We fund innovative development solutions.

Innovation is a novel business or organizational models, operational or production processes, or products or services that lead to substantial improvements (not incremental “next steps”) in addressing development challenges. Innovation may incorporate science and technology but is often broader, to include new processes or business models. Innovation can help produce development outcomes more effectively, more cheaply, that reach more beneficiaries, and in a shorter period of time.

We are open to ideas from anywhere.

Open sourcing means that ideas can come from anywhere. That is why DIV accepts applications from any private or public company, NGO, non-profit, social enterprise, academic institution, or individual from any sector in any country where USAID operates.

We provide tiered funding.

Borrowing from the experience of venture capital, DIV takes advantage of a staged financing model. We pilot promising new ideas with small amounts of money, and we scale only those solutions that rigorously demonstrate their impact.

We believe in evidence-based, data-driven development.

DIV encourages the use of rigorous testing methods (e.g. market test, measuring causal impacts) as appropriate given the stage of the proposal and the scale path. Evidence can encompass ultimate impacts, or improvements in implementation outcomes for those solutions that have been causally linked to ultimate impacts in the past. DIV strives to be an effective steward of taxpayer dollars by requiring rigorous evaluations of development interventions’ results.

We support cost-effective solutions.

DIV seeks innovations that deliver more development impacts per dollar than other ways of achieving the same development goals. Alternatively, an innovation could achieve the exact same development outcomes as an alternative project, but at a smaller cost.

We expect proven solutions to scale to reach millions.

Innovations are expected to eventually scale up through the public sector, the private sector, or in some cases a combination of the two. Public sector scaling plans demonstrate that grantees are likely to compel host country governments, multilateral donors or other public sector players to scale the innovation. Grantees who expect to scale through the private sector will plan to achieve commercial viability themselves, or convincingly demonstrate that other businesses will scale their innovation, or a combination of both.

We fail fast.

Because DIV supports early-stage innovation, we expect that some of our investments may not produce their projected outcomes or will produce suboptimal outcomes. We manage our portfolio’s risk by staging financing to correspond with evidence of success, and we expect to learn from projects that run into challenges.

We provide flexible funding.

DIV believes that our funding should allow grantees the flexibility to adapt and grow, focusing on outcomes, rather than being confined to strict deliverables and project plans. We have the resources to invest early and to stay with the most promising innovations as they grow.

We take the “lean start-up” approach.

Since its founding and first call for proposals in October, 2010, DIV has committed to a “start-up” style of iteration and improvement. DIV expects that our grantees will apply this same model in their approach and allows them the flexibility to test and iterate their operations in real-time.

We aim to bridge the innovation gap.

Many social entrepreneurs with promising innovations lack access to early financing, while investors often lack promising organizations to support. DIV provides early capital to these higher risk solutions in hopes of demonstrating their impact and viability so others may further invest to help them reach greater scale.