US philanthropic foundation funding social entrepreneurs
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The Skoll Foundation is a private foundation based in Palo Alto, California.[2] The foundation makes grants and investments (pursuing its "invest" strategy) in social entrepreneurs through its Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship, and through partnerships with and support of organizations and agencies important to social entrepreneurship networks and ecosystems. It provides opportunities for social entrepreneurs to meet with each other (its "connect" strategy) through support of events including the annual Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford University, convenings, and online content platforms. It also conducts media campaigns (the "celebrate" strategy) to publicize the work of social entrepreneurs through projects such as short films and partnerships with other media outlets, including The Sundance Institute, NPR, PBS, Public Radio International, and HarperCollins. Its founder is Jeffrey Skoll who was the first employee and first president of eBay.[3]
The total assets of the foundation (including its affiliated funds) are $1,127,000,000 as of the end of 2018.[4] The combined entities made grants totaling about $71 million in 2018 (and disbursements of $56 million), based on un-audited numbers reported by the Foundation.[4] According to the most recent audited financial statements,[1] the non-grant expenses for the Foundation totaled around $17 million in 2018.
Jeff Skoll created the foundation in 1999 as a supporting organization (The Skoll Fund) at the Community Foundation of Silicon Valley (now Silicon Valley Community Foundation).[5] In late 2003 Skoll established the private Skoll Foundation. The two entities, which have distinct governing bodies but share staff and offices, together operate the foundation's grantmaking and other programs.[6]Sally Osberg, former president and CEO, joined the foundation in 2001 and is the co-author, with Roger Martin, of Getting Beyond Better: How Social Entrepreneurship Works.[7] She was named as one of the social sector's 50 most influential leaders in 2015 by The Nonprofit Times.[8] In 2018, Richard Fahey assumed the role of Interim President after 14 years of executive leadership at the foundation.[9]
In February 2019, Donald Gips was appointed as the CEO of the Skoll Foundation. He had formerly served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of South Africa.[10] In March 2021, Marla Blow was named president and chief operating officer at the Skoll Foundation. [11] She had formerly served as the Senior Vice President for Social Impact in North America for the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth.[12]
The foundation, which moved to its Palo Alto headquarters in 2004, also collaborated closely with the Skoll Global Threats Fund, established in 2009, to address climate change, pandemics, water security, nuclear proliferation, and conflict in the Middle East. Some of the Global Threats Fund's initiatives supported by the Skoll Foundation have included an app, developed in partnership with the Brazilian Ministry of Health, that allowed monitoring of health conditions and potential infection by the Zika virus during the 2016 Olympics;[13] supporting surveillance technologies that identify epidemics at their earliest outbreak;[14] and development of an online tool that will help policymakers identify global water risk and food security hot spots.[15] The Skoll Global Threats Fund spent down the $100 million of funding it received from Jeff Skoll and shut down in 2017, with some of its projects spinning off as independent nonprofits and another being folded back into the Skoll Foundation.[16]
The Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship[]
Each year, the Skoll Foundation presents the Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship "to a select group of social entrepreneurs whose innovations have already had significant, proven impact on some of the world’s most pressing problems."[17] More than 100 organizations have received Skoll Awards since the program was launched in 2005.
The Skoll Foundation accepts nominations from its network of partners but doesn't accept unsolicited nominations for its annual Skoll Awards. It seeks out disruptors whose models have potential to achieve impact at scale, who can collaborate within their ecosystem, and whose social mission is aligned with their vision. As of 2019, Awardees receive $1.5 million in funding,[18] support for growing their enterprise for three years, and membership in the global community of Skoll Award recipients.[19]
The following list of Skoll Awards organized by year reflects the leadership of the organization and its field of work as listed in the award citation by the Skoll Foundation at the time of the award. These may have changed since the date of the award.
