Can FIND regain donor trust after a wave of setbacks?

FIND, the Geneva-based foundation globally known for its work in improving access to health diagnostics, wants to move past a tumultuous period marked by grant suspensions and project terminations. But instead of a fresh start, it is facing new staff layoffs and continued donor grant suspensions that have left staff members worried about the future of the organization and its work. “One of the key worries for many of us who’ve been at FIND for long is that this is a very critical organization for the world,” one of the terminated staff members who spoke on condition of anonymity told Devex. “I don’t think there's any organization right now globally that focuses on diagnostics the way that FIND does, particularly for the pathogens that we all work on.” Like many health organizations, FIND’s work and staffing grew during the COVID-19 pandemic, with donations reaching over $208 million in 2021 — more than triple the $62.9 million it received in 2019. But the funding quickly fell as the pandemic waned. Donations in 2023 dropped to $59.86 million — similar to 2018 levels — triggering staffing cuts. Between 2022 and 2024, FIND’s expenses increasingly outpaced its income, culminating in a deficit of more than $7.5 million in 2024, although it still had net assets of over $8.6 million by the year’s end. That same year, some board members raised concerns about alleged mismanagement at FIND, and the organization started losing more staff members, including almost the entirety of its C-suite. The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, or SDC, launched an independent governance and forensic review in late 2024, in coordination with a group of donors. In response, several donors terminated their projects or suspended their grants while awaiting the review’s findings. The report has been completed, but details remain confidential to donors and FIND, making it unclear what the alleged mismanagement entailed or what the review ultimately concluded. FIND CEO Dr. Ifedayo Adetifa maintained the report found “no fraud” and “no financial mismanagement,” and that its contents do “not match all the controversy.” But the review does not appear to have brought donors back to the table as yet. Over the past four months, seven of FIND’s top 10 donors, based on its 2023 audited financial statement, told Devex that their grants remain paused or suspended, they have no active grants with FIND, or their engagement with the organization is now limited in scope. For example, Unitaid terminated grant agreements for two FIND-led projects focused on generating evidence for the introduction of fast, affordable diagnostics for tuberculosis and drug-resistant TB in March 2025. The terminated projects have since been transferred to other organizations. The decision was made after the multilateral funder conducted a routine capacity assessment. The assessment is not public, but one donor official privy to the matter said Unitaid wanted to safeguard its investments but did not have sufficient assurance at the time that FIND could effectively deliver the work. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said their decision was due to questions around the organization’s capacity. “When you have an organization that loses most of its C-suite more or less overnight, that loses significant management and technical staff at the same time, it begs the question, Who is implementing [the] investments?” they asked. Donors pull back Adetifa said the project terminations and grant pauses were a result of the prolonged review of the organization. He said discussions with some partners often ended with the question, “Okay, do you have the review now? When the answer is no, they tell you to come back when the review is available.” During that waiting period, donor budgets were either cut or no longer available, or donors changed their strategic priorities, leaving the organization in limbo. “The rest of the world didn’t stand still because FIND was running slow. They moved on,” he told Devex. “We remain optimistic that this will be a recovery year for FIND and we are actively engaged with a number of traditional and new donors and expect to communicate more progress over the coming weeks and months.” --— Dr. Ifedayo Adetifa, CEO, FIND A spokesperson for SDC, which launched the review, told Devex in January that the agency is still “awaiting the full implementation of the audit report’s recommendations for improving governance within FIND before closing the contribution agreement for 2021-2024” — which is 1.9 million Swiss francs ($2.4 million). “This is conditional upon full implementation of the audit report’s recommendations and compliance with all contractual requirements,” they said, while adding that “At this stage, no decision has been made regarding the future of the partnership.” A spokesperson for The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria — FIND’s largest donor in 2023 — told Devex in November that the organization is only working on “a few strategic initiatives” with the organization. “The implementation has always been good, but it is a very small amount compared to previous grant cycles,” the spokesperson said. A spokesperson for the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office said that U.K. funding for FIND ended in March 2024. Funding from the Gates Foundation and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations also remains on pause. These pauses and terminations have affected projects focused on the development of rapid tests for mpox and Nipah virus, as well as work on antimicrobial resistance, or AMR. “All of the in-country work [on AMR] we had to stop. One of the