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Learning and Experimentation

While GiveWell’s top charities typically have a strong independent evidence base, there are other organizations and interventions that have very high potential cost-effectiveness but need seed-stage support to develop a track record of impact so that we (or others) can help scale them up. GiveWell’s Incubation Grants program identifies giving opportunities along these lines as well as other opportunities to improve the quality of GiveWell’s recommendations. Grants in this category include academic research to build the evidence base for a potential priority program, early-stage funding for a promising organization, or support for monitoring and evaluation of an existing organization.

Learning and Experimentation is one of four thematic areas within Global Health & Development.

Our Work

Press 2/2019
GiveWell expands cost-effective giving focus to include policy interventions
from Vox

GiveWell recently announced that it’s more than doubling the size of its research team to try to find more cost-effective programs. Its revised approach involves increased attention to something relatively new for GiveWell: policy-oriented philanthropy.

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Grant 3/2020
UC Berkeley — Deworming and Cash Transfers (2020)
$88,000

Open Philanthropy recommended a GiveWell Incubation Grant to the University of California, Berkeley, to support Ted Miguel’s research on deworming and cash transfers.

Grant 8/2019
IDinsight — Endline Evaluation of New Incentives RCT
$1,666,112

Open Philanthropy recommended a GiveWell Incubation Grant to IDinsight to conduct an endline evaluation of its randomized controlled trial (RCT) of New Incentives’ conditional cash transfer program for infant immunization in northern Nigeria.

Grant 3/2019
IDinsight — Beneficiary Preferences Survey
$474,374

Open Philanthropy recommended a GiveWell Incubation Grant to IDinsight to support a study surveying how potential beneficiaries of GiveWell’s top charities value different good outcomes.

Grant 3/2019
IDinsight — New Incentives RCT
$184,324

Open Philanthropy recommended a GiveWell Incubation Grant to IDinsight to support the randomized control trial it is conducting on New Incentives’ program of conditional cash transfers for infant immunizations in northern Nigeria.

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Grant 2/2019
UC Berkeley — Deworming and Cash Transfers (2019)
$170,000

The Open Philanthropy Project recommended a GiveWell Incubation Grant to the University of California, Berkeley to hire an additional research assistant to support Ted Miguel’s research on deworming and cash transfers.

Grant 3/2019
Evidence Action — Impact Evaluation of Iron and Folic Acid Supplementation ("Phase 2")
$800,000

The Open Philanthropy Project recommended this grant to Evidence Action for the monitoring and evaluation of the Phase 2 pilot stage of its technical assistance to the Government of India’s national school-based iron and folic acid supplementation program.

Grant 3/2019
Evidence Action — Strengthen Operations (2019)
$7,751,915

The Open Philanthropy Project recommended this grant to Evidence Action for organizational strengthening.

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