GRID Impact

GRID Impact is a global research, innovation, and design collective working to create opportunities for vulnerable populations. Who is GRID Impact?

We are a global research, innovation, and design collective tackling some of the toughest problems around the planet – in financial services, agriculture, water and sanitation, education, and alternative energy. Our work helps organizations better understand the populations they hope to serve and combine those insights with a proven scientific process that delivers more predictable results. To thi

s end, we create and facilitate training workshops, ideation sessions, and collaborative research and design projects around Africa, Asia, Latin America, and North America. We are here to support:

• Philanthropic organizations
• Social enterprises and non-¬profit organizations
• Multilateral development agencies
• Domestic and foreign government agencies and policymakers

Our core principles:

Our team employs a hybrid research and design approach to complex social, economic and human challenges. The main principles of our strategy include:
• Understanding users and the behavioral biases they face in context.
• Recognizing that preferences and actual behaviors are often not the same!
• Putting all designs through an iterative cycle of prototyping, testing, and review.
• Bringing users in to participate as consultants, testers, reviewers, and co-designers.
• Changing the context, environment, or product – not the person!
• Ensuring that empathy lies at the foundation of all insights and ideas. Our story

GRID Impact is not your typical social enterprise – we are a collective of development professionals with member consultants on five continents from a wide range of backgrounds. All of our consultants bring expertise in a specific domain or technical area and have experience with a wide range of clients and projects. Our engagements are organized by Alexandra Fiorillo, who has over 14 years of experience designing human-centered products and services for the Base of the Pyramid (BoP). After years working for various international development organizations, Alexandra developed an independent portfolio of social impact projects focused on designing products and services for the base of the pyramid. She embraced the flexibility and freedom of working on her own but soon realized that independent working created particular disadvantages for some of her engagements. She wanted to work on larger-scale challenges and create bigger social impact than she felt able to as an independent consultant. And she wanted to involve professionals from other disciplines to enhance her work. As it turned out, many other independent social impact consultants felt the same way. And thus the collective was born. GRID Impact allows independent consultants who specialize in a variety of domains and technical areas to come together as larger interdisciplinary teams and leverage both specialization and team-work for social change. Member consultants are able to continue working independently but also have the opportunity to join GRID Impact project teams for specific engagements. This flexible and adaptable model allows GRID Impact to offer its partners hand-selected teams and tailored solutions.

01/28/2026

Molly Alexander has been with GRID for several years now but we’re excited to introduce her to you, and share a little more about what role she plays in our collective.

“adaptiveleadership

04/22/2025

GRID Impact facilitated a two-day retreat for one of the Inclusive Financial Systems (IFS) teams at the Gates Foundation.

Why? Offsite retreats give Program Officers the space to reflect on strategy and share, more deeply understand, and weigh-in on each other’s grant-making strategies and investments. Team building activities further allow colleagues to have fun and connect on a personal level, strengthening relationships and trust in service of shared goals. In-person retreats have become an annual tradition for the team we were working with — they came ready to connect, collaborate, and focus on their bold 2030 goals.

How? The focus of this retreat was to refine strategies for realizing the team’s bold and ambitious 2030 goals. We combined insights from pre-retreat interviews with a carefully designed agenda that balanced technical strategy sessions with activities to build trust and connection—devices down, minds engaged.

The Results? Four clear strategies to carry forward—and a more aligned, connected team to make them happen.

01/15/2025

De-colonizing and Co-designing Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning in Africa

The GRID Impact team recently facilitated a transformative Made in Africa convening in Tamale, Ghana, to develop a Proof of Concept (PoC) for MAE, focusing on Central, North, and West Africa. This workshop brought together African academic experts, MEL practitioners, youth and gender representatives, knowledge holders, and thought leaders. Over three days, we co-designed tools, frameworks, and protocols to decolonize existing project evaluation practices in Africa, placing African voices at the center of Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) and development discourses.

