In-depth guides for donors
Long-form research on how donations are spent, how to verify an organisation, and what crypto changes about giving. Written to be useful before you donate anywhere — including here.
Child MUAC Malnutrition Calculator & Tape Cutoffs
Calculate child acute malnutrition status (SAM / MAM / Normal) using arm circumference and oedema checks.
Ready-to-use therapeutic food, explained
A sachet of therapeutic food is a medical product for a severely wasted child, not a snack and not a general food parcel.
Read the articleWhat it actually costs to treat a malnourished child
Fundraising pages like to reduce this to a single number. The honest version is a range, and understanding why it is a range tells you more about an organisation than the number itself ever will.
Read the articleWasting, stunting and underweight: what the numbers mean
A headline saying “45 million children are malnourished” is describing a specific indicator, measured a specific way, over a specific window. Which one it is decides whether the correct response is a six-week treatment or a ten-year policy.
Read the articleHidden hunger: causes and meaning
Hidden hunger means a diet with enough calories and too few essential vitamins and minerals. The usual causes are a narrow staple diet and missing iron, vitamin A, iodine or zinc.
Read the articleChild malnutrition in 2024: what the 2025 joint estimates show
The latest joint estimates put child malnutrition into measurable categories, but the headline totals need context. This guide separates stunting, wasting and severe wasting and explains what the data can—and cannot—tell donors.
Read the articleMUAC Screening and the Sphere Handbook Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) Definition
Complete clinical field guide: how the Sphere Handbook and WHO define Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) using WHZ < -2 SD, MUAC < 125 mm, and bilateral pitting oedema — and how community screening turns tape readings into lifesaving admissions.
Read the articleHow to send a crypto donation safely: a step-by-step transfer checklist
Safe crypto giving is boring on purpose: same address source every time, same network label, a small test if you are unsure, and a hash saved before you close the tab.
Read the articleHow to read a charity’s transparency report
The overhead ratio became the standard measure of charity quality because it is easy to calculate, not because it predicts anything. Here is what a transparency page actually has to contain before it means something.
Read the articlePhase 5 famine: the IPC criteria
Phase 5 is the IPC name for famine. All three tests have to be met together: extreme lack of food, very high wasting, and a death rate above the famine threshold.
Read the articleThe first 1,000 days: why maternal nutrition shapes a lifetime
A child's height at age two is largely a ledger of what happened before they could walk. Maternal nutrition in that ledger is the earliest entry — and the one least visible in emergency appeals focused on therapeutic food.
Read the articleHow to verify a crypto charity before you donate
Crypto makes a donation fast, final and hard to reverse. That is exactly why the verification work has to happen before you press send. This is the process we would want a donor to run on us.
Read the articleInpatient vs outpatient malnutrition care: when each path saves lives
The majority of severely malnourished children with no medical complications recover on outpatient therapeutic food taken home. The minority who need inpatient care are the ones most likely to die without it — and the system fails when nobody can tell which group a child belongs to.
Read the articleWater, sanitation and malnutrition: the WASH link donors underestimate
Therapeutic food fed with unsafe water can convert a cure into diarrhoea. Malnutrition is not only a food problem — it is often a gut-and-environment problem.
Read the articleComparing nutrition charities: a framework beyond overhead ratios
Two organisations can both buy ready-to-use therapeutic food and produce opposite outcomes — the difference is caseload planning, referral links, and whether they count children recovered or sachets shipped.
Read the article“We reached 50,000 people” is not an impact claim
Nearly every number in charity communication is an output — something the organisation did. Impact is what changed because they did it, which is harder to establish and much rarer to see reported.
Read the articleThe last mile: where aid budgets quietly go
The commodity price of therapeutic food is public and stable. Everything between that price and a child’s hand is variable, unglamorous and frequently larger than donors assume.
Read the articleSchool feeding programmes: what evidence says actually works
A plate of maize at noon solves a different problem than therapeutic food at a clinic. School feeding works best when its goal matches its design — and when donors stop expecting it to substitute for acute treatment.
Read the articleWhy a donation in March buys more than one in July
The lean season is not a surprise. It has a start month, an end month and a predictable caseload curve. Almost all of the money arrives after it begins, and that timing alone destroys a measurable share of its value.
Read the articleCrypto donation tax basics: records, valuation, and what charities owe you
The blockchain remembers what you gave; your tax authority cares about when you gave it, what it was worth that day, and whether the recipient qualifies. None of that is automatic.
Read the articleBitcoin, Ethereum or a stablecoin: choosing what to donate
Most guides compare coins from an investor’s point of view. This one compares them from the position of an organisation that has to convert the donation into a purchase order for therapeutic food, on a date, at a price it can defend.
Read the articleInfant feeding in emergencies: what humanitarian rules actually require
The most dangerous donation in a camp is sometimes a pallet of infant formula with no labels in the local language, no clean water, and no counsellor to explain that breastfeeding mothers who stop cannot easily restart.
Read the article