David Miliband wrote back.  It was unexpected, short and sweet, but he wrote back.  Impressive. He invited me to engage with IRC’s economic recovery expert about possibilities to work together.  Nice.  So the ball is back in my court.

I’ve followed up with the economic recovery expert and we’ll see how this adventure ends, I’m hoping I’ll be able to share with you how Give Aid Direct and IRC are partnering together piloting person-to-person giving.  As IRC’s own research on their cash programming in Lebanon states, “85% of respondents preferred receiving cash to in-kind“.  I really appreciate what @RadhaRajkotia says in her blogpost:

Cash provokes the opportunity for disintermediation of many traditional humanitarian actors, including the UN or INGOs. When individuals can send money by mobile money or donors can issue an ATM card themselves, there is a question as to how needed the full slew of actors is in the current humanitarian cash delivery chain. We need to be thinking through alternative models of assistance that don’t resist these changes, but embrace them, holding us all to a higher bar of cost-effectiveness and timeliness. 

I’m hoping that Give Aid Direct can be one of these ‘alternative models‘ she mentions and through it we can learn what the future holds.  Through Give Aid Direct we can push not only person-to-person giving, but also direct feedback to donors – it an exciting space with much to learn.