Providing basic services and solutions to rural communities in the least developed countries, with solutions including solar electrification, clean water, education, livelihood development, activism, and empowerment of women.[20]
Providing extended day learning opportunities to public middle schools in low income communities to close the activity and opportunity gap between rich and poor students.[23]
Helping farmers, workers, and fishermen to overcome poverty and improve their communities, and helps promote sustainable livelihoods and safe working conditions, protection of the environment, and strong transparent supply chains through Fair Trade certification. Leading certifier of Fair Trade products in North America.[24]
Provides microfinance services to more than 78,000 small and emerging micro-entrepreneurs, an entrepreneurial and financial education program for children and youth, and a self sustaining farming high school that trains children of poor farmers to become "rural entrepreneurs". This program model is being spread around the world by a separate NGO, TeachAManToFish.[25]
A certification program to help stop child labor in the carpet industry, provide educational opportunities to children in weaving communities, and spread the market-based approach to other sectors.[26]
Nonprofit pharmaceutical company developing and ensuring availability and accessibility of safe and effective new medicines treating diseases disproportionately affecting people in resource-limited settings, focusing development efforts on treating diarrheal disease, ensuring the supply of malaria treatments, and developing a new tool to stop the spread of HIV.[27]
Provides long-term solutions to poverty, hunger and malnutrition in India, with a focus on making small-plot agriculture more productive with affordable, low-cost technologies like treadle pumps, drip and sprinkler irrigation systems.[28]
Aims to get people out of poverty, cost-effectively, and sustainably by creating business opportunities for poor, rural, entrepreneurial farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. Designs and mass markets simple agricultural tools for local sale like human powered irrigation pumps, allowing farmers grow crops year-round.[29]
Economic development in poor, rural, environmentally vulnerable places like Africa and Latin America by lending capital, delivering financial training, and strengthening market connections for small agricultural businesses, targeting businesses too big for microfinance but often ignored by conventional banks.[30]
Luis Szaran
Aims to create social capital and reduce poverty through music. Uses methods to improve people's learning ability, and assists individuals and groups seeking to improve their life skills. Promotes self-directed solutions, community solidarity, care for the environment, sustainable tourism, and cultural and artistic expression based on integrated human development.[31]
WITNESS
Using video technology as a tool for the advancement of human rights. Trains human rights defenders on the safe, effective, and ethical use of video, and provides innovative technology solutions to increase the role of citizen media in justice and accountability mechanisms.[32]
International network of NGO's based in Amsterdam providing education for children about their rights, responsibilities, and how to save and manage money, setting up their own social and financial enterprises.[34]
Applies a technology startup model to social enterprise, providing new technology solutions to serve humanity and empower people to improve their lives.[35]
Uses a network of investors, companies, and public interest groups to advocate for sustainability leadership, and to encourage the adoption of sustainable business practices and solutions with a concentration on partners such as leading investors, Fortune 500 companies thought leaders, and policymakers.[36]
Focuses on developing a new model of solid waste management that is interdisciplinary, participatory, and progressive, and includes the economic, social, and environmental of recyclers.[37]
Community and Individual Development Association City Campus
Along with subsidiary organizations, CIDA City Campus has helped to create five free access institutions of higher learning and have educated 5,500 unemployed youth out of poverty in South Africa.[38]
Works to change the health care sector worldwide to make it ecologically sustainable, and advocates for environmental health and justice. Promotes the development and implementation of safe and environmentally healthy practices, processes, and products in the healthcare sector by collaborating with doctors, nurses, hospitals, healthcare systems, professional associations, NGOs, governments, and international organizations. This work includes sustainable healthcare waste management, green building, safer alternatives to hazardous chemicals, reducing health care's climate footprint, and advocating with the health sector for a healthy climate.[39]
Pakistani national institution that educates and develops individuals and communities. Opens learning spaces for education, livelihood, peace, and pluralism to a population mostly excluded from educational and economic opportunities.[40]
Protects the basic legal rights of ordinary citizens in developing countries, specifically the rights to competent legal representation, protection from cruel and unusual punishment, and a fair trial.[41]
