Donor programmes and the private sector as part of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) invest large sums of money to address development problems. However, these investments that often include subsidies to NGOs, community development foundations and individual beneficiaries often do not change the underlying dynamics of the constraints they are designed to address, and their effects die off shortly after they are provided. MADE’s experience with use of technology adoption grants (TAG) to stimulate market demand among fish processors, oil palm millers, fabricators and smallholder farmers as shared as shared in this learning paper is that smart subsidies can lead to longer term systemic change, but they require very careful and thoughtful design and execution. To validate and consolidate the programme’s lessons learned from use of smart subsidies, MADE II Programme organised a learning event held in Benin (Edo State) on 4th April 2019, targeting appropriate stakeholders (i.e. government agencies, development programmes and grant recipients). The experiences of these stakeholders as shared during the event have been integrated for wider dissemination.