DIV Awarded Funding from Open Philanthropy

Happy New Year!

We’re thrilled to kick off 2023 by announcing that Development Innovation Ventures (DIV) was selected to receive a $45 million award from Open Philanthropy to identify and help scale cost-effective interventions in global development. 

With this funding, DIV will be able to expand our grantmaking through Stages 1, 2, and 3 grants while launching a new “Stage 4” initiative. This support for our core work will allow us to test more new ideas, improve the evidence of what works, and help bring to scale more of the highest-impact and most cost-effective solutions to development challenges. With Stage 4 grants, we intend to help scale up some of the most promising programs in our portfolio through partnerships with Missions and Bureaus across USAID. We hope these awards will help integrate innovations that have been rigorously demonstrated to cost-effectively improve development outcomes into broader USAID programming. Read more from Open Philanthropy at www.regrantingchallenge.org.

Aligned with DIV’s portfolio approach to impact, Open Philanthropy views this award as a "hits-based” opportunity: “Stage 4 grants have never been tried before, and while it is possible they will not work, if they do, there’s enormous potential for impact.” The DIV team is honored by Open Philanthropy’s support for our work and grateful for the valuable exercise the Regranting Challenge presented; it is humbling for donors to be on the other side of the funding application process! This has helped us to strategically consider DIV's strengths and gaps and pushed the team to develop new ways to increase our impact in the coming years. 

To all of our grantees and partners: this award is also a testament to the value of your work to strengthen global development and meaningfully improve people’s lives around the world.

Warm regards and best wishes for a happy new year,

Sasha Gallant
Chief, USAID DIV

Pre-school-aged children in a Lively Minds family-led play group using games that will prepare them for school. ©Lively Minds

USAID Administrator Samantha Power Recognizes DIV in Keynote on Championing Evidence Use
for Policy Impact in U.S. Foreign Aid

As part of the White House Year of Evidence for Action, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Center for Global Development, and Office of Management and Budget hosted an important discussion on advancing the use of evidence in foreign aid. Watch Administrator Power’s keynote.

DIV Innovator Spotlight

Congratulations to DIV Innovators Receiving MacKenzie Scott Support in 2022

In 2022, MacKenzie Scott and her team gave over $1.99 billion to 343 organizations supporting the voices and opportunities of people from underserved communities. Five of these organizations had previously received DIV funding: 

• Evidence Action (U.S.)
• Global Development Incubator (Uganda)
• Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator (South Africa)
• Innovations for Poverty Action (U.S.)
• VisionSpring (India)

Congratulations to all of the organizations for this well-deserved recognition of your work! Read more about these gifts.

PharmaJet Receives National Institutes of Health Grant to Evaluate Use of Needle-Free Delivery of HPV Vaccine DIV Stage 2 grantee PharmaJet announced it received an $800,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to evaluate the immune response of the human papillomavirus virus (HPV) vaccine using the Tropis Intradermal Needle-Free Injection System. Tropis is a jet injector that uses a high-pressure, narrow stream of fluid to penetrate the skin, rather than a traditional needle. DIV is funding PharmaJet to test Tropis with the Polio vaccine. Read more about the NIH-funded trial.

Check Out DIV's Portfolio!

To learn more about DIV’s portfolio, and get the latest news from DIV and its grantees, visit divportal.usaid.gov.

DIV is accepting applications! Please visit usaid.gov/div to learn more and apply.