Our Beyond the Spreadsheets mini-series lets you ride along with our leadership team on their recent weeklong site visit to Malawi. Recorded daily during the trip, the series shares the behind-the-scenes experience of a GiveWell site visit through real-time reflections and clips of conversations. 

On day four, the GiveWell team visited community projects funded by Spark Microgrants, including a maize mill and a sunflower oil mill, and spoke with residents about their impact. New to the series? Start with day one here. 

Throughout the week, the team visited health clinics, schools, and local villages to speak with healthcare workers and community members who shared a glimpse into their lives. This new mini-series offers a candid, day-by-day account of our learning process and some of the new insights and questions that will inform our future research. We invite you to listen, subscribe, and follow along!

This episode was recorded on August 2, 2025 during GiveWell's site visit to Malawi and represents our best understanding at that time.