Unrestricted gifts go where the data and our field teams say they will do the most good this week. Sometimes that's a famine response. Sometimes it's a quiet program that just needs another nurse. Always, it's where one dollar moves the needle furthest.
A restricted gift goes to the cause you nominated exactly. That is its strength and its limitation. An unrestricted gift goes to the cause that is, in the judgement of our field teams and our Programs Committee, the most acute or the most leveraged need we have on our books this week. It funds the famine response that is twelve hours old. It funds the quiet maternal-health program that is one nurse away from doubling its caseload. It funds the audit-quality work that no donor ever asks to fund. It is the gift that does the most.
You designate "clean water" or "orphan care", and that is exactly where it goes. We honour donor intent absolutely. The constraint: if your cause is fully funded this week, the gift waits.
Most common gift typeYou give us discretion. The Programs Committee meets every Monday and reallocates the previous week's unrestricted intake to whichever line items have the highest marginal impact per dollar. Decisions are minuted and published.
Pre-launch · pre first AISFor declared emergencies (famine, earthquake, conflict displacement). Funds bypass the weekly cycle and ship within 48 hours under the field director's signature. Disclosed in the next quarterly brief.
Pre-launch · pipelineA small board-led committee meets weekly. They look at the prior week's intake, the current pipeline of vetted partners, the live emergencies dashboard, and our target cost-per-beneficiary table. They reallocate. They sign. The minutes are published on the Governance page on the following Wednesday.
Total unrestricted gifts received in the prior week, broken down by gift size and donor cohort. Pulled live from the public ledger.
Every program reports its current funding gap, marginal cost per beneficiary, and on-the-ground urgency on a 1–5 scale. Highest-leverage gaps surface to the top.
Committee allocates by line item; treasurer wires within 72 hours. Allocation, vote count and dissents are minuted and published on the Governance page on the following Wednesday.
Worked example. Below is the kind of allocation card the weekly committee will publish once intake and partner MOUs are in place. Pre-launch figures are management estimates and will be reconciled at our first AIS.
Planned RUTF (ready-to-use therapeutic food) procurement and distribution, to be delivered through a vetted in-country partner once MOU is signed. Target caseload of around 1,140 children per cycle at a costed $103.50 per child over a 6-week protocol. Partner outreach is in our pipeline.
Annualised salary, training stipend and equipment loadout for two newly-hired midwives at the Hadejia maternal-health clinic. Brings safe-delivery capacity from 28 to 44 births per week.
Solar-pump replacement and pipeline repair across 14 community boreholes in Turkana that had failed during the dry-season peak. Restores water access for an estimated 9,200 residents.
Six-week bridge funding for the Lira primary-school feeding program where a co-funder withdrew unexpectedly. Keeps 1,840 children fed and in school until Q1 grant cycle re-opens.
Funds 12 months of a dedicated child-protection officer covering all five Ghana programs. Position was previously rotated; this allocation makes it permanent and full-time.
A small fraction of each week's intake is held in the rapid-response account for emergencies arising in the following seven days, before the next allocation cycle. Released automatically if not deployed.
Unrestricted donations move fastest, reach hardest-to-fund work, and let our field teams catch problems before they become emergencies. Choose any amount; choose any frequency.
