Lively Minds
Preschool isn’t a thing in poor countries. Parents represent an untapped resource.
The Idea
DIY Home Preschool
Total Investment
1300000
Grants
0
Equity/SAFE
0
Debt/Convertible Debt
Funded Since
2019
Geography
Sector
Structure
The Mission
Thriving kids.
How It Works
Lively Minds has developed a simple curriculum composed of things parents can do to spur their child’s development. Parents go to a series of engaging workshops provided by trained community members. Moms form regular educational play groups, and weekly radio broadcast reinforce everything parents have learned.
The Dream
Kids in low income countries get quality, parent-powered play-based learning and care paid for and administered by governments.
Why We're In
Lively Minds has rigorous evidence showing that their kids start school a year ahead of peers—and the poorest kids make double the progress. Just as impressive, they are scaling up via government. Government personnel now do the training and run the program, and—remarkably—achieve the same results.
The Model
A Solution That Works And Can Scale
Curriculum for Parents
Lively Minds and governments co-develop an evidence-based, context specific behavior-change curriculum for parents to support them provide care and learning for their pre-school children (3-6 years) with a focus on early learning, child health & wellbeing, child safety, and maternal wellbeing.
Parenting Workshops
Government trains master trainers (e.g., Kindergarten Teachers in Ghana, VHTs in Uganda) who in turn train parents through in-person workshops and radio. Local government also provides regular “top-up” training for trainers, coaching, and quality assurance.
Play Groups
Parents provide nurturing care and learning individually or in group “play schemes”. In Ghana and Uganda, mothers organize groups to run weekly structured play-based activities and educational games at pre-K spaces (or on their own where no pre-K system exists).
Potential for Impact at Scale
Mulago uses four criteria to gauge potential for exponential impact.
Preliminary results from 2nd RCT (2025) shows that kids in Ghana are a year ahead of their peers when they enter school (~0.13 SD on school readiness and ~0.25 for the poorest kids) via a government doer. These results are compelling since it mirrored those of a 2019 RCT which had more Lively Minds support and delivered informally by parents. We don’t however know the impact potential of a simpler model that will be deployed outside Ghana.
350M kids globally don’t have access to quality ECD. Ghana has a head start as they established universal state funded pre-primary in 2008. Governments beyond Ghana (Burundi, The Gambia, Oromia in particular and many more in Africa) are keen on cheaper ECD models and maybe able to pull this off if they have adequate trainers, project management capabilities, and funding (this is a big if).
Lively Minds’ model is systematic, and Ghana has a plan to take it from the north of country to all kids nationally with minimal support from Lively Minds using funding from Global Partnerships for Education. What we don’t know is which other governments can replicate, especially if you remove Lively Minds support beyond upfront involvement in co-designing the content and building capacity of a government team. Governments may also remove the weekly “play schemes”, which is likely to have implications on impact.
The current marginal $3/child cost in Ghana is cheap, and it covers refresher trainings, supervision/transport, and a government coordination team. Outside Ghana, they’re testing a simpler and cheaper model where curriculum and training should be baked into existing budgets. So, both set-up and marginal costs should be near zero. They’ll learn more as they get to precise price points during the pilots.
Lievley Minds is in mid Growth stage in Ghana.
Our Take
Lively Minds has shown that government can replicate their model with good enough results and even get a payer for it – Ghana is intent on scaling to all kids through GPE funding – although this funding will eventually run out and it’s not clear what the government will prioritize then. Critically, what we don’t know is how this will look outside of Ghana with governments that have fewer resources. It will be hard to replicate the same results in a new place, but Lively Minds is actively testing what might work and at what price point.
Delivery
Lively Minds has steadily expanded their reach in Ghana and Uganda, and is now piloting in 3 more countries.
Impact
Learning gains were replicated by the Government of Ghana, a rare feat (preliminary Randomized Control Trial).
Strategy for Scale
A scalable solution needs a smart strategy to go the distance. We focus on the two critical elements of impact at scale: the doer-at-scale (whoever implements the model at exponential scale) and the payer-at-scale (whoever pays for implementation at exponential scale). For most ideas, the doer-at-scale is others—government, businesses, or NGOs. Tech solutions can be the exception, as one organization can often achieve enormous scale on their own. Payers-at-scale can include customers, governments, and—rarely—philanthropy. Where relevant, we also look at other major drivers of scale including tech adoption, policy change, and collective action.
Here, government is the doer-at-scale. The payer-at-scale is government, namely ministries of education / ECD.
Lively Minds’ original scale strategy was to replicate the Ghana model and bring that to other countries – where Lively Minds would provide implementation support for 2 years to get governments up and running. That can’t work in today’s aid environment where governments are strapped for cash and where it’s already hard to “exit” and expect government to scale something.
The new approach is about co-designing stuff with interested and able governments and then letting them pay and implement from the start – without Lively Minds. It’s a bet but Lively Minds has already attracted 3 governments that seem willing to do exactly this. They’ll work with Oromia (Ethiopia), the Gambia, and Burundi for the next year to build a curriculum and implementation plan together and build the capacity of a small government team. Then it’s up to each government to take it from there.
Capacity to Deliver
Lively Minds has had the team to get Ghana up and running. The contexts in the new 3 countries will be different, but their approach in Ghana was all about identifying the right team in government that they could then train and build up their capacity. It’ll be a less intensive approach in new places, and we hope that skills can spillover but it’s something to watch. They’re great fundraisers too and they’ll need that unrestricted funding as they pilot a new strategy with governments before they pay.
Priorities and Attached Milestones
Good Enough: Interrogate changes to the impact as the model shifts.
FY26 Milestone: Assess whether the model remains “good enough” in Ghana when it is fully integrated into GPE activities and scaled with minimal support (learn about impact, quality, sustainability, affordability, ownership).
FY26 Milestone: Articulate impact ceiling of
Parenting course only version of the program in new countries (without play schemes) and whether that’s “good enough” for scale.
Radio-only and whether that’s “good enough” for scale.
Big Enough: Prove hypothesis that other governments can be the doer.
FY26 Milestone: Demonstrate significant momentum towards at least 1 of the 3 countries converting from a pilot to full implementation (as defined by scale plan and materials co-developed, and government team actively championing scale-up). Explore additional countries as appropriate.
Simple Enough/Doer: Land on a scalable model with the most impact, without big aid.
FY26 Milestone: Iterate and land on the scalable model based on what new governments can pay and where the biggest impact drivers are.
Cheap Enough/Payer: Unlock new paying governments based on precise marginal costs.
FY26 Milestone:
Articulate marginal costs in Burundi, The Gambia, and Oromia and (exactly) how much governments can pay and from which budgets.
Land on a way to fund scale-up and ongoing costs of radio (if good enough) through corporate support/advertising revenue.
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Ujamaa Community Resource Team
Livelihoods-First Community Conservation
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