PeerForward (name at time of award was College Summit)
Partners with schools and districts in the United States to promote college-going culture and increase enrollment rates, so that students graduate high school ready for college and a career.[42]
Works to improve the capacity and efficiency of health care delivery in Africa. Addresses transport and logistics, one of the most neglected aspects of health care delivery in Africa, by managing a network of motorcycles, ambulances, and other vehicles to improve access to health care, as well as partnering with local NGOs and other organizations to provide training and employment opportunities.[43]
Focuses on creating systemic change within school in low-income countries during early primary school and secondary school for girls' education in developing countries worldwide. Has developed a replicable model to develop literacy skills and reading habits among primary school children, and help girls to complete secondary school with skills for life and school success.[44]
Works in war-torn countries around the world to restore the land and communities by removing landmines, unexploded ordnance, and other remnants of war. Also helps to rebuild income by applying new technology and farming techniques to increase yields and sustainability.[45]
Helps children who have been hospitalized and are living below the poverty line by offering vocational courses to family members, programs for pregnant women and adolescents, and supporting economic and social self sufficiency for their families. This has reduced the number of days the children spent in hospital, increased family income and employment, home ownership and number of children the family has in school.[46]
Helps communities worldwide deal with conflict in a collaborative and problem-solving manner, through traditional conflict resolution techniques as well as media production and community organizing, with a focus on three main avenues towards peace: dialogue, media, and community.[47]
Improving access to quality health care for the most underserved communities, and then bringing these improvements to a sustainable scale. Focuses on barriers at the "last mile" of health care delivery, like medicine availability, human resource constraints, data visibility, and lack of infrastructure.[48]
Works with marginalized urban children and youth by building support systems in the community and through local business partners. Also runs child protection network called ChildSafe.[49]
Helps to improve children's education with a model that focuses on the learner and how children learn, improving the quality, relevance, and efficiency of education. Works with students, teachers, educational administrators, and communities to make learning child-centered and collaborative. Begun in Colombia, has spread to 16 Latin American countries, Vietnam, East Timor, and Zambia as of 2007.[50]
Advocates for increased adoption of the Ecological Footprint metric so that human impact on the environment can be more effectively monitored, tracked, and reduced.[51]
Works to address needs in rural communities like education, health, safe drinking water, sanitation, livelihoods, and alternative energy, and does it in a way that is "sustainable, socially inclusive, gender equitable, and empowering."[52]
Creates an educational environment for adults in transition and urban and at risk youth in southwestern Pennsylvania. Offers a diverse array of programs and partnerships including adult career training, youth arts education, jazz presentation, and orchid and flora sales.[54]
Promotes fishery certification and labeling process to encourage more sustainable fishing and seafood consumption.[55]
Finds solutions to serious human rights violations like child labor, slavery, systemic discrimination against women, dangerous working conditions, and unpaid work by improving business practices. Works both with individual companies and with workers, NGOs, governments, and trade organizations to advance standards for entire industries.[56]
International charity and educational partner with several programs for youth education, including a yearlong educational program nurturing skills for social change, stadium sized single day events celebrating youth making a difference, and the Adopt a Village development model for sustainable development in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.[57]
Youth and community development program aimed at low-income youth who are not in education, employment, or training. Lets them work toward high school diplomas and work experience by building affordable housing in their communities.[58]
Partners with indigenous groups in South America to preserve rainforests. Their work includes forest management planning, training in use of mapping technologies, and initiatives such as the expansion of Chiribiquete National Park.[59]
"Impact sourcing" model that outsources business services to young people from very poor families in Cambodia and Laos. Provides digital content services to a variety of companies and industries, as well as government agencies and NGOs, and provides professional opportunities and higher income for youth.[62]
Micro credit lending to alleviate poverty. Model that allows individuals to make loans as small as $25 to help create business opportunities for people without access to traditional banking systems.[63]
