GiveWell Incubation Grants

Last Updated: January 2020 (November 2016 version)

GiveWell Incubation Grants aim to support the development of future GiveWell top charities.

The top charities we recommend to donors generally have a strong independent evidence base supporting the intervention they're implementing, a track record (enabling us to assess their effectiveness and ability to use additional funding), and monitoring and evaluation information to demonstrate their programs are working. In order to meet these criteria, charities tend to have existed for a number of years, and have typically received funding from other organizations by the point where we feel confident recommending them.

Our work on GiveWell Incubation Grants involves considering organizations for support at any point in their development, with the hope of identifying additional future top charities to recommend to our donors.

What types of programs do Incubation Grants support?

We are interested in funding (primarily by making grant recommendations to the Open Philanthropy Project, with which we work closely) Incubation Grants in the following categories:

1. Academic research to evaluate program evidence, in order to build the evidence base for a potential priority program or to further our understanding of our current priority programs.
2. Early-stage funding for a promising organization.
3. Monitoring and evaluation of an existing organization.

What types of opportunities are we currently prioritizing most highly?

Our goal is to use Incubation Grants to improve and expand our top charities. We prioritize most highly grants that could:

• Potentially lead to top charities that are significantly more cost-effective than our current top charities. Our latest cost-effectiveness model is here.
• Expand the scope of GiveWell's research and the nature of the programs we have evaluated as long as we expect the programs to perform well on our evidence of effectiveness and cost-effectiveness criteria. For example, see our grant to the Centre for Pesticide Suicide Prevention as an example of expanding the scope of the types of programs we consider.

How can organizations apply for an Incubation Grant?

The application for a GiveWell Incubation Grant is available here. If you have questions about applying, please contact info@givewell.org.

All Incubation Grants made

Grant	Organization Name	Amount	Date
IDinsight—Endline Evaluation of New Incentives RCT)	IDinsight	$2,105,962	August 2019
Fortify Health—General Support (2019)	Fortify Health	$1,005,716	August 2019
Charity Science Health—Exit Grant	Charity Science Health	$214,425	July 2019
Instiglio—Designing a Health Outcomes Fund	Instiglio	$60,000	April 2019
IDinsight—Beneficiary Preferences Survey (2019)	IDinsight	$474,374	March 2019
Evidence Action—Strengthen Operations (2019)	Evidence Action	$7,751,915	March 2019
Evidence Action—Impact Evaluation of Iron and Folic Acid Supplementation ("Phase 2")	Evidence Action	$800,000	March 2019
IDinsight—New Incentives RCT (February to May 2019)	IDinsight	$184,324	February 2019
UC Berkeley—Research Support	Regents of the University of California, Berkeley	$170,000	February 2019
Results for Development—Childhood Pneumonia Treatment Program (2019)	Results for Development	$5,605,398	January 2019
Evidence Action Beta—Iron and Folic Acid Supplementation ("Phase 2")	Evidence Action Beta	$3,408,259	December 2018
Innovation in Government Initiative—General Support	Innovation in Government Initiative	$1,000,000	December 2018
Evidence Action Beta—Incubator Program	Evidence Action Beta	$5,069,866	July 2018
Fortify Health—General Support	Fortify Health	$295,217	June 2018
Nick Otis—Forecasting Research	Nick Otis	$10,000	May 2018
IDinsight—Embedded GiveWell Team (2018)	IDinsight	$1,196,729	April 2018
Evidence Action Beta—Iron and Folic Acid Supplementation	Evidence Action Beta	$320,000	March 2018
Evidence Action—General Operating Support	Evidence Action	$800,000	December 2017
New Incentives—General Support (November 2017)	New Incentives	$5,944,203	November 2017
Centre for Pesticide Suicide Prevention—General Support	Centre for Pesticide Suicide Prevention	$1,336,409	August 2017
Center for Effective Global Action at UC Berkeley—Scoping RCTs for Long-Term Follow-Ups	Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) at the University of California, Berkeley	$492,188	July 2017
Charity Science Health—SMS Reminders for Immunization	Charity Science Health	$357,543	July 2017
Center for Effective Global Action at UC Berkeley—Deworming Study Planning Gift	Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) at the University of California, Berkeley	$18,000	June 2017
IDinsight—Embedded GiveWell Team (2017)	IDinsight	$2,321,617	May 2017
UC Berkeley—KLPS-4 Survey	Regents of the University of California, Berkeley	$1,104,259	April 2017
Evidence Action—Strengthen Operations	Evidence Action	$2,642,300	April 2017
New Incentives—General Support (2017)	New Incentives	$820,000	April 2017
Georgetown University Initiative on Innovation, Development, and Evaluation—Zusha! Road Safety Campaign	Georgetown University Initiative on Innovation, Development, and Evaluation	$900,000	January 2017
Evidence Action—No Lean Season	Evidence Action (No Lean Season)	$1,687,500	December 2016
New Incentives—Exit Grant and Immunizations Pilot	New Incentives	$368,587	November 2016
Charity Science Health—General Support	Charity Science Health	$200,000	November 2016
IDinsight—Embedded GiveWell Team	IDinsight	$314,752	October 2016
IDinsight—General Support (2016)	IDinsight	$1,985,000	June 2016
Results for Development—Childhood Pneumonia Treatment Scale-Up	Results for Development	$6,400,000	May 2016
Innovations for Poverty Action—Mindset Engagement in Cash Transfers	Innovations for Poverty Action	$350,000	May 2016
New Incentives—General Support (2016)	New Incentives	$300,000	March 2016
Evidence Action—No Lean Season	Evidence Action (No Lean Season)	$812,351	March 2016
J-PAL and IRD—Incentives for Immunization Studies	Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and Interactive Research and Development	$200,000	September 2015
New Incentives—General Support	New Incentives	$100,000	March 2015
IDinsight—Scaling Up a High-Potential Development Intervention	IDinsight	$34,382	September 2014
Evidence Action—Future Programs (No Lean Season)	Evidence Action (No Lean Season)	$250,000 and $170,792	March 2014 and March 2015
New Incentives—General Support (2014)	New Incentives	$100,000	January 2014

December 19, 2016 Update: GiveWell Incubation Grants were previously known as "GiveWell's experimental work." We have changed the name for clarity.