Michael Faye is the President and co-founder of GiveDirectly, and founder and CEO of Taptap Send. This is a collection of his writing, research, and interviews.
-
Cash Aid Can Be the Greatest Help
Wall Street Journal | Don’t abandon ship based on the implications of a single study. In “The High Cost of Free Money” (op-ed, July 19), Allysia Finley claims that findings from a recent study on cash transfers to the poor mean the U.S. should “never again send out cash with no strings attached.” This study…
-
Why Billionaires Like MacKenzie Scott And Jack Dorsey Are Donating Millions To This Nonprofit That Gives Cash To The Poor
Forbes | Flipping traditional aid schemes on their head, GiveDirectly has been handing out cash grants—with no strings attached—for more than a decade. In 2020, it became the fastest-growing nonprofit in the world. The crux of GiveDirectly’s philosophy: Giving poor people cash empowers them to address their own specific needs while keeping their dignity intact.…
-
Why the youngest billionaire walked away from Wall Street | John Arnold & Michael Faye
We Study Billionaires | On today’s show, Trey invites on a powerhouse duo and that is billionaire philanthropist John Arnold and Michael Faye, the cofounder of GiveDirectly. John was an early employee at Enron, becoming a millionaire in his mid-20s before starting his own hedge fund. After retiring from finance, he has been operating full-time…
-
Accelerating digital cash transfers to the world’s poorest
Brookings | The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed an estimated 124 million people into extreme poverty globally, the first increase in extreme poverty in 20 years. To meet the magnitude of this need, governments around the world have dramatically ramped up social protection measures, and in particular cash transfers, which comprised one-third of all COVID-related social protection…
-
Second Shot – Michael Faye with GiveDirectly
CW33 | In this Second Shot, Morning After anchor Jenny Anchondo takes a ‘second shot’ at giving, and potentially, how to solve poverty around the world. Michael Faye is the co-founder of GiveDirectly, which is the largest nonprofit that lets donors send cash directly via mobile money transfers to people living in poverty. To date,…
-
Digital cash transfer infrastructure
17 Rooms Podcast, Brookings | In this seventh interview of the “17 Rooms” podcast, Michael Faye and Minister Cina Lawson discuss building digital cash transfer infrastructure for emergency response and adaptive social protection
-
While poverty rises, charitable donations are collecting dust
The Boston Globe | Philanthropy could nearly eliminate extreme poverty now — if donors decided to stop deferring their gifts. One of the world’s leading charity evaluators, GiveWell, recently came out with this advice: Save your donations. Or essentially, “Donate to us and we’ll save it for you.” The organization announced it’s committing half a…
-
Want Your Charitable Donation to Actually Help Someone? 4 Questions to Ask Before You Give
Entrepreneur | If it’s been a good year, make sure you maximize your impact by donating effectively. U.S. wealth grew by $19 trillion since the start of the pandemic. Simultaneously, the pandemic pushed 150 million more people into poverty. This was the first increase in over two decades. The poverty gap — the amount needed to…
-
Why is it so difficult to give people money? | Andrew Yang
Yang Speaks | Michael Faye was a grad student when he saw charitable organizations sending sheep to those in need and asked — why can’t we give people money directly and let them decide how to spend it? The result of that question was GiveDirectly, a non-profit that’s put cash in the hands of about…
-
What Happens When We Just Give People Money?
Important, Not Important | In Episode 116, Quinn wants to know: why is simply giving people money the most effective way to 1) help them make positive changes to their lives and 2) erase global poverty along the way? To help him understand the answer, he brought on Caroline Teti and Michael Faye from GiveDirectly.
-
Taptap Send gets $13.4M for a no-fee money transfer service aimed at price-conscious emerging market users
TechCrunch | Remittances — specifically when people in developed countries send money to family or friends in emerging markets — continue to be a huge lever to help those in more challenging economies survive and improve their lot. Today, a startup that has built a remittance platform that it believes is the most economically sympathetic…
-
Extreme Poverty Exists Even in Years Without Crisis
Bloomberg
-
Please Stop Using the F* Word
Linkedin
-
Michael Faye & Olu Babalola | GiveDirectly
Talks at Google
-
Twitter CEO Will Donate Proceeds From the Genesis Tweet to GiveDirectly
CoinDesk
-
Effects of a Universal Basic Income during the pandemic
University of California San Diego
-
How a universal basic income stabilized Kenyans in bad times
MIT Sloan School of Management
-
How a basic income experiment helped these Kenyans weather the Covid-19 crisis
Vox
-
Why Giving Cash Works with GiveDirectly’s Michael Faye
Earwolf
-
Widespread poverty is #Solvable
The Rockefeller Foundation
-
Researchers Find A Remarkable Ripple Effect When You Give Cash To Poor Families
NPR
-
Reflecting on the Last Decade: 10 Things We Got Right & Wrong
Linkedin
-
Extreme poverty is #Solvable (video)
The Rockefeller Foundation
-
Google.org + GiveDirectly | A Proactive Approach to Disaster Relief
Google.org
-
Seattle’s Morning News with Dave Ross and Colleen O’Brien
Seattle’s Morning News
-
Payment Fintech Segovia Acquired by Crown Agents Bank
CrowdFund Insider
-
Which Foreign Aid Programs Work? The U.S. Runs A Test — But Won’t Talk About It
NPR
-
A/B Testing Foreign Aid
The Atlantic
-
Google-Funded Study Finds Cash Beats Typical Development Aid
Wired
-
The small study in Rwanda that could change the way the US does foreign aid
Vox
-
Trump’s Food Stamp Idea Is Like Blue Apron Had a Socialist Hangover
Politico Magazine
-
“We are not recommending you give to Texas per se”: GiveDirectly’s bold disaster-relief experiment
Vox
-
Americans Are Sending Too Much Stuff to Houston
The Atlantic
-
Cash as Capital
Stanford Social Innovation Review
-
How To Fix Poverty: Why Not Just Give People Money?
All Things Considered; NPR
-
Basic income could transform society. But first, it needs to be tested.
Linkedin
-
Group gives cash aid to rural Kenyans, then studies its effects
PBS
-
This Kenyan village is a laboratory for the biggest basic income experiment ever
Vox
-
The Future of Not Working
The New York Times Magazine
-
Michael Faye: Giving directly
CGTN America
-
Charity To Amp Up Direct Aid Mission In Impoverished East Africa
NPR
-
A charity’s radical experiment: giving 6,000 Kenyans enough money to escape poverty for a decade
Vox
-
What If We Just Gave Poor People a Basic Income for Life? That’s What We’re About to Test.
Slate
-
New company from GiveDirectly founders aims to streamline payment systems
Devex
-
Worth Every Cent: To Help the Poor, Give Them Cash
Foreign Affairs
-
With Reid Hoffman’s Backing, Development Economists Build Segovia, A Startup That Tackles Poverty
TechCrunch
-
Top rated charity opens up its real-time data
Humanosphere
-
Money for Nothing and Your Cows for Free
This American Life; Planet Money
-
Is It Nuts to Give to the Poor Without Strings Attached?
The New York Times
-
Political Aid Cycles
American Economic Review