Utilizes a peer-to-peer approach to training HIV-positive women in Africa as community health workers. These health care workers provide support at both the household level and at understaffed health facilities. This improves community health, empowers vulnerable at-risk women, and helps prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV.[64]
Works within child welfare institutions to improve conditions for abandoned baby girls in China. Trains caregivers, teachers, and foster parents to provide nurturing care and aid healthy development. Has expanded to work with young children under the age of six who are left behind in rural villages by parents migrating to cities for work. Has also opened an Early Learning Center in Vietnam to help the children of migrant workers.[65]
Partners with sister organizations to build health institutions in situations of poverty. Trains local health workers in a holistic method of providing care to the patient throughout their treatment, delivering home health care, and addressing needs for food, housing, and safe water. Works in some of the poorest communities in the world, and has developed programs to address cancer and chronic disease, cholera, HIV/AIDS, surgery, women's and children's health, community health workers, mental health, and tuberculosis. Operates training hospitals and health facilities, and has also partnered with the WHO and other organizations to treat Ebola.[66]
Promotes co-existence by partnering with Israelis, Palestinians, Egyptians, Australians, Turks, Indonesians, and Sri Lankans to create and deliver specialty foods with natural ingredients. PeaceWorks believes that economic cooperation can create good relations between rival groups.[67]
Uses a community-based, participatory approach to family planning in Thailand by recruiting and training residents of villages and urban neighborhoods to provide family planning information and contraceptives, including oral contraceptives, to their communities. Contributed significantly to reducing the annual population growth rate of Thailand. Also operates Primary and Secondary schools that provide private education for the poor.[68]
(name at the time of the award was Visayan Forum Foundation)
Addresses modern-day slavery in the Philippines, especially human trafficking and the exploitation of domestic workers. Provides care and community-based programs and services for women and children who have been trafficked, with shelters strategically located along trafficking routes. Works with the private sector and transport authorities to guard ports and airports and intercept trafficked women and children, as well as empower families and young people to resist recruitment. Builds social movements to protect victims, prevent exploitation, and prosecute perpetrators.[69]
Social enterprise based in Tanzania that researches, develops, and implements animal detection technology for humanitarian purposes. They train rats and dogs to detect mines and tuberculosis by smell.[70]
Charity that partners with organizations globally to promote a positive view of a sustainable future. Develops planning tools and makes them available openly on the web, advocates for policies that encourage sustainable development, consult on demonstration projects.[71]
Brings together Jordanian, Palestinian, and Israeli environmentalists to promote cooperative action to protect the environmental heritage of the region. This program promotes both peace and sustainable regional development.[72]
Helps indigenous groups in the Amazon rainforest to exercise self governance and expand the territory over which they govern, and develop intercultural education and health programs. They aim to protect biological and culture diversity, and in doing so protect the future of the Amazon.[73]
Collaborates with the private and public sectors to offer programs in financial literacy, work readiness, and entrepreneurship skills to young people in the Arab world. Also promotes culture of mentorship, passion, and service among business leaders in the Arab world.[74]
Works with societies dealing with massive human rights abuses to promote accountability, pursue truth, provide reparations, and build trustworthy institutions. Provides technical advice, policy analysis, and comparative research on transitional justice approaches to state institutions and policymakers at the local, national, and international level. They also work with victims groups and communities, human rights activists, women's organizations and others in civil society, as well as produce research and analysis of transitional justice developments around the world.[75]
Supports and connects independent organizations around the world with the goal of ensuring access to quality education for every child. Enlists young leaders to spend two years teaching in high-need areas, and seeks to drive long term system change within and outside the education sector. Founded to expand the approach of Teach For America to other countries.[76]
Creates new distribution channels to deliver affordable eyeglasses to people with vision loss who lack access or means for existing eyeglass markets.[77]
Provides communities in Africa, South Asia, and Central America with access to safe water and sanitation. Uses a micro-finance based, market-oriented approach that provides loans to people in need to address their water and sanitation needs.[78]
