Our Story
We believe that malnutrition treatment is good, but not good enough. While the gold-standard of treatment through community management of acute malnutrition (CMAM) programs is highly cost-effective, it only reaches about 25% of the children who urgently need it.
Taimaka exists to bring treatment to the other 75%. We incubate innovations that can make malnutrition treatment better, cheaper, and simpler, so that every child can get the life-saving care they need.
Right now, acute malnutrition is the leading cause of childhood deaths. Our vision is that zero preventable deaths occur due to childhood malnutrition.
Our History
The Taimaka Project was founded on a simple commitment – to do the most we could with every dollar we spent. We began with $10,000, three unpaid co-founders, and a cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) of a microfinance program that we thought could help tackle hunger and poverty in northeastern Nigeria. Today, we have 70+ employees, reach thousands of children with acute malnutrition in Gombe state, and innovate to help millions more.
In our first year, our vision for cost-effective impact led us to focus on a microfinance program – providing smallholder farmers in Nigeria with post-harvest loans to tackle food insecurity among some of the most vulnerable communities. In 2021, we ran a randomized control trial on this program in partnership with researchers at the University of California - Berkeley to evaluate its impact in line with our commitment to impact. After this comprehensive evaluation, we decided that our approach did not meet our own standards for using every dollar to do the most good possible, leading us to pivot to focus solely on our malnutrition work, which we began in early 2021. An extensive overview of this decision and our post-harvest loans program is available here.
Today, we work in the same communities, on the worst form of hunger – acute childhood malnutrition. Globally, 45.4 million children suffer from acute malnutrition, causing 3.1 preventable deaths annually. These children aren’t just sick either; those with severe acute malnutrition are 9-11x more likely to die than their peers, and those that do survive suffer from permanent setbacks to their immune systems, neurodevelopment, and future earnings potential.
Our Approach
Our vision is to end preventable deaths from acute childhood malnutrition. To do that, we incubate innovations to make malnutrition treatment better, cheaper, and simpler. You can learn more about our approach to innovating and our treatment program here.
Our Track Record
Taimaka’s approach has won acclaim from Founders Pledge, which recommends us as one of the top global health funding opportunities in the world; USAID, which funded us through its Feed the Future program; and the D-Prize, which we won. Since our pivot to malnutrition treatment, we’ve helped thousands of children in Gombe State recover from acute malnutrition and enrolled over 2,000 children in studies that can help make treatment better for every child.
Taimaka exhibits a “commitment to evidence-based impact.”
Innovations for Poverty Action
Our Leadership
Dr. Abubakar Umar, Co-Founder
Abubakar is a co-founder of Taimaka and runs the medical side of our malnutrition program. He manages our team of nutrition care specialists, oversees hospital partners, and ensures that our patients receive the best possible standard of care.
Umar has an MBBS from the University of Maiduguri with a focus on obstetrics and child nutrition and served as the Senior Medical Officer at the Gombe State Infectious Disease Hospital in Zambuk, where he pioneered a project to address severe acute malnutrition by using local crops to produce complementary food for malnourished children.
Justin Graham, Co-Founder
Justin is a co-founder of Taimaka and oversees technology, finance, and innovation. In his spare time, Justin tinkers with Taimaka’s tech portfolio and manages our in-house digital case management database.
Justin previously served as a research analyst at the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, and has experience leveraging artificial intelligence to produce insights on US defense projects at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. Justin holds a BA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Oxford and an M.A. in Security Studies from Georgetown.
Elisha Sini, Outpatient Care Director
Elisha leads outpatient care at Taimaka where he oversees the journey of 4,000+ children through our malnutrition treatment program every year.
Elisha is a registered nurse (RN) and has 6+ years working on nutrition and public health at organizations like Family Health International (FHI) and the Alliance for International Medical Action (ALIMA). He leverages his extensive certifications from FHI and WHO, his M.A. degree in disaster risk management, and his managerial experience managing teams of 40+ to save the lives of children across northeastern Nigeria.
Jennifer Ostrowski, Research Director
Jennifer serves as a director at Taimaka where she oversees our research and innovation portfolio.
Jenn is a public health researcher with an MPH in Public Health and Humanitarian Action from Columbia University. Previously, Jenn worked in research for Medicines San Frontiers, the Columbia Program on Forced Migration and Health, the Women’s Refugee Commission, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. Throughout her work, studies and research, Jenn seeks to center the advancement of justice, agency, community, and equity.
