Every month we send an email newsletter to our supporters sharing recent updates from our work. We publish selected portions of the newsletter on our blog to make this news more accessible to people who visit our website. For key updates from the latest installment, please see below!
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Casting a Wider Net for Cost-Effective Programs
Most of GiveWell’s grantmaking sits in a small number of areas we’ve studied for years—malaria, nutrition, vaccines, water, and livelihoods. But as our research team’s capacity has grown, so has the range of cause areas we investigate. We believe there could be other highly cost-effective interventions, and our new areas research subteam is working hard to find them.
Take amoxicillin, a common antibiotic used to treat childhood pneumonia. In many health facilities in low- and middle-income settings, medicine stock is still tracked by hand and counted about once a month, so staff often don’t know a drug has run out until a child needs it and it isn’t there. One of the grants featured in a recent GiveWell podcast episode aims to prevent shortages before they happen by funding an electronic supply chain management system to track medicine supplies in real time in Laos.
In the episode, GiveWell co-founder and CEO Elie Hassenfeld speaks with Senior Program Officer Dan Brown, who leads our new areas research subteam. They discuss the grant in Laos and two others: the first provides early support for a new, low-maintenance device that produces medical oxygen, and the second funds two studies that will help us better understand a program that trains caregivers in practices that support newborn health in India.
The three grants look very different, but they are grounded in the same principles of rigor and truth-seeking that apply to all our work. By focusing on cost-effectiveness, evidence, and learning, we think the work of our new areas research subteam could lead to many more lives saved and improved over time. Read more on our blog.
Scaling Our Impact, with Support from a $1 Billion Commitment
Halfway through this year, we’ve already surpassed our 2025 grantmaking total, with more than $400 million in grants committed so far to save and improve lives. We anticipate our total grantmaking is likely to approach, and potentially exceed, $1 billion this year, and our team is working toward a future in which our grantmaking could be several times this year’s scale.
This growth is possible because of years spent building a research team that can find more, and bigger, high-impact opportunities. It’s also possible because of donors who share our mission to help people in need as much as we can.
We’re excited to share that Coefficient Giving has increased its near-term funding commitment for GiveWell grants to $1 billion to support the continued scaling of our work. This commitment is both extraordinary and timely. Near-term needs continue to far surpass our fundraising expectations, and we are actively working to raise more funds to support a growing set of cost-effective opportunities to help people. Read the announcement on our blog.
Tackling Diarrheal Disease in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and South Sudan
Diarrhea is one of the leading causes of death for children under five, killing more than 400,000 children every year. GiveWell has funded several programs to prevent and treat diarrhea, and we recently made a grant to support the implementation and evaluation of WASHmobile—a water, sanitation, and hygiene program developed by Johns Hopkins University—in DRC and South Sudan.
In our latest podcast episode, GiveWell co-founder and CEO Elie Hassenfeld speaks with Senior Program Officer Erin Crossett, who leads our water research subteam, about how WASHmobile works, what prior research tells us about its potential, and what we expect to learn from this grant.
Elie and Erin discuss:
- How WASHmobile works: To reduce the risk of diarrheal disease spreading, WASHmobile identifies children who have been hospitalized with severe diarrhea, delivers handwashing supplies and chlorine tablets to their households, and follows up with phone reminders about safe water practices. Because household members often share the same water source and live in close quarters, treating water and improving hygiene during this critical window can prevent further infections and deaths.
- Navigating uncertainty in fragile contexts: WASHmobile is being implemented in South Kivu (DRC) and Jonglei State (South Sudan), where active armed conflict, severe flooding, and large displaced populations make program implementation challenging. Even with a substantial chance of program failure built into our modeling, we estimate the program could be highly cost-effective because disease burden in these areas is so high.
- Building learning into the grant: Roughly half of the grant funds implementation, and half funds evaluation and data collection to help us test key assumptions in our cost-effectiveness model. In DRC, we’re funding a randomized controlled trial that will be conducted alongside implementation to measure the program’s effect on hospital admissions for diarrhea among children under five. In South Sudan, where a full trial wasn’t feasible, we’re funding mortality surveys and operational monitoring to better understand baseline mortality and whether the program is being implemented as intended.
Read our episode summary for more, and subscribe to be notified of our newest episodes.
Grant Spotlight
Our grantmaking aims to support programs and research that save and improve lives the most per dollar. Here’s a look at one recent example:
Where: To be determined
What: Sourcing and funding a portfolio of promising early-stage water quality and access innovations
Who: The DIV Fund
Total: $5 million
How it works: The DIV Fund, an evidence-driven innovation fund that tests and scales cost-effective global development solutions, will use this grant to source and fund early-stage water quality and access programs through an open request for proposals (RFP). While the RFP is open to all sectors, GiveWell’s grant will only apply to water interventions, with the goal of building a pipeline of high-potential, cost-effective opportunities that we could consider for future funding.
Why this grant: Unsafe water causes more than 750,000 deaths each year. Since 2022, GiveWell has directed more than $150 million to water quality interventions, primarily chlorination programs, which we consider among the most cost-effective water interventions available. This grant is meant to widen that effort by helping surface a broader range of high-impact water opportunities that GiveWell can evaluate for future funding at scale.
Funded by: Donations to GiveWell’s Unrestricted Fund
Hiring Announcements
Featured Role: Senior Philanthropy Advisor
We’re hiring a Senior Philanthropy Advisor to manage and advise a portfolio of our largest donors. This role will help major philanthropists scale their giving to high-impact causes and help GiveWell direct significantly more funding to the most cost-effective programs we can identify to save and improve lives.
As a Senior Philanthropy Advisor, you’ll build long-term relationships with our largest donors, lead fundraising projects that help our philanthropy function scale, and serve as a strategic advisor to leadership.
If you’re an experienced relationship-builder who is excited to connect major philanthropists to high-impact giving, we’d love to hear from you.
We have several other newly opened positions—if you know someone who might be a good fit, please share the link and encourage them to apply.
- Senior Program Officer
- Program Officer
- Senior Researchers (subteam-specific roles available)
- Senior Accountant
- Staff Accountant
Visit our Jobs page to see all open positions.
Partner Roundup
- Read Malaria Consortium’s new study on ways to improve delivery of seasonal malaria chemoprevention in complex settings.
- Learn about the 86-year-old community health worker helping vitamin A supplementation reach children across Cameroon through Helen Keller Intl’s program.
- Watch Giving What We Can’s new short film on the history of the global fight against malaria.
Comments or Questions?
We’re always looking for fresh perspectives on our research. If you have comments or questions about our work, we want to hear from you! Reach out to us at info@givewell.org.