Head of Strategic Partnerships & Influence

UC San Diego economist Paul Niehaus to receive Notre Dame Award for pioneering global cash aid research. April 21, 2026 Paul Niehaus, co-founder of GiveDirectly and an economics faculty member at University of California San Diego, will receive the 2026 Ford Family Notre Dame Award during an April 24 event hosted by the Ford Program in Human Development Studies and Solidarity at the University of Notre Dame. The Ford Award and Lecture brings together scholars, practitioners and benefactors to engage with questions of poverty, human dignity and development practice. Niehaus will give a lecture on his experiences as co-founder of the GiveDirectly nonprofit organization, its role in facilitating direct cash transfers in anti-poverty work and key research findings that can inform international development. "Paul Niehaus exemplifies the kind of scholarship and impact we seek to recognize with this award," said Ford Program Director Patrizio Piraino. "His work combines rigorous research with a deep respect for human dignity, challenging conventional approaches to poverty alleviation while empowering individuals to make their own economic decisions." This alignment of research and impact is central to the Notre Dame Poverty Initiative, a University-wide effort to create a world intolerant of poverty by expanding knowledge about how to solve it. The University is deploying unprecedented resources, a wide range of research approaches and some of its brightest minds to better understand what causes poverty and how to end it. The GiveDirectly mission, Niehaus said, is rooted in a respect for people's agency and autonomy when delivering aid. Since 2009, direct cash payments have gone to at least 2 million people living in African nations like the Democratic Republic of Congo as well as in the United States. "GiveDirectly has grown from a crazy idea that people thought would never work to over $1 billion now distributed," said Niehaus, who welcomes the Ford Program recognition and the opportunity to share data from some two dozen rigorous studies on direct cash transfer. They include a December 2025 paper, co-authored by Niehaus, that demonstrates how just 0.3 percent to 0.5 percent of global GDP is needed to effectively end extreme poverty - everywhere. The numbers fall within a range that about 60 percent of "rich world" survey respondents would give up if it were to end global poverty, according to separate research on direct cash transfer by Nobel Prize recipients Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, as well as economist Michael Greenstone of the University of Chicago. Niehaus finds these results encouraging, even as research on direct giving continues at a national scale in places like Rwanda and Malawi. "We're asking the question, if you come in and give people one-time wealth transfers, what does that get you?" he explained. The impact can vary based on a range of variables. Among them are how larger amounts compare with smaller universal basic income-like payments over time, how demographics like age affect preferences and specific goals the cash support is meant to help people achieve. Those goals are self-directed and articulated by the people themselves, Niehaus said, with GiveDirectly data showing that about $1,000 U.S. dollars, given in a lump sum, translates in a year or so to improved income and assets, health outcomes and community life. "There's a lot of diversity within an ethical worldview," Niehaus said, with many donors looking for market efficiencies and quantitative data to support the direct cash approach. Others may place more focus on anti-poverty work itself, or on a limited scope like coffee and specific crops. Program success is achieved through tech-driven tools for both facilitating donor gifts and managing individual digital accounts in places like Kenya. Niehaus says the model essentially works everywhere, although security challenges can limit operations in some communities. Yet there's no one-size-fits-all answer, and research helps the GiveDirectly team to see the ethical implications of how they define and assess poverty, as well as how aid works in the real world. Niehaus says he increasingly spends time helping younger academics to refine their thinking on how to make a difference while designing research approaches. "Research helps us to find out what matters to people," Niehaus added. He looks forward to sharing some of those same insights during the Ford Program lecture. Founded in 2008 with a gift from the family of University of Notre Dame Trustee W. Douglas Ford, the Ford Program in Human Development Studies and Solidarity, part of the Kellogg Institute in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame, promotes Integral Human Development through community-engaged research, teaching and service aimed at understanding and addressing the challenges of extreme poverty while fostering human dignity and flourishing. Originally published by the Kellogg Institute at kellogg.nd.edu on April 20.

