Make The World A Little Bit Better Today

(And maybe win something)

Read Janvierre’s story here

There’s a lot going on in the world and we are more inundated with the sights and sounds of the bad stuff than ever before. It’s easy to feel helpless. Thankfully, there are tangible, straightforward ways to do a little bit of good, and most of them simply involve directing money to the people who need it most.

I’m honored that I’ve been asked to join this year’s Giving Tuesday campaign for Substackers, a group effort to raise money for GiveDirectly. I’m part of a wonderful crew that includes excellent, talented, truly giant-brained titans of this platform like Matt Yglesias and Scott Alexander, and also Jeff Maurer (just to be clear, I had no say over who was included).

If you are in a position to do so, please click here (that’s a unique link tied to me) and consider making a donation.

Here’s how Yglesias describes this effort:

GiveDirectly is an anti-poverty organization that runs a number of programs in the U.S. and overseas, all built around providing low-cost, low-friction direct cash transfers.

The program we’re supporting today is their poverty relief program in Rwanda. As recently as 2010, a majority of the world’s deeply poor lived in Asia. Today, that’s no longer the case. The number of people living in extreme poverty has fallen dramatically — from about 2.3 billion to about 800 million — over the past 35 years, thanks largely to economic growth in China and India and nearby countries. Now, the world’s poorest populations are heavily concentrated in Africa where, unfortunately, economic growth has been slower.

The poorest countries don’t just contain a large number of poor people — in most, an extremely large fraction of their population is poor.

And this is partly what drives GiveDirectly’s anti-poverty strategy. The organization works in low-income countries, including Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, and Uganda, to identify villages where a large majority of the population is very poor by global standards. They then enroll the entire population of the village in the program, using mobile banking to transfer approximately $1,100 to each household in town.

This transfer boosts recipients’ short-term living standards, minimizes logistical complications and perverse incentives, and, optimistically, is a kind of shot in the arm to the local economy. After all, one problem with being desperately poor and also surrounded by other desperately poor people is that even when you have useful goods or services to sell, no one can afford to buy them.

You can also read on-the-ground stories from Rwanda here.

I’ve written a bit about effective altruism here. I’m grateful that there are people who have thought so much about the question of where we should direct our charity efforts, and I have a great deal of trust in GiveDirectly. I am confident that our donations will improve real people’s actual lives. (No, they will not go to efforts to ensure that 10 trillion future humans each enjoys an average of 1.5 billion utils of enjoyment, or that Bentham’s Bulldog can cover himself in shrimp that he gently caresses and sings to sleep every night, and no, you shouldn’t feel bad if you don’t get these dumb nerd-jokes.)

These dollars will also punch above their weight. For one thing, GiveDirectly is matching 50% of the donations it receives, up to $600,000. More modestly, I’ll match all the donations generated through my link by the end of the day December 5 (this is a monthlong campaign but I want to get us a jump-start), up to $3,000.

Further incentive: If you donate $50 or more, snap a screenshot of your confirmation page and then fill out this Google Form. (Update: Duh, you’ll also get an emailed receipt you can forward me.) I’ll pick 12 email addresses at random and give away:

—four signed copies of my upcoming book shipped to you whenever the heck it comes out

—four year-long subscriptions or subscription-extensions to this very newsletter

—four personalized MP3 recordings, whatever you want within reason, 60 seconds. Surprise your friend! Antagonize your enemy! The possibilities are limitless considerable

That’s it! There’s a lot more information in Yglesias’s post, so check that out if you’re curious. Thank you so much for considering a donation.