SCI Foundation

What does SCI Foundation do?

SCI Foundation’s mission is to “prevent and treat neglected infectious diseases through strengthening impactful and comprehensive health programmes.” It “aim[s] to improve the health of the poorest and most marginalised people in the world” and envisions a world free of preventable disease, in which everyone everywhere can reach their full potential.”

SCI Foundation focuses on creating sustainable programmes that break transmission cycles at the source to eliminate disease and infection.

To that end, SCI Foundation:

• Supports governments in sub-Saharan African countries in developing effective programmes to reduce parasitic worm infections, including schistosomiasis, hookworm, roundworm, and whipworm.
• Promotes “country ownership” of NTD programmes by working with governments to sustainably strengthen health systems and environmental conditions.
• Adopts a multi-pronged strategy towards NTD elimination, including WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) initiatives and a One Health approach (acknowledging the intersection of animal, human, and environmental health in disease control and prevention).
• Engages in research to help guide its work and the work of its partners.
• Helps ministries of health monitor and evaluate programmes to better evaluate impact, develop context-specific interventions, and identify areas for improvement.
• Reports on impact and funding allocations.

Fast facts

• SCI Foundation was a GiveWell top charity from 2011-2022, until GiveWell updated its criteria.(GiveWell’s previous reviews, blog posts, and conversation notes from its evaluations of SCI Foundation can be found here.)
• Open Philanthropy has awarded several grants to SCI Foundation, including over $3 million USD in 2021.
• SCI Foundation reports that schistosomiasis causes around 200,000 deaths each year, and that only 44% of those who needed schistosomiasis treatment received it in 2020, leaving 131.2 million people untreated.
• In 2021-2022, SCI Foundation reports reaching 52.2 million people and supporting 63 million treatments. It also reports supporting more treatments (55% of total global schistosomiasis treatments) than other similar organisations.
• Some research shows that deworming has positive effects on school attendance, income earnings, and economic growth. There is also some uncertainty surrounding findings that link deworming programs to improved life outcomes — see GiveWell’s in-depth look.
• GiveWell estimates deworming to be “highly cost-effective” and states that it “expect[s] to continue supporting deworming through grants from our All Grants Fund, as there continue to be funding opportunities in deworming that exceed our cost-effectiveness threshold.”

Why do we list SCI Foundation on our donation platform?

SCI Foundation meets our criteria to be listed on our platform because:

• It was previously one of our recommended charities (due to GiveWell — one of our trusted evaluators — including it as a top-rated giving opportunity from 2016 to 2022).
• GiveWell’s decision to no longer recommend SCI Foundation was not based on any shift in thinking about the organisation, but rather a change in its top charity criteria. See more on GiveWell’s decision and how that decision affects our charity recommendations.

We intend to reevaluate the status of all charities we currently list working on deworming programmes after one of our other trusted evaluators, Founders Pledge, publishes their review of deworming’s cost-effectiveness.

To learn more about SCI Foundation, we recommend reading GiveWell's review. You can also check our page on improving human wellbeing.