African evaluation knowledge, methodologies, and practices have been historically marginalized. Let us envision a future where Africa reshapes its own narratives. To succeed, decolonizing and reimagining MAE MEL methods and practices must start by understanding the current systems of evaluation. Decolonization, in the realm of Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL), is a profound and transformative process aimed at dismantling the entrenched frameworks and methodologies imposed by colonial powers and external influences. This project seeks to address and rectify historical power imbalances by reclaiming and integrating indigenous African knowledge, practices, and methodologies into the current practices of MEL.

Continued in comments!

12/17/2024

✨ 2024 has been a year of transformative impact at GRID Impact! ✨

💚 We facilitated a large convening for , bringing together diverse stakeholders in a space grounded in feminist and decolonized principles to co-create strategies for systemic change.

🙋🏽‍♀️ We re-launched our research on Women’s Financial Inclusion barriers and opportunities with an improved website, making our findings more accessible and actionable for partners around the globe.

🏩 Sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, we led a series of convenings for donors and stakeholders to drive coordinated and collaborative funding to advance digital public infrastructure initiatives.

📣 In partnership with Open Society Foundations, we conducted equity-centered research on the lives and needs of human rights activists in exile, amplifying their voices and identifying pathways to support their critical work.

🌍 As part of our partnership with Mastercard Foundation, we explored indigenous approaches to monitoring, evaluation, and learning in Africa, deepening our understanding of community-driven and culturally resonant practices.

⭐ As 2024 comes to a close, we are filled with gratitude for the inspiring people and organizations we’ve partnered with. Here’s to an impactful 2025!

💜 To our team, thank you to all of our creative, empathetic, talented, thoughtful Collective members for your contributions throughout 2024. The work we do is complex and you bring humor, rigor, and compassion to all of our engagements.

12/10/2024

Introducing collective member: Caroline Morrow

What GRID projects are you working on right now?

I’m primarily supporting the Women’s Financial Inclusion (WFI) program led by the Inclusive Financial Systems (IFS) team at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, on a range of activities that stand to improve gender integration in financial services. I’m also currently working with the Gender Equality Digital Connectivity team at the Gates Foundation, and have worked other projects with the IFS team over the last year, including ones focused on Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) and inclusive instant payment systems (IIPS).

What drew you to becoming a GRID collective member?

I was drawn to GRID’s human-centered and behavioral approach to research and design services. With experience working on both rigorous impact evaluations and qualitative research projects, I’ve learned that centering lived experiences is essential. As is creating research products that people use in real life! What I like most about being a GRID Collective member is that human-centered design isn’t just part of our client work, it’s how *we* work. I love collaborating with and learning from collective members across the world who are smart, passionate, and kind!

10/30/2024

Earlier this year, GRID Impact facilitated a workshop that brought together 22 activists from all over the world who had been forced to relocate to Canada because of their work standing up against repression and human rights abuses. We worked closely with these “Activists-In-Exile” to develop possible scenarios for how to strengthen their community and turn Canada into a more welcoming and empowering context for their personal and professional lives.

This is a beautiful example of how program strategy can be strengthened by human centered design and centering the lives and expertise of those directly affected. Thanks to Open Society Foundations for introducing us to this amazing group - and watch this space for more reflections and learnings!

A huge thank you to Joey Lee and Beth Dunlap at the Open Society Foundations for their vision on this work.

The GRID team behind the work:

04/25/2024

Reflections from Addis! Last month, we had the pleasure of sharing our research on barriers and opportunities to women’s economic empowerment and financial inclusion (WEE-FI) at the FinEquity Africa Annual Convening 2024.

Born out of a desire to promote evidence-based decision-making, our research identifies barriers that are most relevant to different types of women in specific markets and makes recommendations about interventions that can address them. We shared insights into different segments of women in Ethiopia, and looked at similarities and differences in neighboring Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.

While there are many barriers to WEE-FI, the good news is that there are also many opportunities for overcoming them...and the general sentiment in Addis was that we have the ability to go far in advancing WEE-FI if diverse sets of stakeholders continue to work together—and with—women to develop financial products and services that meet their unique needs.

