An Update from D.C.: Who Should the New Administration Work With?
We’re publishing a Solutions Index to surface the next generation of organizations that should have a seat at the table
Dear Unlock Aid community,
We’re building a Solutions Index. We need you to tell us what kind of results your organization could deliver if you received $5M, $10M, or $20M+ in new funding today. This isn’t theoretical, it’s real.
U.S. foreign aid is here to stay, and the new Administration wants to know who they should be working with.
Click here to fill out this short form.
Why does this matter? Two reasons:
1. The U.S. will still be a major global development funder.
Amid the news of the functional dissolution of USAID, funding recissions, and the stop-work orders, it’s easy to miss the news that the United States will remain a dominant global development funder — and likely still the world’s largest. The House Appropriations Committee just passed a foreign aid budget at roughly 80% of last year’s levels, with line-item support for global health, food security, humanitarian assistance, and other development priorities. The Senate is expected to pass something similar.
During a recent interview with the New York Times, senior State Department official Jeremy Lewin said that the U.S. will continue funding for many traditional development areas, including PEPFAR, tuberculosis, and malaria. Investments to curb malaria remain, in his words, “one of the lowest-cost, highest-return humanitarian investments we can make.” He also said, “We think we can meet President Trump’s goal of ending mother-to-child HIV transmission by the time he leaves office.”
In May, the Administration also released its Africa Commercialization Strategy, aimed at unlocking private sector and economic growth, and expanding trade partnerships on the continent, including through ramped-up Development Finance Corporation (DFC) investments. Now five years old, the DFC is set to be reauthorized by Congress this year, and we expect it to be a significant player in the Trump Administration’s foreign policy toolkit.
2. The U.S. is looking for new partners.
As funding starts flowing again, the Administration is also actively seeking to work with a new generation of innovative, cost-effective organizations that can deliver measurable results. They’re especially interested to work with groups that have not historically partnered with the U.S. government. Secretary Rubio said during recent testimony that U.S. ambassadors would be tasked with sourcing new deals. Various U.S. officials have asked us for examples of groups they should be meeting.
With new money for global development priorities set to start flowing again soon, policymakers want to know: Who are the non-traditional, more innovative partners the U.S. government can work with right now to deliver results faster, more cost-effectively, and more sustainably than before?
Countries are asking similar questions. As local governments increasingly start to pay for health and other services that were previously funded by the U.S. government, ministers and civil servants want to know who they can work with. So do philanthropists and impact investors. The central question is the same: How do we continue providing essential services in a more cost-effective, financially sustainable way?
That’s Why We’re Launching the Solutions Index
We need to surface the best bets funders can make right now.
The global aid architecture is in the midst of a major restructuring. High-impact organizations that have weathered the past seven months are those with sustainable business models and diversified revenue streams. Many work directly with local governments or through private funding and commercial markets. But because they grew up outside the traditional aid system, they’re virtually unknown to policymakers, precisely the people who now want to work with them.
Our ongoing State of Builders Report research shows one gap clearly: there’s no public, easy-to-use resource that catalogs proven global development solutions with the capacity to absorb significant scale-up funding.
That’s why we’re creating a Solutions Index to fill that gap. It will:
Help the new Administration, donors, investors, and philanthropists quickly identify high-impact, cost-effective, and scale-ready partners.
Highlight organizations delivering measurable results with financially sustainable revenue models.
Showcase groups in demand by local governments, markets, and other local actors, a critical factor for long-term success and financial sustainability.
Who knows? The Solutions Index might even influence how the Gates Foundation spends $200 billion over the next 20 years.
Is Your Organization Ready To Get Involved?
This week, we’re taking the first step by asking interested organizations to fill out this short form, just 4–5 questions:
What do you do?
Where do you work and where could you easily expand?
What measurable results could you deliver with $5M–$20M+ in additional funding? What key metrics would you track (i.e., HIV drugs delivered, homes electrified, Internet access expanded)?
Who else pays for what you do (local governments, markets, other buyers)?
Would you agree to results-based funding and transparent reporting of your results?
📍 If your organization can answer these questions, we want to hear from you.
Submit your information here.
We’ll be sharing what we learn with Administration officials and other interested funders soon and on a rolling basis after that, so please respond ASAP. We may eventually launch what we learn as a public-facing database to make this a global good (nothing will be published without your permission).
What Happens Next?
There’s a lot happening right now. Much of it is fast-moving, complex, and often hard to follow.
But one thing is increasingly clear: the United States will remain a dominant global development funder.
From our perspective at Unlock Aid, the most important thing we can do now is get money out the door to high-impact groups in ways that align with our core principles:
Cost-effective and results-oriented;
In true partnership with countries and communities;
With clear, time-bound plans to transition donor funding to sustainable financing sources.
That’s what building sustainable development looks like. We want to hear from those ready to help build the future with us.
To progress,
Unlock Aid
P.S. If you’re interested to be included in our Solutions Index, please make sure to fill out this form.