A subtle shift with big upside. GiveDirectly is leaning into "plus cash" approaches - here's why. by Sarah Moran * GiveDirectly has experimented with "cash plus" (cash+) approaches to amplify the impact of cash alone * Increasingly, we're expanding our product set to enable more "plus cash" (+cash) approaches - where can cash, delivered alongside other scaled investments and interventions, have outsized impact? * This is both a symbolic and a substantive evolution in how we think about cash as an enabling and catalytic ingredient in development ecosystems, especially as aid flows recede * We're testing new "cash+" approaches in 2026, and are eagerly sourcing partnerships to expand in 2027 and beyond Development finance is at an inflection point. Aid budgets are contracting. Governments are rethinking what they can afford. Across sectors - health, livelihoods, climate resilience - there's a growing recognition that the most effective interventions aren't always the most expensive ones, but the ones designed to work together at scale. GiveDirectly has spent 15 years proving that cash transfers are among the most effective tools in poverty alleviation. Now I'm increasingly asking a different question: not just "what can cash do?" but "what can cash unlock?" That question is behind a subtle but meaningful shift in how GiveDirectly, Inc. is developing cash-based solutions at GiveDirectly - from "cash+" to "+cash." What the Product team at GiveDirectly does. For nearly 15 years, the core of GiveDirectly's programs has been large cash transfers delivered to all households in poor villages, with no strings attached. The evidence for this model is deep and consistent: lasting increases in income, assets, and consumption. Simple, scalable, transparent. For many donors and recipients, it's still the gold standard. Last year, GiveDirectly, Inc. established a Product team, bringing together its cash delivery technology, research and evaluation, data, and new product verticals under one roof. Its north star is what GiveDirectly, Inc. call the "green triangle": the intersection of what's impactful for recipients, fundable by donors, and feasible to implement at scale. Its job is to find and build at that intersection, with an increasing focus on cost-effectiveness. The reality is, there's a limit to how much innovation you can drive with cash alone - small amounts v. big; highly targeted v. not; before a disaster or after. For me, one of the most exciting innovation spaces is around where cash complements other effective, scalable investments and unlocks incremental impact. Admittedly, when GiveDirectly, Inc. has experimented in "cash+" innovations, GiveDirectly, Inc. has run into constraints inherent in taking anything that works and smushing it together - higher coordination costs, bespoke and layered interventions that can't scale, things that work in one context but can't generalize to others, unclear attributable impact. There are myriad ways you can imagine cash interacting with other evidenced interventions to drive outcomes - where is the biggest potential for impact at scale? "Cash+" v. "+cash": a distinction that matters. The terms sound similar, but they're not the same. Cash+ is about add-ons that make the impact of cash more intense, durable, or predictable - e.g. coaching, information, behavioral support. In this frame, cash is still the main ingredient: the "plus" component extends or amplifies what it can do. The question is: how do GiveDirectly, Inc. improve the enabling environment for cash transfers, especially when delivered at scale? +Cash flips the frame entirely. It asks: where can cash be an enabling factor for other large-scale interventions? Here, cash isn't the main event. It's the ingredient that makes the main event work better, reach further, or stick longer. Cash+ programs center a core intervention that GiveDirectly, Inc. know is scalable, generalizable, and effective, and GiveDirectly, Inc. hold a pretty high bar to what GiveDirectly, Inc. would layer on top of cash. But the +cash frame opens a different kind of conversation: one that takes health systems, infrastructure programs, climate funds, and government policies and considers - how can GiveDirectly, Inc. make these initiatives more accessible, and more effective, for the extreme poor? Three ways +cash creates value. When I think about where +cash has the most potential, three mechanisms stand out. Catalyze. Cash can close the demand-side access gap that would otherwise "zero out" the impact of other interventions. A scholarship covers school fees, but a student can't afford room and board and drops out. A health system offers free delivery services, but transport costs and insurance fees keep women from making it to the clinic. GiveDirectly, Inc. is seeing exactly this in its early Mothers & Babies data from Kenya, where cash during pregnancy is being used to cover insurance enrollment fees, clinic transport, and out-of-pocket medical costs- removing the barriers that would otherwise make a well-functioning health system inaccessible. In these cases, a targeted cash transfer doesn't compete with the primary intervention. It enables it. Amplify. Some investments become dramatically more valuable when cash arrives alongside them. New infrastructure - a bridge, a market, a clinic - creates opportunity, but households need resources to act on it. GiveDirectly, Inc. is testing this directly: one of its GiveWell-funded pilots in Uganda delivers cash shortly after trail bridge construction connects isolated communities to markets. The hypothesis is that cash enables faster utilization of new market access, generating both immediate consumption gains and sustained economic growth. The combined intervention may outperform either on its own - a genuine 1+1=3. Derisk. Crises and shocks don't just cause acute harm - they undo years of prior investment. Each year, millions of people fall back into poverty due to climate events, conflicts, or economic shocks. GiveDirectly is building infrastructure to enable rapid, targeted cash response anywhere in the world within five days. This isn't just a humanitarian program- it's an insurance layer for development portfolios. If you've spent a decade building health systems, agricultural capacity, or economic resilience in a region, emergency cash is what prevents a single bad season from erasing it. Why this moment. Three things are converging to make this "+cash" approach particularly timely. First, technology is enabling combinations