Let's help families together

A short Giving Tuesday ask.

Happy Giving Tuesday. I’ll have an essay post for you later this week, but right now I’m joining a handful of other Substack writers and publications like

Rachel Cohen

,

Jill Filipovic

, and

Slow Boring

in support of GiveDirectly’s direct cash transfers efforts in Rwanda. There’s a little something in it for you if you join me, so read on!

Donation funds will go directly via digital transfer to 335 families across two Rwandan villages where most families are farmers living on $1-2 per day. Each family will receive around $1,100. Historically, GiveDirectly recipients spend that money on things like building a new home, livestock, or medical expenses (one year of health insurance is $15). There’s much more info on the linked page below, but the main point:

Cash gives people the dignity and flexibility to meet their own needs to create the outcomes they want – from installing water pumps, to sending children to school, to purchasing their first mattress, and so much more.

For women and girls in particular, cash can:

• Reduce incidents of physical abuse by a male partner of a woman — one study found GiveDirectly’s program reduced physical intimate partner violence.

• Increase school attendance for girls.

• Increase a woman’s likelihood of being the sole or joint decision-maker.

All donations through 11:59 p.m. EST tonight will be matched up to $400,000, so your money really goes far. Don’t delay if you want to chip in.

This effort is important to me also because of the related day-job work I do: For USAID, I write and edit articles about food security efforts (including in Rwanda) for its Feed the Future initiative, and interview local farmers and USAID partners about the strides they’re making. It’s long been clear to me how meaningful this kind of scalable spending autonomy is to smallholder farmers and their families in particular. USAID has also endorsed the cost-effectiveness of cash transfers.

In my experience, people on Substack are great at fundraising. Back in June I organized a fundraiser for Palestine Children’s Relief Fund with an initial goal of $5,000 and it raised just shy of $25,000 (that’s still open, by the way):

Substackers for Palestine Children's Relief: A fundraiser

I’m excited to knock this one out of the park, too, with your help. Last year the Substack group raising funds for GiveDirectly raised $275,000 (wowza) and we’re aiming for $350,000 this year.

If you donate — email me a screenshot/proof/receipt — you will get a guaranteed answer to a question in an upcoming “Ask me anything” post in early 2025 (about strength training/exercise/nutrition/taking care of your body/body image/body culture/writing; whatever I touch on in Body Type). Click the button below for the link to my campaign page, and to donate:

Please join me in spreading a little generosity in a place where it’s urgently needed. Thanks again for your readership.