In response to the extraordinary needs of their city after Hurricane Harvey, Houston philanthropists John and Laura Arnold first gave $5 million to the Greater Houston Community Foundation‘s Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund, aka the “Mayor’s Fund.”

They do “unconditional cash transfers,” and they trust the recipients know best how to use it to alleviate their own poverty.

GiveDirectly’s operation in Texas following Harvey is a test of whether that theory of “unconditional cash only, not stuff” could apply to disaster-relief in the U.S.

As John Arnold explained to me, he and his wife’s thought process for supporting GiveDirectly was as follows:

First, he said the private sector does a great job with the logistics of delivering needed goods and services to Texans, even in the face of catastrophic flooding, as occurred following Harvey. Walmart, Arnold reasoned, will figure out how to provide the right stuff, as long as people have money in their hands to pay for it.

Third, the best relief is probably a group that can just deliver money into the hands of people who need it.

“Everybody’s highest priority is different,” Arnold told me. Others had their work interrupted and they just need temporarily help to cover next month’s rent.”

So the Arnolds chose GiveDirectly for their $5 million.

Funded by the Arnolds and other donors, GiveDirectly set up a plan to deliver pre-loaded Visa debit cards with a $1,500 value to impacted households in Texas. In Rose City, a badly flooded town next to Beaumont that I wrote about last week, GiveDirectly arrived in October to deliver $1,500 to each of the town’s estimated 210 households, without conditions.

Rose City Mayor Bonnie Stephenson confirmed working with GiveDirectly to reach substantially all households in her town, holding town meetings and community gatherings to help get the word out.