International Care Ministries

International Care Ministries (ICM) uses a different approach to the standard graduation models deployed globally. They leverage a large network of pastors and the pastors' social capital in villages to deliver a "light-touch" version of graduation, called Transform, to last-mile locations. Transform focuses on providing training and mentoring services, without any explicit large asset transfer or basic income support, resulting in a fully loaded cost of approximately $12 per family member. ICM attributes this efficiency to its leveraging of the local infrastructure of deeply embedded faith communities. Prior to GIF investment, ICM had graduated over 250,000 families from its four-month Transform programme, impacting 1.3 million people.

By the end of 2025 ICM had completed five randomised evaluations testing different iterations and adaptation to the Transform programme, with three more yet to be completed, all published on the ICM website. Compared to early evaluations of the Transform programme, the results show weaker impacts on income and consumption, in part attributable to COVID-19 restrictions which impaired economic activity. The programme, however, led to consistently positive impacts on saving behaviours. Other adaptations to the programme - including attendance incentives, extending the duration, adding cash grants and and incorporating video elements - were found not to be cost-effective in improving outcomes. Evaluations of transform components related to health and education, however, yielding large and significant boosts. This included treatments for TB and malnutrition, and a home based early childhood intervention which yielded learning gains in maths and phonics equivalent to two years of additional schooling per $100. In the Philippines alone, ICM has already graduated 2 million family members from Transform program and about 600,000 family members are still saving in an ICM savings group. ICM has also launched the Transform programme in Guatemala and Uganda as part of its strategy to test and promote the applicability of these approaches in a wider variety of developing country contexts and has published a toolkit of resources used on the Transform programme to allow others.