Donor support keeps the Happier Lives Fund (HLF) moving forward. With the money raised, we have completed disbursements to our recommended charities for Q2 2026. In this blog post, we give you a detailed breakdown of what this looked like.
This has been the third round of disbursements for the HLF, after the one for Q4 2025 and the one for Q1 2026. We have now passed the six-month milestone and wanted to celebrate the profound difference the HLF is making for happiness worldwide. In late June, we hosted a live online event reflecting on the past, present, and future of the Fund; you can watch the recording below.
How much did the HLF raise in Q2 2026? What impact will it have?
The HLF raised $23,086.48 between April and June 2026. The total comes to $40,497.01 when we include direct donations to our recommended charities.
This quarter, the total amount disbursed is higher than the amount raised. That’s because, as detailed below, we’ve released the Friendship Bench funds we’d held back over the previous two quarters. In total, we disbursed $96,749.41.
In terms of impact, this amount corresponds to 4,952.63 WELLBYs created. To put that in perspective, this is equivalent to saving 3,804.46 people from a full year of depression.
How did we allocate the funds to the charities?
When donors support the HLF, 90% of their donation is allocated to our recommended charities and the remaining 10% supports HLI. In Q2, $3,585.85 went towards our research and operations.
Maximising our impact remains our guiding principle when deciding how to allocate funds across the charities. We based these decisions on the evidence underpinning our recommendations, together with the latest insights from our continued work with each charity.
Our two Top Charities, StrongMinds and Friendship Bench, received 67% of the total, split evenly between them. These are the charities we’ve found to be most cost-effective and have the highest confidence in.
The remaining 33% was split between our Promising Charities, Pure Earth and Taimaka. We estimate that Pure Earth is more cost-effective than Taimaka, so we allocated 60% of this share to the former and 40% to the latter. Our Promising Charities are probably extremely cost-effective based on research so far, but we need further evidence before we can be as confident as we are in our Top Charities. You can learn more about how we conduct our evaluations at this link.
Did we provide unrestricted or restricted funding?
We are providing unrestricted funding for StrongMinds, Pure Earth, and Taimaka.
Over the past few months, we have been working with Friendship Bench to develop an R&D project focused on improving their monitoring and evaluation. While details were being finalised, we held off disbursing funds in the previous two rounds; now that the project is taking shape, we’ve sent Friendship Bench the full amount raised for them through the HLF between December 2025 and the end of June 2026. Pooling the funds this way lets us support a larger, more impactful project than we could have with smaller instalments.
The impact from our recommended charities
| Charity | What they do | Money sent | WELLBYs created | Years of depression averted |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Delivers lay-delivered group psychotherapy to people with depression or anxiety in Uganda and Zambia. |
$7,818.00 (HLF + direct donations) |
316 |
243 | |
Delivers lay-delivered psychotherapy to people with depression or anxiety in Zimbabwe. |
$81,379.77 (HLF + direct donations) |
3,949 |
3,037 | |
Works with governments and businesses to reduce exposure to toxic lead in products. We focus on their cosmetics programme in Ghana. |
$4,642.11
(HLF + direct donations) |
489 |
377 (equivalent) | |
Treats children with acute malnutrition in Gombe State, Nigeria, working through local health facilities. |
$2,909.23
(HLF + direct donations) |
199 |
148 (equivalent) |
To learn more about our charities and how we evaluate them, you can read this page.