From Government Lab to Independent Force: DIV's Remarkable Resurrection

For less than the cost of a candy bar per American per year, a tiny government program was quietly revolutionizing how we solve the world's biggest problems. Then it vanished overnight. Now, one year later, it's back—and this time, it's playing by different rules.

Development Innovation Ventures (DIV) wasn't your typical foreign aid program. While most international development follows well-worn paths—distributing mosquito nets, building schools, providing vaccines—DIV was the rare outfit betting on untested ideas that could change everything.

The House on Fire

When the second Trump administration dismantled USAID in early 2025, DIV became collateral damage. Projects "moments away from the finish line" suddenly lost funding. A revolutionary electricity-free respiratory kit for newborns? Cut. High-protein corn varieties fighting malnutrition in Guatemala? Gone. Motorcycle taxi networks bringing healthcare to remote Ugandan villages? Terminated.

Sasha Gallant, who led DIV under USAID, described those early months: "It was like the house was on fire, and we've just got to get the kids out of the house." But even as the global health architecture went into survival mode, she couldn't shake a fundamental truth: "You also have to have better houses. We have to have better tools to extinguish the fires."

Phoenix from the Ashes

That's exactly what happened. Today, DIV has been reborn as the DIV Fund, an independent nonprofit backed by $45 million from Coefficient Giving and other private philanthropy. It's a remarkable transformation—from government agency to private innovation lab in just twelve months.

The new fund will distribute about $25 million annually, roughly half of DIV's former government budget. But there's something liberating about this downsizing. No longer subject to political winds or bureaucratic constraints, the DIV Fund can focus purely on what it does best: finding needles in haystacks and turning them into solutions that scale.

The Art of Smart Betting

What made DIV special wasn't just its willingness to fund long shots—it was its obsession with evidence. Unlike traditional NGOs that fund proven approaches, DIV specialized in the messy, uncertain work of testing whether crazy ideas actually work.

The numbers speak for themselves. A 2021 study by economists including Nobel laureate Michael Kremer found that DIV's first $19.2 million generated $281 million in social benefits. That's not just impressive—it's transformational. Every dollar invested returned nearly $15 in measurable human welfare improvements.

"People come to know the programs that are tremendously effective," Gallant explains, "like investing in teachers, handing out malaria nets, or getting kids vaccinated. But somebody had to figure out that those worked."

The Innovation Ecosystem

That's DIV's real genius—it doesn't just fund projects, it builds the infrastructure for discovery. In Bangladesh, the ARCED Foundation is using satellite imagery to fight air pollution. In Guatemala, Semilla Nueva is literally seeding better nutrition by connecting farmers with zinc and iron-rich maize varieties. Each project represents years of careful testing, iteration, and evidence-gathering.

This approach differs fundamentally from traditional philanthropy, which often scales solutions before proving they work. DIV inverts that logic: prove it first, then scale it everywhere.

The Road Ahead

As an independent entity, the DIV Fund faces new challenges. Smaller budget, no government backing, and the constant need to prove its worth to private donors. But Gallant sees opportunity in these constraints. The fund's ultimate goal isn't just to run an "R&D shop" but to "meaningfully influence" how billions in development dollars get allocated worldwide.

The door remains open for government partnership. "We will remain open to any partner trying to think about how to integrate evidence-driven innovation into large-scale programming," Gallant says. Whether that partner is the US government, the Gates Foundation, or the World Bank matters less than the commitment to evidence-based solutions.