Reimagining Fundraising: The 2022 Global Innovation Challenge Association of Fundraising Professionals
Such activity is evidence of the U.S. government’s significant role in creating and funding the innovation ecosystem, where it is playing an outsized role. Recent work by economist Michael Kremer suggests that DIV had delivered significant impact at the portfolio level. In a 2019 paper that reviewed DIV’s early portfolio investments, Kremer and his coauthors found that 10 out of 41 initial innovations reached 1 million or more direct beneficiaries. These 10 innovations likely accounted for 95 percent of the 55 million people that the 41 innovations reached, accounting for the vast majority of DIV’s social return. Sufficient data was available for Kremer and his coauthors to estimate a social rate of return on four of DIV’s innovations that reach 1 million or more direct beneficiaries. They estimate that these four innovations will generate $86 million in discounted social benefits, or $5 per $1 invested by DIV. Expanding Innovation Looking ahead, Kremer and his colleagues suggest t