Last Updated: August 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:
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- 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.
- Early-stage funding for a promising organization.
- 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:
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- 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 |
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New Incentives—General Support (April 2020) | New Incentives | $1,897,905 | April 2020 |
UC Berkeley—Research Support Exit Grant | Regents of the University of California, Berkeley | $88,000 | March 2020 |
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.