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GiveWell Updates
- To direct substantially more funding to the most cost-effective opportunities we can find to help people, GiveWell’s research is expanding in two directions at once: going broader, to cover more areas of global health and development, and going deeper, to improve the inputs that inform our decision-making.
Our latest podcast episode offers a behind-the-scenes look at how this expansion is playing out on GiveWell’s research team, as three researchers each describe a project they’ve taken on: reassessing how to prevent childhood pneumonia deaths, building a better estimate of how many children die of malaria, and developing an AI tool to check our work for errors.
- During UN General Assembly week, GiveWell co-founder and CEO Elie Hassenfeld joined Devex Impact House for a conversation about how to direct more funding toward opportunities to save and improve lives.
Elie discussed how GiveWell decides which programs to fund, how we’re preparing for a potential increase in philanthropic giving, and why truth-seeking and transparency remain central to our approach.
- GiveWell, with co-funding from Coefficient Giving, recently announced our largest grant to date: $276 million to the Against Malaria Foundation (AMF) to support the procurement and distribution of 92 million nets in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) from 2027 through 2029. We estimate that the nets, 46 million of which we think would not otherwise be distributed, will avert roughly 67,000 deaths.
Our blog post with interactive data visualizations lets you explore the research behind the grant. In a recent podcast episode, GiveWell co-founder and CEO Elie Hassenfeld and Senior Program Officer Alex Bowles, who led the investigation, discuss the questions the team set out to answer during the grant investigation and what changes when GiveWell funds a program at this scale.
- GiveWell’s Cross-Cutting research subteam works to improve our grantmaking by investigating program impacts, resolving major uncertainties, and strengthening our data collection and analysis.
In our recent podcast episode, GiveWell co-founder and CEO Elie Hassenfeld speaks with Program Director Alex Cohen, who leads the Cross-Cutting subteam, about how better data can improve our decision-making, how we’re working to gather stronger evidence, and how we’ve tested AI as a tool to increase our research capacity and quality.
The Good Food Institute Organisation Updates:
Last month, the UN declared that there is no realistic pathway left to prevent global warming from exceeding the Paris Agreement’s 1.5ºC threshold. This summer’s heatwaves cost the EU 12 million tonnes of crops, and now we’re being warned that a stronger El Niño could have repercussions for global food security. It’s a stark reminder of why we do this work, and why your support of GFI matters now more than ever.
Here are a few things we’re doing this month to accelerate the transition towards a more sustainable and resilient food system:
Investing in student research through the Alt Protein Project
GFI's university programme, the Alt Protein Project, has now directly facilitated over 100 jobs, more than a dozen alternative protein-focused courses, and many more student research projects. This year, we piloted our first academic challenge, a hackathon for alt protein research, where student teams take on a specific bottleneck the sector needs to solve.
Thanks our donors, GFI supported each project with $2,000 to $5,000. This early-stage funding draws students into the field and encourages more of the high-impact research needed for alternative proteins to reach their potential. You can hear five of the final teams present their work in our latest webinar here.
Connecting UK startup with the funding they need
The UK is one of the most supportive governments in Europe for alternative proteins. It set up Europe’s first regulatory sandbox for cultivated meat, and now its innovation agency has announced two new funding calls for alternative proteins, worth £13.5 million. GFI Europe has responded by flagging these calls to the businesses we work with, aiming to direct funding towards high-impact work most likely to move the sector forward.
GFI Europe has previous success here. Adamo Foods, a UK startup, went on to win a €10 million Horizon Europe grant after GFI Europe informed them of the grant and encouraged them to apply. In a tough climate where private investment is declining, connecting companies to public funding is even more important.
Brazil’s agricultural research body recommends diversifying production to include plant-based proteins
Good news from Brazil: Embrapa, the country’s national agricultural research corporation, published its strategic agenda for the future of Brazilian agriculture, making the case for diversifying food sources with plant-based proteins. Brazil is one of the world’s biggest agricultural producers and the largest exporter of beef, so this recommendation from such an influential agricultural body is a huge win.
GFI Brazil has engaged with Embrapa on alternative proteins for years, through research funding, workshops, technical visits, and broader engagement. Since 2019, GFI has funded 11 alternative protein research projects there, totalling nearly US$1 million. It’s fantastic to see this translating into national recommendations for the sector.
We’re hiring:
Find career opportunities with GFI’s global affiliates here.
Thank you!