UC Berkeley — Research Support Exit Grant

Published: March 2020

Note: This page summarizes the rationale behind a GiveWell Incubation Grant to the Regents of the University of California, Berkeley. Ted Miguel, whose research this grant is intended to support, reviewed this page prior to publication.

In February 2019, as part of GiveWell’s work to support research to further our understanding of our current priority programs, we recommended a grant of $170,000 to support Ted Miguel to hire an additional research assistant for two years to support his research on deworming and cash transfers. Because we do not plan to renew our support at the end of that period, in March of 2020 GiveWell recommended an exit grant of $88,000. This amount is half of the previous grant – i.e. one additional year of support – plus a small cost-of-living adjustment.

In general, we believe it is a good practice to offer exit grants, in order to:

• Enable programs that we have supported to remain operational long enough to seek out other sources of funding.
• Reduce potential harms to the staff, partners, and beneficiaries of programs that we have supported which might result from a sudden shut down.
• Maintain a reputation as a responsible funder.