Evidence Action — Planning for Future Programs

Organization:
Evidence Action
Award Date:
03/2014
Amount:
$250,000
Purpose:
For the support of Evidence Action's planning for future programs it may scale up.

In March 2014, Good Ventures made a $250,000 grant to Evidence Action, the parent organization of the GiveWell-recommended Deworm the World Initiative, to support its assessment of programs to consider scaling up. This grant is part of our broader plan to support the creation of new giving opportunities that meet GiveWell's traditional criteria.

Our expectation is that this grant will pay for:[1]

We hope that this funding enables Evidence Action to identify additional programs to scale, eventually leading to it to implement new, evidence-backed programs with significant room for additional funding.

Read more:

Footnotes
  1. [1]

    In an email conversation, Alix Zwane, Evidence Action's Executive Director, wrote that, with this grant, Evidence Action aims to "clarify questions about how to deliver services and optimize costs, and in the process confirm impacts. This is some of the work that we would like postdocs to be able to do, in fact. Example: We mentioned to you before that we are considering whether we should provide bednets on deworming days. Research so far suggests that this could be valuable to do to keep coverage high between community based campaigns. We need now to run a trial in which we compare: handing out nets, handing out coupons for nets at shops, handing out coupons for nets at nodal clinics (and a control group). We need to then assess usage, coverage, which would reaffirm impacts.  There will be analogous needs with ag extension, migration, etc." And, "I would like to be able to fund research/proposal development via an IDInsight or some other group. I think that the "deliverable" would be a strong proposal for rolling out a program ($5-$10m), backed by evidence and a first pass at a business model based on additional research as needed." Alix Zwane, emails to GiveWell, March 3 and March 7, 2014.