Hi David T., you are right to ask the question on whether people would rather have had the cash instead of a better chatbot. This is why we are starting with small pilots and using these to inform our next steps. So far the feedback has been very positive - people say that they wish they had had the chatbot earlier. Next we want to know if adding a chatbot boosts the impact of cash - if so, then rolling this out at larger scale will involve minimal costs but the benefits could be high. We don't know of other non-profits that are offering unrestricted versions of chatbots at this point (many focus only on agricultural advice) - but we believe this offers the kind of information access that should be available to people and allows people to make decisions based on their own needs.
Good question. Digital literacy is fairly low and many people did not have smartphones until we ran this pilot. Language offerings are limited in free commercial offerings, particularly for voicenotes, which are essential for engagement in this group.
Hi NickLaing, you raise excellent points - this does raise ethical issues and it's something that we have thought a lot about and have put systems in place to address. We do gather consent from recipients when they are initially enrolled, and we ensure that data is anonymised when it is analysed. We have built additional railguards into the chatbots (we tested exactly the types of questions you raised to check how the chatbot responded and then ensured that any questions that raised a red flag receive responses that link them to our call centre). Our safeguarding teams also monitor messages for anything problematic and address these with the appropriate level of engagement depending on the issues that surface. Our approach to safeguarding and guardrails is evolving as we learn - if you have additional suggestions of things we should be thinking about, we'd welcome these suggestions.
Hi! We're taking a phased approach to our learning on digital innovation. These results are from the first phase of work - small pilots assessing uptake and usability through qualitative research (focus groups) and data from the chatbots. We are now running A/B tests of different prompts to see which ones respond most effectively to recipients. Once we know which prompts perform best, we will move on to A/B testing of cash versus cash plus chatbot to evaluate economic indicators that we believe from the micro-data of past studies are leading indicators of longer-term income.
While the broad cash program in this study is certainly more expensive per family than other global health programs, the researchers note that if the cash was targeted to pregnant women in their third trimester, it could be “comparably cost effective to a number of WHO-recommended maternal and child health interventions, even without taking into account other possible benefits of unconditional cash transfers (such as consumption gains).”
We’re launching a pilot this fall in Kenya specifically for pregnant women to learn just how much more cost-effectively cash can improve infant and maternal health, one of our many tests to improve our programs for specific outcomes.
Darren "We don’t push hard for donations. Our primary goal is to educate and inspire, not fundraise. Donations are a bonus. We usually have sponsors for the videos, and the money we earn from those sponsors goes directly to the projects. In the case of the GiveDirectly video, we made a $200,000 donation, and anything beyond that is a bonus. However, someone who saw the video is now matching up to $150,000, which will help reach the fundraising goal."
You can read more about how the project came together on our blog. Adding a specific section below that might be of interest:
Working with the most watched person on Earth will help us reach more people in need
Beast Philanthropy videos are typically seen by 20-40 million people and dubbed into over a dozen languages to improve accessibility. We expect this will help us reach more families in need. Here’s why:
Partnering with content creators means large, new audiences learn about direct cash
You may support direct cash giving, but most people still do not.GiveDirectly recently ran a survey of potential donors, and found only 13% of respondents had heard of us. Direct cash was their least favored way to help people in extreme poverty.
Clearly more people need to learn about the impact of our work. While we’re good at our main job of delivering cash to the most vulnerable families in the world, we’re not as good at reaching large audiences from our own channels and platforms –– few nonprofits are. Press and content creators are very good at it.
Beast Philanthropy’s video dispels common concerns about direct cash
In that same survey, most respondents said giving $1,000 to families in extreme poverty was not a good idea. Their most common concerns were that recipients…
may spend the money unwisely
need something else (training, education, resources)
won’t be able to make lasting improvements
We approached Beast Philanthropy because they excel at engaging audiences while showcasing the finer points of a charity. Their GiveDirectly video tackled the most common concerns about cash, highlights the dignity of giving choice, and documents the broader economic benefits– all in just 12 minutes.