that weren't previously feasible. As more interventions are delivered digitally - health messaging, agricultural extension, financial services - the ability to layer cash into those channels increases. Organizations building digital delivery infrastructure are natural "+cash" partners, and the operational complexity of integration is dropping every day. Second, aid flows are shifting. Government ODA is contracting in many markets; donors and governments are looking for leverage: scalable, legible interventions that make their other investments go further. "+Cash" is a direct answer to that question. It repositions cash not as a competing use of development dollars, but as a multiplier on them. Third, the evidence base is building. Its current pilots with GiveWell, its partnership with Lwala Community Alliance, and its Cash + Coaching work are all proof points to demonstrate how cash can integrate into large, multi-component programs without losing what makes it distinctive. What excites me, and where I'm uncertain. I'm genuinely excited about what this makes possible. The most interesting version of GiveDirectly's future isn't cash as a standalone product competing for a share of the development budget. It's cash as a standard ingredient in how philanthropy and the sector approach poverty alleviation - embedded in health systems, shock response, and job creation - wherever financial resources are the binding constraint between good intentions and actual impact. I'm also clear-eyed about the risks. Transformational partnerships mean coordination costs. Moving from a simple, scalable model toward more complex combinations requires real discipline to avoid drifting into something slower, more expensive, and harder to evaluate. And, as GiveDirectly, Inc. optimize for cost-effectiveness as an organization, GiveDirectly, Inc. is grappling with these tensions: when do combined interventions drive real gains, for recipients v. serve the interests of donors? Where will gains actually compound with scale, rather than diminish? How can GiveDirectly, Inc. preserve agency and unconditionality? I'm thinking carefully about those tradeoffs, and I'll write more about them soon. What GiveDirectly, Inc. is looking for. GiveDirectly, Inc. is actively validating several +cash models in 2026 and are eager to find the right partners to expand in 2027 and beyond. The partnerships GiveDirectly, Inc. is most interested in are ones where: * A resource or access constraint is the binding factor between a program and its intended outcomes * Digital delivery infrastructure exists or is being built * There's appetite for rigorous evaluation of the combined model * Scale and replicability are part of the ambition If that sounds like work you're doing - in health, livelihoods, climate resilience, or emergency response - I'd love to talk. Reach out at [email protected].

Cash is arriving as mothers navigate a more costly health system. GiveDirectly, Inc. launched this pilot roughly a year after Kenya replaced a program that covered delivery costs even for women without registration documents. The new system requires families to register for national health insurance and pay 2.75% of their monthly income (at least ~$2.50 per month). Women told GiveDirectly, Inc. that costs like insurance enrollment, transport, and clinic fees can push families toward home deliver, even when they know hospital births are safer. But they also cited barriers cash alone can't fix, including difficulty reaching facilities and challenging experiences at certain clinics. But early spending data suggest cash is helping mothers overcome some of the new cost barriers: more than 1 in 4 report using part of their transfer to pay insurance fees under the new system, and GiveDirectly, Inc. expect a clearer picture of how cash is influencing health outcomes after its midline survey in May. GiveDirectly, Inc. is tracking three signals to understand whether the program is working as expected. While the cash is unconditional, the goal is better health outcomes for mothers and babies. Early spending patterns are one aspect of three key questions GiveDirectly, Inc. is tracking: 1⃣ Are mothers using cash to get care? Women report how they're spending and if it helps cover costs like clinic visits, insurance registration, medicines, or transport. 2⃣ Are they better able to prepare for birth? Women report on their food security, stress levels, and whether they feel able to make decisions about their health and their baby's. 3⃣ Are they getting more care during and after pregnancy? Surveys and data from health authorities help track rates of prenatal visits, facility deliveries, birth weights, and postpartum care. Over time, GiveDirectly, Inc.'ll have clearer answers. Early spending data (1⃣) are promising, and upcoming midline results will show how mothers are preparing for birth (2⃣). Health outcome data (3⃣) are just beginning to come in, though it will take time before GiveDirectly, Inc. can make any strong conclusions. So far, GiveDirectly, Inc. is not seeing signs that giving cash to mothers is creating conflict at home. Some supporters have asked whether sending cash to pregnant women could cause arguments at home about how the money is used. So far, GiveDirectly, Inc. see little evidence of this: men have generally been supportive during enrollment, and reports of conflict related to how cash is spent have been rare (just two cases to date). GiveDirectly, Inc. is also monitoring whether the program influences future pregnancy decisions and expect clearer insight in the coming months. Encouragingly, studies of cash programs in similar places find no evidence that cash leads to more pregnancies. GiveDirectly, Inc. is expanding the pilot in Kenya and launching in other countries. In partnership with county health leaders, GiveDirectly, Inc. is expanding the program to more communities across Kenya, with a goal of reaching 5,300 women by the end of 2026. GiveDirectly, Inc. is also launching the program in the Democratic Republic of Congo with Panzi Hospital and exploring expanding to other countries where this approach could be effective. Later this year, GiveDirectly, Inc. expect to share early findings on maternal and newborn health from the Kenya pilot as more mothers give birth and follow-up surveys roll out in May. The program is growing, and so is its understanding of what works best to support healthier mothers and babies. GiveDirectly, Inc.'ll keep learning out loud as GiveDirectly, Inc. go.