The Worlds of Enough and Not Enough

I am in a good mood today, so I will try to talk about something not so fun, extreme poverty. 

It feels like there are two worlds: Enough and Not Enough. I’ve only ever known life in the Enough world. I sleep under a roof, on a mattress, with a full stomach, and wake up to a nice view and breakfast. I can pay for groceries, medical bills, and utilities without a second thought. This doesn’t mean my life is easy. It’s just that I don’t have to stress about necessities. I doubt your life is easy. We all have things we’re struggling with, often every day. 

I created Pepper because I learned that on top of the day-to-day challenges that we face, 8% of the global population (648 million people) also have to deal with not having enough. Enough to feed their family, send their kids to school instead of forcing them to do manual labor, visit the doctor, pay for lifesaving medicine, put a roof over their heads, and drink safe water.

In the past, these problems felt too big and impossible to solve. Now I know that I can make a difference. Sure, we’re not going to solve extreme poverty, but we can solve it for one person, dozens, hundreds, thousands, maybe millions. After just four months, our members are already helping hundreds of people every month. 

Now more than ever, we can see the impact of our donation thanks to research by the MIT Poverty Action Lab, GiveWell, and hundreds of researchers committed to finding the best ways to improve the lives of people living in extreme poverty. The four charities we partnered with at Pepper are the same programs they recommend funding.

Facts everyone who wants to help others should know. They’re not pretty, but they’re real. And we can do something about them if we want.

Extreme Poverty

8% of the global population (648 million people) live in extreme poverty, which the World Bank defines as living on less than U.S. $2.15/day. Thanks to GiveDirectly, we now have the technology to send mobile money to people in rural low-income villages.  

Malaria

In 2022 over 600,000 people (mostly kids and women) died from malaria despite it being both preventable and treatable. It costs $5 – $7 to protect one person from malaria thanks to long-lasting insecticide-treated bed nets and antimalarial medicine. 

Childhood Blindness

In 2022 over 250,000 kids went blind from vitamin A deficiency, and half died within the next 12 months. It costs $2 a year to protect one child from vitamin A deficiency with vitamin A supplements.

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You can protect 15 people from malaria, 14 kids from going blind, and provide three weeks’ worth of income to someone in extreme poverty by giving $10/month for one year through Pepper. 

Thank you for reading. 

Much love,

Mike