Hi David T., you are right to ask the question on whether people would rather have had the cash instead of a better chatbot. This is why we are starting with small pilots and using these to inform our next steps. So far the feedback has been very positive - people say that they wish they had had the chatbot earlier. Next we want to know if adding a chatbot boosts the impact of cash - if so, then rolling this out at larger scale will involve minimal costs but the benefits could be high. We don't know of other non-profits that are offering unrestricted versions of chatbots at this point (many focus only on agricultural advice) - but we believe this offers the kind of information access that should be available to people and allows people to make decisions based on their own needs.
Thanks Alex N.! We'll have a look into this.
Hi, yes this would be from self-reported data. We aren't currently collecting detailed M&E data on economic indicators during this phase of work.
Good question. Digital literacy is fairly low and many people did not have smartphones until we ran this pilot. Language offerings are limited in free commercial offerings, particularly for voicenotes, which are essential for engagement in this group.
Hi NickLaing, you raise excellent points - this does raise ethical issues and it's something that we have thought a lot about and have put systems in place to address. We do gather consent from recipients when they are initially enrolled, and we ensure that data is anonymised when it is analysed. We have built additional railguards into the chatbots (we tested exactly the types of questions you raised to check how the chatbot responded and then ensured that any questions that raised a red flag receive responses that link them to our call centre). Our safeguarding teams also monitor messages for anything problematic and address these with the appropriate level of engagement depending on the issues that surface. Our approach to safeguarding and guardrails is evolving as we learn - if you have additional suggestions of things we should be thinking about, we'd welcome these suggestions.
Hi! We're taking a phased approach to our learning on digital innovation. These results are from the first phase of work - small pilots assessing uptake and usability through qualitative research (focus groups) and data from the chatbots. We are now running A/B tests of different prompts to see which ones respond most effectively to recipients. Once we know which prompts perform best, we will move on to A/B testing of cash versus cash plus chatbot to evaluate economic indicators that we believe from the micro-data of past studies are leading indicators of longer-term income.
We deliver cash transfers in Eastern DRC: https://GiveDirectly.org/drc
We also deliver cash transfers to Sudanese refugees fleeing to Uganda: https://muslimimpactlab.org/give-zakat-directly-to-sudanese-refugees/
Reach out to [email protected] if you want to learn more
While the broad cash program in this study is certainly more expensive per family than other global health programs, the researchers note that if the cash was targeted to pregnant women in their third trimester, it could be “comparably cost effective to a number of WHO-recommended maternal and child health interventions, even without taking into account other possible benefits of unconditional cash transfers (such as consumption gains).”
We’re launching a pilot this fall in Kenya specifically for pregnant women to learn just how much more cost-effectively cash can improve infant and maternal health, one of our many tests to improve our programs for specific outcomes.
(updated our post above to clarify this)
If you want to help this match succeed, reshare the campaign page or Darren's X post.
Also here's our blog on how we optimize matches to maximize impact.
You can read more about how the project came together on our blog. Adding a specific section below that might be of interest:
Working with the most watched person on Earth will help us reach more people in need
Beast Philanthropy videos are typically seen by 20-40 million people and dubbed into over a dozen languages to improve accessibility. We expect this will help us reach more families in need. Here’s why:
Partnering with content creators means large, new audiences learn about direct cash
You may support direct cash giving, but most people still do not. GiveDirectly recently ran a survey of potential donors, and found only 13% of respondents had heard of us. Direct cash was their least favored way to help people in extreme poverty.
Clearly more people need to learn about the impact of our work. While we’re good at our main job of delivering cash to the most vulnerable families in the world, we’re not as good at reaching large audiences from our own channels and platforms –– few nonprofits are. Press and content creators are very good at it.
Beast Philanthropy’s video dispels common concerns about direct cash
In that same survey, most respondents said giving $1,000 to families in extreme poverty was not a good idea. Their most common concerns were that recipients…
We approached Beast Philanthropy because they excel at engaging audiences while showcasing the finer points of a charity. Their GiveDirectly video tackled the most common concerns about cash, highlights the dignity of giving choice, and documents the broader economic benefits – all in just 12 minutes.
Some of their viewers will start giving directly, helping reach more people living in extreme poverty with life-changing cash transfers.