Creates markets and jobs in order to sustain peace in developing countries by promoting local entrepreneurs and connecting them to new business opportunities. Redirects international spending to developing local economies to reduce poverty and create stability in conflict-prone countries.[79]
Encore.org
Building a movement for middle aged and older people to pursue "encore careers". Aims to harness the talent and skills built over a lifetime in helping to solve social problems like education, the environment, healthcare, and homelessness.[80]
Founded by leaders from conservation organizations, forest products firms, research groups, private equity, and philanthropies to initiate the development of integrated carbon, water, and biodiversity incentives for results in conservation and benefits for the local communities. Aims to make conservation of tropical forests as valuable as developing them.[81]
Non-profit research institution working in the Amazon to promote sustainable development through scientific studies, public policy consulting and support, capacity building, and broad dissemination of information. Serves as incubator for ideas and Amazonian scientists. Core programs include landscape monitoring, forest and community, law and sustainability, forest policy and economics, and climate change.[82]
Serves smallholder farmers in Africa, currently working in Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Malawi, and Uganda. The supply farmers with tools, training and financing so that they can increase production and grow their way out of poverty and hunger.[83]
Indonesian association of NGO activists, business practitioners, academics, media affiliates, and leaders of indigenous peoples, fishers, and farmers. They work against ecosystem destruction and injustices against local and indigenous people by influencing public policy on conservation, establishing community-driven natural resource management, revealing illegal or exploitative extraction of resources, and leading resistance campaigns to improve policies from the local to international level.[84]
Has developed and spread their Community Empowerment Program to thousands of communities in ten African countries. The program aims to advance communities in sustainable development and social transformation with a focus on respect for human rights. Encourages the changing of social norms around violence against women, early marriage, and female genital cutting.[85]
U.S. based organization that feels that adequate medical care also requires that patient's basic resource needs and social needs are addressed. At clinics where Health Leads operates, in addition to medication, physicians prescribe food, heat, and other basic resources. The patients then bring the prescription to a Health Leads Desk where advocates work with the patients to access community resources and public benefits.[86]
In order to reduce the achievement gap in American schools, NTC provides comprehensive mentoring and professional development programs to new teachers and principals. New teachers are often sent to schools in low income areas that are hard to staff, so both teachers and students can benefit from improving teacher effectiveness.[87]
NGO focused on improving the quality of education in India with low-cost replicable programs. By collaborating with actors at all levels of the educational system, they seek to create replicable and scalable models for teaching. Pratham has developed new teaching methodologies and teacher-learning methods, as well as created a nationwide school survey that has had an impact on policy discussions.[88]
Water for People
Goal of providing complete water coverage for every family, school, and clinic. Designs long-term solutions by speaking to people about how they live and what they need, with the goal of building local capacity so that communities are not dependent on foreign aid for water.[89]
A Philippines-based movement whose name means to "give care", Gawad Kalinga aims to reduce poverty by restoring the dignity of the poor. They want to assist poor Filipinos physically and spiritually, starting with housing, then adding education and livelihoods. Their model emphasizes community wide values as an important part of the path out of poverty. Has now expanded its work to Cambodia, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea, and works on peace-building work in Mindanao, and reconstruction work in post-disaster communities.[90]
Many of the global poor live in rural areas where land is a critical asset, and more than a billion lack legal rights over their land. Landesa assists poor families gain legal rights over their land by partnering with governments and local organizations to assess and change policies and cultural conditions and monitor impact. With the rights to the land these poor families are given a path out of poverty, and opportunities for improved education, health, and nutrition. They have helped more than 109 million families so far in countries such as Afghanistan, China, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Liberia, Rwanda, and Uganda.[91]
