Through the charity GiveDirectly, google.org, the charitable arm of Google, has donated $3 million to distribute directly to disaster relief victims around the world. According to the Google blog, the donation will help more than 2,400 low income families: “There are still important questions remaining about direct cash giving after natural disasters. Our collaboration with GiveDirectly on this work will be guided by some of these outstanding questions: How does the impact change if you give the cash several weeks after a disaster, as opposed to several months later, as was the case in the pilot study? Does giving money at different intervals have different impacts? Do large cash transfer programs impact the economy beyond individual recipients?”
GiveDirectly’s model includes the use of public data, field research and door to door visits, physical back-checks, image verification, and data consistency checks using GPS, satellite imagery and crowdsourcing, as detailed on the company’s website. Each family receives $1,000 to be collected via mobile money agent in their village or nearest town. Followups are done via phone or in person.
GiveDirectly has done direct payments following disaster in the past, giving $1,500 prepaid debit cards to survivors of Hurricane Harvey and Maria. The company has also posted the results and reasoning behind the use of the model in Texas and Puerto Rico in a detailed research paper titled “Why Not Cash? Lessons from US Disaster Projects.”
Source:
https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/google-org/proactive-approach-disaster-relief/
