This is a new episode of the GiveWell Conversations podcast. You can listen to the episode or read a summary of the conversation below.
In September 2025, we created a livelihoods research subteam to specifically focus on programs that increase the economic well-being of people in extreme poverty. While we have evaluated and funded livelihoods programs throughout GiveWell’s history, we now have a dedicated program officer overseeing this portfolio, which has allowed us to build on and deepen that work.
Historically, GiveWell has predominantly focused on health-related programs. Diseases like malaria, diarrhea, and pneumonia can be prevented fairly cheaply, and the evidence for health programs is often strong relative to other areas. As our research team has grown, we’ve been building capacity to explore programs that increase people’s incomes, where the long-term impact is often more challenging to measure and effectiveness differs from context to context.
In this episode, GiveWell co-founder and CEO Elie Hassenfeld speaks with Senior Program Officer Adam Salisbury about GiveWell’s expanding work on livelihoods programs, which programs might be the most cost-effective, and research we’re funding to help answer some key questions.
Listen to Episode 31: Expanding Our Search for Cost-Effective Ways to Reduce Poverty
Elie and Adam discuss:
- Testing variations of cash transfers: GiveDirectly’s flagship cash transfer program currently falls below our cost-effectiveness threshold for livelihoods interventions, but it has a proven ability to scale. We funded three pilots to test whether specific program adaptations could improve cost-effectiveness enough to meet our threshold: (1) pairing small grants to local businesses with household cash transfers so vendors can stock up to meet new demand, (2) timing cash transfers to coincide with the construction of a new footbridge so recipients can access markets more easily, and (3) targeting cash transfers to the poorest young adults, who may be at a stage in their lives where a large lump sum transfer might be especially impactful.
- Exploring poverty graduation programs: Poverty graduation programs provide extremely poor households with a tool to generate income, such as a sewing machine, along with training and small amounts of money or food so that families have what they need without selling the asset. Evidence shows that these programs increase incomes over the first couple of years, and more recent evidence suggests these effects can persist for five years or longer. We are considering grants for research to assess which program designs are most cost-effective, whether income increases hold up over even longer time periods, and whether the programs can be implemented effectively at scale. Because around two-thirds of poverty graduation programs are now delivered by governments rather than NGOs, we are also exploring opportunities to support these programs by providing technical assistance to governments.
- Funding research to address key uncertainties: By funding research directly tied to programs we are considering supporting, we aim to make better funding decisions and increase donors’ impact. For example, we had a consultant scrutinize the original data from a randomized controlled trial of GiveDirectly’s flagship program in Kenya that showed positive economic effects in the broader community—and the research held up. We’re now funding other research to assess whether the results can be generalized and considering studies to learn whether their effects persist beyond a few years.
GiveWell is expanding our search for highly cost-effective ways to help people in new areas this year by hiring for new research positions, including a senior livelihoods researcher. As the livelihoods team grows, we aim to evaluate more of the areas in the space, including expanding financial access, improving agricultural activity, and looking at humanitarian response efforts—to make better-informed decisions about where donor funding can do the most good.
Visit our All Grants Fund page to learn more about how you can support this work, and listen or subscribe to our podcast for our latest updates.
This episode was recorded on May 26, 2026 and represents our best understanding at that time.
There is something wonderful about this conversation, and about what it says about effective altruism and our aim to do the most good possible.
Cash-transfers as done by Give Directly are a phenomenal initiative. So obvious in retrospect, but only when you remove your preconceived bias about poor people being partly responsible for their own predicament.
So it would be great, and laudable, for any organisation to look for ways to scale and expand programs like this. (And by supporting Give Directly, we can all help to enable this).
But the effective altruists (in this case, GiveWell) go a step further. How can we make this even better?
[I've spend many years working in one of the best corporate R&D organisations in the world, and this was a big part of what made us successful - to be always asking "how could we make this even better?"]
Once you start asking this, the ideas arrive: who are the most effective people to give the money to? when is the most effective time to give money? how to coordinate cash-transfers with other initiatives to maximise impact? Etc.
Of course there's still a lot of research needed to answer these. But the value of asking these questions is enormous, and unfortunately I get the impression that this is where many charities fail - they find a model that's good enough, and stick to it - doing a lot of good, but also not helping as many people as they might, as much as they might.
I realise this entire comment falls under what Basil Fawlty would describe as "the bleedin' obvious" for this EA audience - but to me it is a beautiful example we can use to explain how and why EA's can always create more impact. I will write about this in the Effective Giving Ireland journal and maybe convince one or two extra donors to support effective charities ...