Josef Mathews is fundraising
GiveDirectly #UpliftOthers
*Donations are sent to PayPal Giving Fund who then delivers them to GiveDirectly once a month. This fundraiser continues until the $600 goal is reached. *
Dear Reader,
Thank you for your interest in this fundraiser.
For a college anthropology project, I chose the topic of fasting, a practice that I had already begun by then. I learned that various religious traditions combine fasting with giving. In the book The Sacred Art of Fasting, Catholic priest Thomas Ryan writes that the prayer-fasting-almsgiving tripod is a feature of various religions. The spiritual practice of fasting is found in the major religions of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. The second-century Christian book The Shepherd of Hermas, which links fasting and almsgiving, dispenses the following prescription: “Compute the total expense for the food you would have eaten on the day on which you intended to keep a fast and give it to a widow, an orphan, or someone in need.” My anthropology project inspired me to pair fasting with giving to those in need.
As there are plenty of people whose basic needs are not being met in the 21st century, the second-century directive still applies. The World Bank’s international poverty line, drawn in 2022 using 2017 prices, is $2.15 per person per day. That figure represents the mean of the poverty lines found in 15 of the poorest countries, ranked by per capita consumption. Anyone living on less than $2.15 a day is considered to be living in extreme poverty, struggling to meet their basic needs. In 2019, about 648 million people globally were living in extreme poverty. That number swells to around 1.2 billion people if we gauge poverty using the Multidimensional Poverty Index developed by the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative with the United Nations Development Programme. This index complements the measurement of monetary poverty by capturing deprivations in health, education, and living standards.
Ending poverty, a goal of the United Nations, requires a holistic approach that gets at its roots. One way to address the issue is through wealth transfer. People living above the poverty line could donate money to help those who live below the poverty line. With this fundraiser, I hope to raise $600 for GiveDirectly, a nonprofit organization that sends about $8 out of every $10 donated as unconditional cash to people living in extreme poverty. According to the nonprofit, a basic income of $40 a month lifts one person above poverty for a month, which means $480 (80% of $600) will lift a person out of poverty for a year. You can expect your contribution to have a positive impact on families and communities. For this GoFundMe campaign, I have already donated $45 in anticipation of three three-day fasts from May 27-30, June 24-27, and July 22-25, $5 for each day fasted (UPDATE: I wound up fasting for 76 h 00 m 05.27.2025 to 05.31.2025, 48 h 00 m 06.25.2025 to 06.27.2025, and 39 h 45 m 07.25.2025 to 07.27.2025.). If you find this cause to be worthy and you have the means to support it, please consider giving. Even the $5 GoFundMe minimum amount would be a significant contribution.
If you’re interested in fasting, there are various types, for example, intermittent fasting, the 5-2 diet, and alternate-day fasting. You can determine if fasting is beneficial for you. For example, here is a discussion on intermittent fasting. If fasting is not right for you, you can of course still support GiveDirectly’s work without fasting. You can couple another practice with giving or give without pairing it with anything else.
Sincerely,
Josef Mathews
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- J
4 supporters
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