Between research and scale, most solutions die

The problem
Isn't what works
Its delivery

We turn proven health solutions
into delivery systems that scale.

Our Mission

To accelerate proven, cost-effective maternal and childhealth innovations — from evidence to real-world delivery.

The Problem

Between research and scale, most life-saving solutions die.

We have simple, low-cost solutions that could save millions of mothers and children who die each day from preventable causes. They are underused, misunderstood, or simply not reaching those who need them most.

SafeStart exists in the gap between evidence and practice.

We work exclusively on proven interventions — not new ideas — overcoming the last-mile barriers that keep them from reaching scale.

Why now

Governments are demanding solutions they can scale today.

Donors are shifting from pilots to proven, scalable impact.

The global health community increasingly recognizes: the bottleneck isn't innovation — it's delivery.

Our Focus Criteria
01

Strong Evidence

02

Clear Market Failure

03

High Cost Effectiveness

If delivery works, people adopt.

If adoption is sustained, governments scale.

If governments scale, population health improves.

We fix delivery —

the bottleneck to population-level impact.

Our Model

How we turn evidence into scale.

We work exclusively on proven interventions — not new ideas. We identify why proven solutions fail in the real world, redesign delivery with governments, and hand over models that actually get used.

We solve the practical delivery questions that determine scale: who delivers, when, how, through which systems, and at what cost.

01 — DIAGNOSE

Identify where delivery breaks down

We start from evidence-backed interventions and map the specific barriers — knowledge, access, cost, behaviour, supply chain — preventing adoption and sustained use.

02 — OPTIMIZE

Implementation research under real conditions

We prototype, stress-test, and refine the delivery model — assessed against adoption, fidelity, and cost-effectiveness — until it's codified and replicable.

03 — SCALE

Transition to government ownership

We hand validated models to governments and large implementers, embedding them into existing infrastructure for sustained population-level impact.

Comparative Advantage

There's a missing middle in global health.

Academia proves what works.
Governments fund what's ready to scale.

But between evidence and scale sits a gap —
and it's where most interventions die.

No one is systematically doing the hard work of translating evidence into delivery models that last-mile health systems can actually use.

We turn proven health solutions into delivery systems that scale.
EVIDENCE
Proven but unused

RCTs, meta-analyses, and robust evidence bases exist for dozens of life-saving interventions.

SAFESTART
The missing middle

We diagnose delivery failures, test under real-world constraints, and codify models governments can sustain.

The critical middle stage is systematically underfunded.

SCALE
Government adoption

Validated delivery models transition to governments and large implementers for sustained population-level impact.

Moving Beyond Evidence

We turn proven health solutions into delivery systems that scale.

SafeStart exists to take models like this from research to scale —

working with governments to deliver, sustain, and expand impact.

Traditional NGOs Design a new program
vs
SafeStart Take what works → fix delivery
RCTs
proven base
scale focus
Gov
adoptable
Our Edge

We don't build from scratch. We make what works scale.

Unlike traditional implementers, we take interventions with proven track records and remove the specific delivery barriers that have kept them from reaching the populations who need them most.

Partnerships

We work across the global health ecosystem.

SafeStart partners with governments, funders, researchers, and implementers to ensure proven innovations reach the communities that need them.

Governments
MoH, WASH, PHC Boards, MLGCA
Funding Partners
Charity Entrepreneurship, D-Prize
Researchers
J-PAL Africa, Chicago, Princeton and Michigan Universities
NGOs
Society for Family Health
Newsletter

Insights from the field.

Occasional updates from our work in Nigeria, what we're learning about delivery at scale, and how proven solutions reach the people who need them.

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