USAID launches Million Lives Club to improve lives of over 1 million people

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has joined hand with other partners at the Social Capital Markets conference on October 22 to announce the Million Lives Club.

Million Lives Club is a multi-donor initiative that celebrates innovations that are improving the lives of over one million people who are living on less than USD 5 a day. The Million Lives Club is welcoming 44 members to the list to create a global community of partners committed to innovation and helping innovators reach the next level of impact.

The innovations recognized by the Million Lives Club till date have benefited over 260 million lives. USAID has funded 15 of the innovations previously, which have improved more than 62 million lives.

Recognizing the importance of a customer-centric focus in global development, the Million Lives Club believes that collectively highlighting social innovators that have reached transformative numbers of clients will act as a powerful platform to encourage the uptake and scaling of innovations for global good, everywhere. It operates an open application window, accepting applications on a rolling basis.

The Million Lives Club is mainly composed of three cohorts – 31 Vanguard Members (celebrate innovations that have directly impacted 1,000,000+ clients with their innovations), 8 Voyager Members (recognizes innovations expected to impact 1,000,000+ clients within 18 months) and 5 Pioneer Members (highlights innovations that have scaled to meet the needs of more than 40 percent of their target populations).