Community-driven development programs combine village grants with facilitation, but there is little evidence on how much facilitation is actually needed. To help answer this question, Spark launched an RCT comparing its standard model to a lean facilitation approach, informed by a pilot that identified the minimum support needed while keeping communities in the lead.

CDD provides village-level grants and facilitation that support communities in choosing and implementing the projects they consider local priorities, including basic health and education services, local infrastructure, income-generating activities, or other community priorities. This brief synthesizes findings from a range of rigorous evaluations to describe what we know about the multidimensional impacts of CDD on governance and collective action.

Community-driven development (CDD) reliably delivers locally prioritized public infrastructure and services, often at a lower cost and with less leakage than traditional government-managed projects, and it has proven particularly effective in challenging contexts affected by institutional fragility, conflict, and violence.

Spark Microgrants marked 15 years in 2025, reaching over 1.2 million people across 1,375 villages and supporting communities to lead their own development. In 2025, we expanded to 270 new villages, supported 378 community-designed projects, and saw strong participation, leadership, and locally driven impact. As governments like Rwanda adopt this approach at national scale, Spark is helping unlock a future where communities are not recipients of development, but the drivers of it. Read our 2025 annual report here.