For more info on the barriers research, check out our newly re-vamped website https://www.wee-fi-barriers.org/

To learn more about the events in Addis last month, read Caroline’s new blog post: https://www.findevgateway.org/finequity/blog/2024/04/reflections-from-2024-finequity-africa-annual-convening

03/06/2024

🎈 A warm greeting to our GRID Impact family! As we mark a significant milestone – our 10th anniversary of social impact work – we pause to look back on some of the work we are most proud of and remember the journey filled with purpose, creativity, and deep partnerships. This newsletter is a tribute to what we’ve accomplished together and a note of anticipation of the impactful work that lies ahead.

Over the past decade, our collective efforts have not just been project-focused; they’ve been about cultivating meaningful relationships and strengthening our community bonds. We extend our deepest gratitude to everyone who has been a part of this remarkable journey.

As we embark on the next chapter of our journey, we invite you to be a part of our ongoing mission. Whether through partnering or sharing our story, your support plays a crucial role in our collective impact. Together, let’s look forward to another decade of making a difference. If you plan on hosting a team retreat, partner convening, strategic planning process, or new program or product development process, get in touch with us to see how we might be able to support you!

Thank you for your trust, support, and partnership. Here’s to nurturing our connections and forging a brighter future for all.

12/06/2023

We are proud to release this new resource for all of our financial inclusion and consumer protection partners! GRID Impact, in partnership with Dr. Maritza Johnson and the Center for Financial Inclusion at ACCION International, developed The Privacy as Product Playbook, based on the central tenets and emerging practices in Privacy by Design. The Playbook is a result of CFI’s partnership with PayPal’s Global Privacy Team and is animated by unique considerations for inclusive finance product teams. The accompanying brief is intended for all practitioners in the inclusive finance space, sharing the rationale and approach for the playbook and discussing three key challenges for implementation that were uncovered when designing the playbook, how the playbook attempts to address them, and what learning questions remain.

https://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/privacy-as-product-privacy-by-design-for-inclusive-finance

11/06/2023

We have had a number of collective members join us this year. We are excited to introduce JT Quirk to you, and share a little more about what role he/they plays in our collective.

JT is a multidisciplinary designer with a background in education. With over ten years of experience across a diversity of design disciplines, he brings visual design expertise backed by human-centered methodologies to help develop projects that are meaningful, relevant, and have a social impact on lives in a real world manner. He is interested in design for social change and believes that practical, creative ideas can make the world a better place

JT holds a BA in Studio Art from UC Santa Barbara, and an MA in Art & Education from NYU. Outside of pushing pixels, JT spends time with his hands in the dirt, competitively swimming, and avoiding hot lava with his kids.

As a GRID Impact Consultant, JT is currently working on redesigning a microsite for our Women's Economic Empowerment and Financial Inclusion work, creating artifacts for the Open Society Foundation-sponsored Voices in Exile project,and co-designing materials for the upcoming partner convening for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Financial Services for the Poor Indonesia portfolio.

10/30/2023

The Financial Services for the Poor (FSP) program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation seeks to expand access to digital financial services so the poorest people around the globe can build security and prosperity for themselves, their families, and their communities.

In working toward their strategic vision for 2030, the FSP team aims to prioritize and address the most significant barriers for women in order to set new priorities and make new investment, collaboration, and advocacy decisions.

Working together with the FSP Team, and our partners at Strategic Impact Advisors, we launched a comprehensive analysis of the barriers women faced in FSP’s focus countries with insight into how the barriers contextualized into respective markets, and which barriers proved to be most prevalent among countries.

Visit www.gridimpact.org/wee-fi for more information and to download the free resources!

03/07/2023

🔎 Case Study: Co-designing an equity-centered investment model 🔎

The United Way of Asheville and Buncombe County (UWABC) is a locally-governed, nonprofit organization working towards a vision of “a united and resilient community where everyone belongs and everyone thrives.” One of their primary strategies of change is through community investment and grantmaking.

In 2022, their latest grantmaking cycle would come to an end, and a new cycle would begin the following year. It presented them with an opportunity to ask, “How might our community design an investment and grantmaking model that centers authentic and equitable community participation in all stages of decision making?”

Working together with UWABC and community Design Fellows, we co-designed a new investment model that centers the voices of community, and an equity-centered design toolkit to help the work continue.

Click the link in our bio to read more about the project.

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