USAID’s beloved innovation lab is back from the dead

Every great new discovery has to start somewhere.

Penicillin was born out of moldy petri dishes followed by years of experimental testing. The Spice Girls started with an open audition, months of rehearsals in a shared house, and demo tapes stolen in the name of girl power. When it comes to US foreign aid, the engine behind new discoveries tackling enormous global challenges was a tiny program called Development Innovation Ventures, or DIV.

Like the rest of the US Agency for International Development, DIV — which cost less than 12 cents per American per year to run — was dismantled within the first few months of the second Trump administration. Many vital projects, like a new low-cost, electricity-free respiratory kit for helping babies breathe, were cut off from support even as they “were moments away from the finish line,” said Sasha Gallant, who led DIV under USAID.

As broad swaths of global health architecture plunged into survival mode, the world also lost a cutting-edge clearinghouse for finding out what works and what doesn’t work in foreign aid. It was one of the only programs in the world laser-focused not only on saving people’s lives now, but also on learning how to save many more lives in the future.

But now, one year later, DIV is back — and under new management. Instead of being an entity under USAID, former leaders have spun the program into a newly-formed independent nonprofit called the DIV Fund. Backed by private philanthropy, including a $45 million grant from Coefficient Giving, the slow and steady work of building a brighter future can continue.

”It was hard to even think about innovation early in the year. It was like the house was on fire, and we’ve just got to get the kids out of the house,” said Gallant, who co-founded the new fund. But ultimately, “you also have to have better houses. We have to have better tools to extinguish the fires.”

For one possibility, look to Guatemala, where corn figures into almost every meal. DIV-backed program Semilla Nueva is literally seeding a new treatment for malnutrition by connecting local farmers with maize bred to contain higher levels of zinc, iron, and protein. There’s also Uganda — where Health Access Connect is building a fleet of motorcycle taxis to bring health professionals to remote villages — and Bangladesh, where the ARCED Foundation is fighting air pollution using data and satellite imagery.

DIV’s work differs from other NGOs that tend to fund solutions that are already standard practice, and only rarely invest in incubating and testing out brand new approaches. DIV supports organizations as they pilot and pressure test those projects to see if they really work in practice. If the evidence says they do, then — and only then — will DIV then help those organizations scale up.

This model served DIV — and by extension, the world — very well during its 15-year stint at USAID. In 2021, a group of economists including Gallant and Nobel-winning cofounder Michael Kremer estimated that the $19.2 million DIV spent in its first three years generated $281 million in social benefits, which is a fancy way of saying that DIV helped an extraordinary number of people live longer, healthier, more prosperous lives. That wouldn’t have been possible without careful investments in research and development.

“People come to know the programs that are tremendously effective,” like investing in teachers, handing out malaria nets, or getting kids vaccinated, said Gallant. “But somebody had to figure out that those worked.”

As an independent nonprofit, the DIV Fund won’t have nearly as much money or resources as it did at USAID. This year, the fund will grant out about $25 million per year, just under half of what it could give before. You can help them overcome that gap by donating to their work here.

But even so, DIV’s real potential has always come from punching above its weight, especially in moments when the good ideas it finds eventually catapult into the mainstream. Gallant said the fund’s ultimate goal is to continue connecting with partners — including philanthropists, national governments, and multilateral organizations — to ensure that innovation is “not just happening in an R&D shop” but rather “meaningfully influencing” decisions about where to steer funds in the real world.

And if the US government ever comes knocking again, she says they’ll welcome it with open arms. The doors are “entirely open,” said Gallant, and “will remain open to any partner trying to think about how to integrate evidence-driven innovation into large-scale programming.”