I’m Donating to Propel’s Campaign for SNAP Recipients. Here’s Why I’m Uneasy About It

The situation for recipients of supplementary nutrition aid in the United States is not good right now. Due to the government shutdown, November payments to what we call the “food stamps” program are not happening. Nothing you can do from your couch, using your smartphone, is about to fix this horror show. But you can actually help out with a band-aid fix by donating at this link. 

Donating to this particular campaign allows specific, qualifying families who are part of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to receive one-time payments of $50 instead of nothing. These are families with kids, and they typically get multiple hundreds of dollars in food benefits monthly.

Just know that there are aspects of this that you’re probably not going to like.

(Also know that you can donate to, and volunteer at, a food bank in your area as well. They need it right now.)

Why does this actually work?

I was a little unsettled when I noticed just how efficient and seamless this charity campaign can claim to be. An app called Propel and a charity called GiveDirectly—yes, the one favored by MrBeast and some in the effective altruism community—can plausibly funnel money to some of the neediest people in the country, and do so very quickly. In theory, you donate, and your money goes to some of the neediest SNAP recipients in under two days. 

Why it works, however, is another story. Propel is a for-profit fintech company funded by Silicon Valley VCs including Andreessen Horowitz (a firm associated with the MAGA movement). It’s used voluntarily by millions of U.S. benefits recipients because, for one thing, they like it, and also due to other factors, like the fact that the company maintains a heavy footprint in welfare recipients’ discussions on Reddit. Propel appears to be a useful stopgap, patching over some of the clunkiness in the American social safety net. According to Propel, a quarter of SNAP recipients use its app. As such, it has a lot of access and data that a for-profit company might not have in a saner country.

So Propel can determine who is neediest by, in its own words, “targeting Propel users in households of three or more who receive the maximum SNAP allotment—a key indicator of extremely low or zero earned income.”

It’s coldly logical. They qualify for the largest benefit because the government has determined that they’re struggling the most. GiveDirectly collects the money, and Propel knows who within its app ecosystem needs it. It then disperses the money via GiveCard (which is yet another startup). 

Should I trust Propel?

Propel seeded this campaign with $1 million, but it’s not hiding the fact that it’s a private firm hustling to make a name for itself in the fintech world. A “business case” exists for this app—meaning a way for the company to potentially turn a profit, and you can hear Propel co-founder and CEO Jimmy Chen explain it all in this interview on the Andrew Yang Podcast from three months ago.

The Propel app is, Chen says, a “hook” for people to get pulled in as users, and exposed to the app’s other functions, which sound like much more obvious avenues for the company to make money. For instance, within Propel, Chen says benefits recipients are presented with deals and potential jobs to apply for.

So something to keep in mind if you’re donating to this GiveDrectly program (as I am) is that this campaign is a powerful way for Propel to market itself to needy people. After all, if, like the majority of SNAP recipients, you have not downloaded and used the app, you’re not going to get $50.

Gizmodo reached out to Propel for comment, and will update if we hear back.