Our approach

Focused on addressing key development problems

At GIF, we invest in a range of innovations with strong potential for social impact at a large scale. We define ‘innovation’ broadly to include new business models, policy practices, technologies, behavioural insights, or ways of delivering products and services that benefit the poor in developing countries — any solution that has potential to address an important development problem more effectively than existing approaches.

Supporting innovators

Across our portfolio, we support innovators who are committed to using and generating rigorous evidence about what works. We offer financing from USD $50,000 to $15 million, with the largest funding amounts reserved for innovations that can demonstrate evidence of success and that have potential to spread across multiple developing countries.

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How we scale

Realising impact potential

We are serious about scaling up successes and following through with transformative ideas until they realise their impact potential. We are willing to take informed risks as needed to invest in the best ideas early on, and we will continue to support ideas that have proven success in achieving social impact. We expect our most successful innovations will eventually scale up to reach millions of people in developing countries with support from the private sector, developing country governments, donors, or philanthropy.

GIF for Researchers

Evidence is at the heart of GIF’s staged approach to investment. We take well-informed risks in pursuit of high social benefits and, as we do so, we embed learning into each investment we make. Whether you are a researcher with an innovative but untested idea, you have already evaluated an innovation and found it to be promising, or you are interested in evaluating an innovation which is currently being implemented, we want to hear from you.

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Global Innovation Fund is a registered charity (number 1171353) and company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (number 09223487). Registered office: Global Innovation Fund, 8 Devonshire Square, London, EC2M 4PL.

GIF takes a zero-tolerance approach to bribery and corruption in our activities or in any programs or projects that we support. So-called “facilitation payments” are also prohibited by our Anti-Corruption and Integrity Policy.