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Justin Graham (Co-Founder, Taimaka)
Dr. Abubakar Umar (Co-Founder, Taimaka)
Parth Ahya (Associate, Schmidt Futures)
Muhammad Uba (Researcher, Ahmadu Bello Technical University)
Jennifer Ostrowski (Director, Taimaka)
Olivia Shoemaker (Partnerships Coordinator, Taimaka)
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Hannatu Daniel: Inpatient Care Supervisor
Jesse James: Outpatient Care Supervisor
Jennifer Ostrowski: Research Coordinator
Olivia Shoemaker: Partnerships Director
James Tarfa Ishaya: Inpatient Care Program Officer
Hilary Chukusa: Community Mobilization Program Officer
Emmanuel Garba: Community Mobilization Program Officer
Muhammad Alibaba Kabir: Study Program Officer
Seun Adejumo: Measuring and Evaluation Program Officer
Nasiru Bello: Logistics Program Officer
Ruth Omale: Admin Officer
Salihu Bello: Measuring and Evaluation Assistant
Abubakar Waziri: Logistics Assistant
Ahmad Abubakar: Data Entry Assistant
James Kujir: Office Security
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Aisha Mohammed Kolo: Inpatient Care Community Health Worker
Aishatu Usman: Inpatient Care Nurse
Aishatu Abubakar: Triage Officer
Aishatu Audu: Inpatient Care Ward Staff
Asmau Usman: Inpatient Care Focal Person
Balikisu Shuaibu: Study Assistant
Blessing Nathan: Triage Officer
Fatima Isah Galadima: Triage Officer
Fatima Ma’aji Uwaisu: Study Assistant
Fatsuma Chiroma: Triage Officer
Fatsuma Usman Liman: Triage Officer
Hadiza Mohammad: Community Mobilization Lead
Hajara Nuhu: Triage Officer
Hamza Umar: Inpatient Care Community Health Worker
Hauwa Mohammed Dantata: Study Assistant
Hulda Sunday Tarfa: Triage Officer
Liyatu Ishaku: Study Assistant
Markus Yaro: Intpatient Care Ward Staff
Maryam Abdullahi: Triage Officer
Maryam Jibrin: Community Mobilization Lead
Maryam Yahaya Banga: Inpatient Care Nurse
Mohammed Bula: Inpatient Care Ward Staff
Muhammad Musa Abba: Triage Officer
Rukaiya Mohammed: Inpatient Care Community Health Worker
Sadiqqa Muhammad Dauda: Triage Officer
Thawandjai Garjali: Inpatient Care Focal Person
Usman Abubakar: Triage Officer
Usman Abubakar Dantata: Triage Officer
Yahaya Mohammed Umar: Community Mobilization Lead
Yusuf Mohammad: Community Mobilization Lead
Zainab Adamu Goni: Inpatient Care Community Health Worker
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Gombe State Ministry of Health
Gombe State Hospital Services Management Board
Federal Teaching Hospital Gombe
Gombe State Primary Healthcare Development Agency
Vitamin Angels
State Committee on Food and Nutrition
Decision Documents
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Note: Taimaka originally began in 2019 to tackle season food insecurity in northeastern Nigeria, using a micro-finance approach. After a comprehensive evaluation, we decided that this approach did not meet our own standards for using every dollar to do the most good possible, and pivoted to focus solely on our malnutrition work. An extensive overview of this decision and our post-harvest loans program is available here.
Every year, staple crop prices in northeastern Nigeria are lowest immediately after the annual rainy season harvest in September and rise over the course of the year by an average of 55% relative to the post-harvest price. Yet, lacking liquidity to cover costs and fearing crop loss, smallholder farmers sell early when prices are low.
Based on evidence from RCTs in Kenya and Tanzania, which found 29% and 40% net-returns to the extension of post-harvest credit respectively, Taimaka delivered post-harvest loans and Purdue Improved Crop Storage (PICS) bags to extremely poor small scale producers in northeastern Nigeria to enable them to sell later for a higher price with the aim of tackling food insecurity.
Research partners at UC-Berkeley through the Center for Effective Global Action (CGEA) performed a randomized-control trial (RCT) on Taimaka’s 1,000-farmer PHLs program in 2022 to investigate the impact of the program.
In Partnership with Dr. Ethan Ligon and Jedediah Silver from the University of California-Berkeley.
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Find the final report here.
Nonprofits that tackle global and child health issues need consistent funding to maintain their programs and ensure that their clients receive a full course of benefits. Taimaka commissioned a report to investigate whether endowment-based financing is a promising model for global health nonprofits.
This report on endowment-based financing for global health interventions has two purposes:
Summarize considerations for and against a non-profit raising an endowment, from a cost effectiveness perspective.
Accelerate the start of the diligence process for global health charities and potential donors interested in endowment building by providing a jumping-off point for future research and feasibility studies, acting upon the lessons and modeling from this report.
Based on an examination of five factors regarding the impact of endowment-based financing on the cost-effectiveness of an organization’s intervention, this report finds that endowment funding is a promising model for global health charities that provide cost effective interventions addressing long-term community needs.
This report was written by Taimaka researchers Tanae Rao and Alexa Kaminski.
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