Organic additives are used to improve the lifetimes of organic electronic devices, such as electroluminescent devices fabricated from polymer luminescent ink. These additives include moisture getters, thermally-activated organic/inorganic hybrids, radical scavengers, antioxidants, UV stabilizers, and photoretarders. For water and oxygen scavengers, activation at elevated temperatures or through another activation method is preferred. This allows for the handling of the device materials containing the scavenger under a lower temperature condition in air where higher levels of ambiently-supplied water or oxygen may also be present. The invention also improves operational lifetimes as getters, scavengers and similar acting additives serve to reduce detrimental reactive species that transport into the device, are generated during operation, or become reactive during operation due to the presence of excited states or external stimulation by electrical, optical or other means.