing, targeting or pairing cash with something else, could push it over. It also said it was looking hard at “graduation” programs, which bundle a productive asset, training and a small stipend, roughly two-thirds of which are now run by governments rather than charities.
What this means for a donor
- If you value autonomy and certainty, cash is the safest large-scale bet in development. The evidence that it works is stronger than for almost anything else, and the failure modes people worry about (idleness, alcohol) keep not showing up.
- If you value maximum welfare per dollar and accept GiveWell’s weights, the health top charities are still ahead, roughly by a factor of several.
- If you give cash, give lump sums. The Kenya data favor it, and GiveDirectly’s standard program is a lump sum.
Method notes
Kenya results are the two-year findings published by the research team (Banerjee, Faye, Krueger, Niehaus, Suri) via GiveDirectly and IPA. GiveWell positions are from its June 2026 blog post and November 2025 cost-effectiveness update. Delivery-cost range is GiveDirectly’s own reporting, rounded.
Sources
Figures come from the cited sources as of the dates shown. Cost-effectiveness estimates change as programs and evidence change; check the source before giving. We are not financial advisers and receive nothing from any charity named here.