hardest things I had to do was to draft letters to countries in which there were AMR projects indicating that the funder wanted us to stop,” Adetifa said. Painful cuts As FIND tries to move past the controversy, global health funding faces further disruptions. The World Health Organization projected health aid to decline by up to 40% in 2025 compared to 2023 levels — a decline of around $10 billion. Several country donors are cutting their aid budgets as their strategy shifts or to boost their defense budgets. In late January, FIND dismissed some staff members and did not renew some contracts. The cuts came a month after Adetifa told Devex in December 2025 that he had no plans for further staff cuts within the organization in 2026, while acknowledging that the decision was not entirely within his control. “When we talked in December, I was hopeful that cuts would not be needed but like many organisations in global health, while working on increasing income, we have had to also cut down on Geneva HQ related costs, which is very painful but unfortunately necessary based on the current headwinds we all face and to align with the current portfolio,” he explained. Adetifa declined to disclose how many staff members had been laid off, but said the organization now employs 166 people, including long-term consultants — still slightly above its pre-pandemic staffing levels. Sources within the organization told Devex that affected staff include people working on biobanking and pandemic threats. According to its latest IRS form — which details the organization’s activities in a given year — it employed 227 individuals in 2024. The terminated staff member said the cuts came as a surprise to most people. “The impression that we also were all given … [was that] there will be no firings, that things were in a good place, and that people should be comfortable … But that is not how it’s played out, unfortunately,” the staff member said. The cuts have further dampened morale within the organization. A former staff member, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said there was a lack of clear communication as they witnessed their colleagues being dismissed abruptly, and donor-funded projects withdrawn without clear messaging or explanation. They said that the information gaps persisted, with no clarity on the organization’s funding situation. “They keep saying it's okay. And so even when there's a staff meeting, they keep communicating the same thing, which doesn’t really help the staff,” the former staff member said. “We can ask questions, but we never really get any answers anyway.” That includes the result of the SDC review, which has not been shared with staff. Staff were told the review did not find any wrongdoing and was mainly about improving FIND’s governance. But they’ve not been given access to the review, and were told SDC restricted access to funders. Adetifa said they’ve put in the work to improve communication internally. There will be some restricted information, he said, but “we're doing our best.” ‘The benefit of the doubt’ Despite the cuts, Adetifa maintains a positive outlook for FIND. He said over the past year, FIND launched a project in partnership with the health department of a major city in Vietnam to demonstrate the potential of copayments in scaling up cervical cancer screening there. It also received a grant from the Swiss government’s State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation to support its work in a project funded by the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership. It also continues to serve as a subgrantee for a project on a multidrug-resistant TB diagnostic test kit funded by the RIGHT Foundation in South Korea. FIND is also applying for new opportunities, and Adetifa said they are assured of some funds already. “We are working to provide what is needed for SDC to release the funds which they assured us is already provided for in their 2026 budget. The same for one other funder who has already committed the funds,” he said. “We remain optimistic that this will be a recovery year for FIND and we are actively engaged with a number of traditional and new donors and expect to communicate more progress over the coming weeks and months,” he added. Meanwhile, he said donors whose grants are still suspended are engaging with FIND technically. “We look forward to them coming back in and they have encouraged us to watch out for and put in submissions for their next request for proposals,” Adetifa said. But for others, the future is less clear. “I don’t think anybody knows what's going to happen with FIND. I think the challenge really is that … if more money doesn’t come from any funder with the level of staff cuts that are going on, it’s going to be difficult for it to stay viable,” the terminated staff member said. The donor official who spoke on condition of anonymity, however, suggested they are still open to working with FIND. “I think we just need to give FIND the benefit of the doubt to see where they’re going, what they fixed, how transparent they are about what they fixed, what’s in place. It’ll be a truly objective assessment that we do if they choose to respond to our investment calls moving forward,” the donor official said, adding that if the foundation applies for funding calls, it will be assessed on its current capabilities, including its financial viability and which donors are on board or are considering coming on board. “At the end of the day, ours wasn’t a wholesale vote of no confidence in the organization. There were issues found, issues have to be fixed, and what are they doing about those? Have they now taken the right path and made the right changes?” the official added.