According to the Human Rights Funders Network in 2021, “One
in seven persons in the world has a disability. Yet, grants for persons with disabilities constitute just 2% of all human rights funding.” Further, accessing these grant funds is challenging and many application processes present barriers to entry for individuals who need to apply for assistance.

We believe that direct support to individuals is the most effective approach to alleviating the barriers and challenges that prevent neurodivergent and disabled people from thriving in neurotypical and ableist environments. Our application process is simple and our direct payments have the potential to transform how neurodivergent and disabled people access philanthropic capital.

We believe that direct support to individuals is the most effective approach to alleviating the barriers and challenges that prevent neurodivergent and disabled people from thriving.

We exist for the direct support and mutual aid of neurodivergent and disabled people.
🏩 Mission – Stimpunks Foundation

Direct giving works. Direct giving helps people meet basic needs.

Guaranteed income, sometimes called guaranteed basic income, is a regular cash payment with no strings attached. It seeks to create an ‘income floor’ so that people can meet their basic needs. ‘Universal basic income’ typically refers to a cash payment that is offered to every member of a community whereas a ‘guaranteed income’ is a targeted cash payment for a specific group of people. For our purposes, we’ll refer to ‘the cash movement’ to refer to the overall field for unrestricted direct cash transfers in the U.S.

Crip Coin: Disability, Public Benefits, and Guaranteed Income report

The cash recipients also said they were better able to meet their basic needs.
$750 a month, no questions asked, improved the lives of homeless people – Los Angeles Times

“It may not be earth-shattering that providing money is going to help meet basic needs, but I do think it dispels this myth that people will use money for illicit purposes,” Henwood said. “We weren’t finding that in the study.”
$750 a month, no questions asked, improved the lives of homeless people – Los Angeles Times

3,200 households got $1,000 a month for a year

participants were more likely to get full-time jobs
more likely to leave domestic abuse
more likely to enroll kids in extracurriculars
more likely to engage in their communities

Crip Coin: Disability is an impetus for cash organizing.
Cash increases agency.
The Receipts
Poverty Is an Industry
Name the Systems of Power

Crip Coin: Disability is an impetus for cash organizing.

Disability is an impetus for cash organizing.
Crip Coin: Disability, Public Benefits, and Guaranteed Income report

The history of disability benefits demonstrates the need for no-strings-attached cash assistance.

Crip Coin: Disability, Public Benefits, and Guaranteed Income report

What today’s cash movement is building is what disabled people desperately need but too often can’t access.

Crip Coin: Disability, Public Benefits, and Guaranteed Income report

This population has been exposed to harm in the public benefits system for decades and should be some of the most important people to reach with the transformative power of cash.

Crip Coin: Disability, Public Benefits, and Guaranteed Income report

Given the swell of cash pilots and programs since 2020, GI is well-positioned as a powerful tool to continue this legacy of the ADA.

Crip Coin: Disability, Public Benefits, and Guaranteed Income report

Cash increases agency.

Evidence suggests that recipients are not working fewer hours on average because they value work less, but because the cash gave them greater agency to make employment choices that better fit their goals and families’ needs.

Unconditional Cash Study | OpenResearch

Cash increases agency to think about, plan, and pursue goals.

The cash had a positive and significant effect on budgeting and planning for the future, desire to pursue further education, and entrepreneurial interest. Recipients set goals that aligned with their values and desires and many took steps toward achieving them.

Unconditional Cash Study | OpenResearch

The Receipts

The receipts are coming in:

Poverty Is an Industry

The forces against direct giving and Universal Basic Income are powerful and numerous. Poverty is an industry.

However, this volume of expenditure begs the question why this money was not spent directly on job creation, quality employment of genuine social utility that would permit adequate labour market integration, strengthening a real safety net of minimum income to respond to the needs of the most marginalised. The answer is that, if it were, education for the poor would cease to be a mechanism for their redemption and would no longer offer itself as a business opportunity. For the latter, the education of the poor is a lucrative opportunity that attracts NGOs, enterprises, foundations, associations, and other stakeholders. While some are motivated by altruistic and philanthropic values, others have profit making incentives. In any case, the common denominator is that all of these actors have a stake in the poverty industry. Although they did not create this industry, they nevertheless benefit from its existence, making themselves co-dependent on it and the elimination of poverty inseparable from their eclipse. As such, their incentives lie more with the creation of training courses to fix a vaguely conceptualised skills gap rather than to eliminate poverty.
Guaranteed Minimum Income and Universal Basic Income programs: Implications for adult education

Stimpunks Foundation

Direct Support to Individuals: The Cash Movement

▶ Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Crip Coin: Disability is an impetus for cash organizing.

Cash increases agency.

The Receipts

Poverty Is an Industry

Name the Systems of Power