Indian organization that focuses on assisting unorganized workers in the informal sector to form legal entities such as associations, cooperatives, self-help groups, and small businesses. This allows workers such as migrant laborers, street vendors, and rag pickers who are not beneficiaries of statutory protection against systemic exploitation, gain collective bargaining power. Nidan also advocates for the rights of unorganized laborers in education, health, and protection of children working in the informal sector.[92]
Creates and delivers agricultural products and services used by low-income families in rural Myanmar to make measurable improvements in farm productivity. This generates more income for food, health fare, farm re-investment, and education. Since 2004 they have helped increase the income of more than 100,000 rural households by over US$276 million (as of 2012).[93]
Pursues a holistic approach to improving the lives of mentally ill people around the world. By combining health, socio-economic, and community-oriented solutions with changes in practices, policy, and resource allocation, BasicNeeds helps enable people with mental illness or epilepsy and their families to live and work successfully in their communities. Provides access to regular community-based treatment, as well as livelihood support and programs to overcome stigma and abuse. BasicNeed's model of building up the capacity of existing services and nurturing self help groups at the same time has been tested in 12 countries.[94]
One of Pakistan's leading organizations in formal education, The Citizens Foundation has established over 1,000 purpose-built school units nationwide, with an enrollment of 165,000 students. They aim for and maintain a 50 percent female ratio in most of their campuses, and has an all-female faculty of 7,700 staff members. They believe that everyone has a right to a basic education, and seek to remove barriers of class and privilege and to make all citizens of Pakistan agents of positive change.[95]
Collaborates with individuals and organizations in civil society to help coordinate coalitions to protect civilians from armed conflict. Their work facilitates coalitions to come together more quickly with a goal of amplifying the impact of collective campaigning.[96]
An independent non-profit diplomatic consultancy that provides unbiased confidential advice and assistance on diplomatic strategy and international relations to governments, political groups, international institutions and NGO's. They require their clients to be committed to democracy, human rights, and rule of law.[97]
Silicon Valley-based educational non-profit with a goal of providing a "free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere". They provide online resources covering preschool through early college education in a wide variety of subjects, as well as free personalized SAT prep. Their material is available in dozens of language and used by 100 million people worldwide.[98]
An international health organization that has developed a network of over 6,500 village level health franchises which serve a total population of about 25 million.[99]
Non-profit organization that issues a sustainable business certification to companies that meet their standards of social and environmental impact, accountability, and transparency. In addition to their certification program, B Lab operates GIIRS, a ratings agency and analytics platform for impact investors, as well as working on legislation to create new forms of corporation.[100]
Fundación Capital works in inclusive finance and asset building that works to reduce poverty by expanding access to capital, information, training, and productive opportunities. Their aim is to help people get out of poverty by providing them knowledge and tools to save, build assets, and manage risk. They also work to improve and develop new policies that increase financial inclusion and social protection at a larger scale.[101]
Organization committed to ending child marriage and ensuring girls the right to lead the life they choose. They partner with over 500 civil society organizations from more than 70 countries around the world.[102]
Works to protect human rights and the environment by investigating and leading campaigns around resource-related conflict and corruption. They believe total transparency in the resources sector is the only way to protect peoples' rights to land, livelihoods, and a fair share of their national wealth.[103]
Medic Mobile
Josh Nesbit
Medic Mobile creates connected, coordinated health systems in hard to reach areas using mobile technology. Their technology kit is free, and allows messaging, data collection and analytics in any language, and works with or without internet connectivity.[104]
A network of community-based organizations of the urban poor that operates in 33 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. They have a core set of practices and principles that they use that help to build a voice and collective capacity in urban poor communities.[105]
Non-profit organization founded to close the gap in cities left unable to provide basic services due to urban migration. They work with local providers to develop services, build infrastructure, and attract funding so that they can reach low income communities. They have a permanent presence in six countries and also consult on projects in urban water and sanitation.[106]
