With $48M in philanthropic backing, a division of USAID relaunches as nonprofit
Source: The Independent
Friday 06 February 2026 08:07 EST
A division of the U.S. Agency for International Development eliminated by Trump administration cuts last year was reborn Thursday as an independent nonprofit, allowing its international work to continue in a new form.
This reincarnation of USAIDs Development Innovation Ventures as the nonprofit DIV Fund is thanks to $48 million raised from two private donors. It is a rare instance of continuation after the Trump administration froze all foreign funding last year and unleashed Elon Musks Department of Government Efficiency to tear down the agency that delivered U.S. foreign aid for 60 years.
Out of that destruction, which cost tens of thousands of jobs and caused people around the world to die, many private efforts were made to preserve decades of data and knowledge housed at USAID, help recipients keep vital programs running and reimagine how international development might work.
But few of those efforts have managed to attract the kind of philanthropic funding that the DIV Fund has. Funders, previous grantees and DIV Fund staff gathered in the glass-walled penthouse of a Washington think tank as the sun set Thursday to mark the new chapter. The mood was resolved and optimistic, having found a way to continue where many efforts in international development have been derailed.
Read more: https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/usaid-trump-washington-elon-musk-marco-rubio-b2915353.html
FakeNoose
(40,686 posts)
AllaN01Bear
(28,867 posts)brakester
(559 posts)The monstrosity of the black-hearted destruction of USAID has sat like a festering sore on my heart evèr since this happened!
See, we are not helpless.
Many thanks to the generosity of these kind people!
Botany
(76,686 posts)Because Musk was an Afrikaner from Apartheid S. Africa who grew up being taught and culturally
assimilated to the idea that black people were the enemy of white people and USAID helped black
people in Africa and those black people deserved to be treated like shit because they were inferior to
white people.
