Infographic for the Cause Approach

Infographic for the Funding Opportunity Approach

Executive Summary

The Issue

In January 2025, the US government initiated a 90-day pause on new foreign aid. This pause was followed by a State Department memo halting all new obligations and existing work, leading to massive USAID staff reductions. Secretary Rubio subsequently announced the termination of most foreign aid programs, aiming to bring the remaining 12% under State Department control. These actions have resulted in immediate disruptions, including increased disease-related deaths, organizational shutdowns, and vital supplies being held up. In the last few months, we have had conversations with donors and foundations who wish to allocate funds in response to the US foreign aid cuts. This document is meant as a handy resource to help donors and foundations think through these issues. We provide two approaches below.

The Cause Approach

If you are a donor with attachments to a specific cause area (such as education, governance, or health) trying to decide whether you should give additional funding today, we suggest the following approach:

1. Evaluate the extent of the US's involvement in your chosen sector or cause before the cuts.
   1. Why? If the US has historically been a significant donor, there's a stronger case for increased need for funding today.
   2. How? We’ve obtained and cleaned foreign aid data from the US government that shows the size of past investments here.  Talking to experts is another helpful strategy.
2. Evaluate the likelihood of your cause area worsening in the very short term without immediate funding.
   1. Why? If you think things within your cause area will deteriorate very quickly, then there’s a stronger case for increased funding today.
   2. We suggest starting with your intuitions, and building these out through desk research (see our worked example here, built in 3-4 hours), talking to experts, or hiring others to do this work for you (balancing against the size of your potential donation).
3. Assess the likelihood of continued support from the US or other sources, including recipient or other governments.
   1. Why? If others are unlikely to fill this gap, then there is a stronger case for increased funding today.
   2. How? Form opinions about what donors will fund using news resources, desk research, and tools like The Budget Cuts Tracker.

We have identified, but not yet vetted, several funds designed to fill current gaps or adapt to the present challenge. More information is available in Table 1.

• Development Innovation Ventures (DIV) Emergency Fund
• Foreign Aid Bridge Fund
• GiveWell
• Keep the Lights On
• Rapid Response Fund

The Funding Opportunity Approach

If you are a large donor trying to allocate your giving to a specific set of interventions and have access to resources to inform your decisions, here are three things we think are relatively important. Especially in the current crisis, donors should strive for a "good enough" level of research that allows them to make reasonably informed decisions without excessively depleting their giving capacity.

What is the total impact?

• Whatever outcomes you aim to achieve, we think it’s important to prioritize those with the largest impact.
• We strongly recommend considering "local total impact," for example, keeping in mind that infrastructure from one organization may underpin other initiatives. The long-term sustainability of organizations you are supporting is key.

What is most neglected?

• While philanthropic efforts will not entirely fill the gap in USAID funding, it’s still important to avoid donor coordination problems and support initiatives that receive less attention.
• It may be possible to identify neglected areas by recognizing signals of "crowded" funding landscapes, and considering opportunities other than direct delivery, such as the final stages of research.

Will my funding make a difference?

• Given the far reaching implications of the USAID foreign aid cuts, it’s necessary to check whether a given opportunity is limited by non-financial constraints.
• Funding opportunities that aim to deliver “last-mile” interventions may be most feasible, but you should still check for issues such as unclear ownership of supplies or limited infrastructure.

We’ve identified, but not vetted, some lists of specific funding opportunities that may be helpful in combination with more general funds described above:

• IPA research projects,
• Project Resource Optimization [available beginning March 28],
• Ultra Philanthropy.

Interested in learning more?  Read the report

Contributions and acknowledgments

Tom Vargas researched and wrote this report, with Aisling Leow providing supervision, guidance, and support. Special thanks to Marcus Davis for review, and Hannah Bell, Harlan Downs-Tepper,  Nic Lyon, Rossa O'Keeffe-O'Donovan, Caitlin Tulloch, and Rickard Vikstrom for comments on earlier versions of this report, in their individual capacity. Thanks also to the additional, unnamed experts who we spoke with to inform this report. Thanks also to Shaan Shaikh for copyediting support, and to Sarina Wong for assisting with the dissemination of the report. An anonymous donor provided funding for this report, but they do not necessarily endorse our conclusions.