Social enterprise that uses science to develop new approaches to locally led marine conservation. They have been responsible for guiding national fisheries policy, creating the largest locally managed marine protected area in the Indian Ocean, and have helped develop sustainable aquaculture and ecotourism businesses, as well as developed new models for financing and incentivizing marine conservation. Their model has been replicated by many communities, businesses, governments, and NGOs.[107]
NGO that holistically tackles issues that underlie gender inequality in India's educational system. They have a model that reforms government schools through community ownership and which carries an over 90% enrollment rate and higher attendance, and has also improved school infrastructure, quality of education, and learning outcomes for girls. They currently operate in more than 8,500 schools across over 4,500 villages in the Indian state of Rajasthan, with a goal of serving over four million children in underserved Indian communities by 2018.[108]
Non-profit foundation working to conserve nature and natural resources through community collective action and village-level land and resource management. They hope to increase the influence of two concepts in governing shared resources: a socio-ecological systems approach and a "commons paradigm". They have found that the advantages from this approach to conservation extend to other aspects of village life such as education, health, and economic opportunity.[109]
Beijing-based non-profit that has developed pollution databases in order to monitor the environmental performance of corporations and bring accountability and public participation to environmental governance. Their website allows the public to research Chinese manufacturers' environmental records, locate the companies on a map, and reference the status of air and water pollution levels in their region. They are also part of a coalition of Chinese NGO's that encourage a global green supply chain by focusing on the suppliers of large corporations and encouraging consumers to make greener choices.[110]
Breakthrough prevents violence against women and girls by changing community norms. They aim to engage the entire community, especially men and boys, to become agents of change and to make violence against women a "everyone issue", rather than just a "woman's issue". They use media, arts, and technology to target places where community norms are shaped - churches, schools, workplaces, and social media - and utilize a wide variety of programs to connect to various parts of the community. They also interface with various front-line actors such as police and health workers to prevent future systemic violence against women and girls.[111]
Seeks to reform the criminal justice system in the United States and help those who have been unjustly imprisoned. EJI advances reform within the criminal system, and also works to link issues to larger issues of racial injustice and to tackle these issues through litigation, policy reforms, and education. They operate as a nonprofit law firm, helping clients with appeals of unjust convictions or sentences, while developing long-term relationships with clients and assisting them with reintegration to society.[112]
Living Goods has developed a network of village health entrepreneurs who educate families on better health practices and offer basic health products for sale for a reasonable price, like treatments for malaria and pneumonia, fortified foods, healthy pregnancy kits, and solar lights. They operate in rural areas of Southeast Asia and Africa where many people lack access to doctors and clinics, and where many children die of preventable causes. They use smartphone apps to track metrics and performance, automate diagnoses, and send treatment reminders.[113]
Trains and assigns grassroots legal advocates to protect and assist the many people who in the world who live outside the meaningful protection of the law. Namati's advocates work with communities to advance essential rights such as citizenship recognition, land tenure, and health care access. They also use their experience and data to advocate for improvements to policies and systems that affect millions of people. Their efforts have secured identification documents for over 3,000 people in Kenya and Bangladesh, ensuring access to government services and formal employment, addressed bribery in health services in Mozambique, protected communities in India from environmental violations, and helped the adoption of the National Land Rights Act in Liberia.[114]
Videre helps activists in vulnerable communities that face human rights violations, censorship, and communications blackouts by giving them equipment, training, and support to safely capture footage of human rights violations. They then distribute this footage in order to influence media, political leaders, and courts. Their efforts have resulted in the exposure of political intimidation, corruption, and violence and led to perpetrators facing trial, safer conditions for activists, and changes in the behavior of leadership.[115]
Investor-owned social enterprise with the goal of revitalizing the smallholder farming industry in Nigeria. They serve small networks of farmers with a focus on attracting youth. They provide development and training, credit, agricultural inputs, marketing support, and other key services to members. By increasing each farmers yield and income to 2.3 times the national average, they are working to demonstrate that the smallholder segment is a viable segment for investment.[116]
