This is an IHeart podcast.

I am Maeve Higgins and this is Solvable.

Interviews with the world's most innovative thinkers working to solve the world's biggest problems.

My solvable is putting the beneficiary as the focus of the aid and philanthropic sector and not the donor.

We're letting the beneficiary choose where they want to spend the capital and taking that decision out of our own hands.

That's Michael Fay, the co-founder and president of Give Directly.

Now, imagine this.

You're watching TV or you're on your phone and you see some terrible disaster.

Or you read a story about extreme poverty in a country far from yours.

If you want to help and if you're moved to do something,

the action you take will most likely be to send money. There are NGOs and aid organizations

all over the world so perhaps you'll find one working in that country or specialising in the

type of aid you think is needed there and you send them a donation.

Then you feel a little bit better. But it's important to check, isn't it? How effective is that

aid system? Is it measured? Is it working for the people that it's supposed to be helping? And how can

you even check that in the first place?

Today governments and donors are trying to find out how their money can make the biggest

difference and increasingly they're turning to a promising new tool, cash transfers. In other words,

giving people cold hard cash. I guess it's not that new anymore because since the year 2000, a growing number of developing

countries have introduced these cash transfers instead of giving aid in the form of goods

or services.

And more recently, donors and development banks have begun championing these programs.

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