Rather than creating new housing in the wake of an emergency, Build Change emphasizes preventive construction or retrofitting disaster-resistant houses and schools in developing nations that are vulnerable to natural disasters like earthquakes and typhoons. By using standardized construction and retrofitting designs, partnerships with local universities, and existing subsidy and incentive programs, Build Change is able to make the work more affordable. They also work with governments and development agencies to promote building standards and codes and incentivize disaster-resistant construction.[117]
Last Mile Health is dedicated to improving healthcare for people in developing countries who don't live within an hour's walk of a clinic. They partner with government to deploy and manage networks of community health workers integrated as part of the public health system. They focus training on maternal and child health, family planning, treatment adherence, and epidemic surveillance, and provide mentorship from nurse supervisors. This has reduced newborn mortality, and increased treatment of children for diarrhea, malaria, and pneumonia. Last Mile Health is working with the Liberian Ministry of Health to apply the model nationwide.[118]
Polaris is working against the human trafficking industry by using data to find and support victims, and prosecute traffickers. They gather data from victim's experiences in order to support advocacy, targeted campaigns, law enforcement, and other organizations that address and prevent trafficking. Their direct victim support work such as trafficking hotlines gives law enforcement access to tips and actionable information, identifies gaps in services and resources, and furthers collaboration between support organizations across the United States.[119]
2018 Skoll Awards[]
Organization
Awardee(s)
Field(s) of Work
For poor, rural communities who lack reliable energy, solar power would pay for itself over time but the upfront cost is more than most can afford. Angaza created an accessible Pay-As-You-Go financing system in order to expand access to solar energy. They use two tools to make this possible, licenses to put remote-activation circuitry in the hardware, and a cloud-based loan activation and enforcement software. In addition to solar lighting systems, they provide access to solar water pumps and household appliances. They are now active in more than 30 countries, primarily in Africa.[120]
In order to remove barriers to reporting sexual assault, Callisto has created an online platform to provide survivors with information and new options to documents and report their experience. These options include saving a time stamped report for later use, immediate reporting to the authorities, or saving the record to report automatically if the same assailant is named by another survivor. They currently serve 13 campuses but are building a new system that will be available to a broader set of survivors.[121]
Code for America works to improve government services in health, criminal justice, and workforce development with a user centered, iterative, and data-driven approach. They help users navigate these systems by building open source, easier-to-use services to improve government program delivery, then use the resulting data to improve these systems in partnership with government agencies. They have also organized a civic tech movement of thousands of volunteers in 64 active chapters nationwide.[122]
Global Health Corps is improving the global health care system by applying a "systems approach to inspecting and disrupting the status quo". They recruit a diverse set of young health professionals to be placed into existing health organizations and government agencies. Operating in South and East Africa and the US, they have a "co-fellow" program that pairs a national and an international fellow in order to promote cross-cultural collaboration and ensure a more diverse set of perspectives and approaches.[123]
Applies a lay-away micro-saving model to allow smallholder farmers in Africa to purchase higher-yielding seeds, fertilizer, and training. This approach both generates more income for smallholder farmers as well as stimulating the input market, creating more incentives for suppliers to produce higher quantities of these seeds and fertilizers.[124]
An umbrella of organizations operating in India that delivers decentralized solar energy to the poor. SELCO India runs small operations which market, sell, install, and service centralized energy products. SELCO Foundation is a research lab developing open source social innovations across different areas of service. SELCO's incubation program serves clean energy enterprises by helping develop sustainable solutions for underserved communities. Their SELCO Fund is an impact fund for last mile energy access enterprises.[125]
Crisis Text Line has created a rapid-response crisis counseling service that leverages big data and texting. This allows them to reach some of the majority of mental illness sufferers who never seek help from a health care professional. Their services reach underserved demographics disproportionately, skewing young, rural, and low-income. They host the largest public dataset on mental health and both they and other organizations use their data to improve services, from policing and health departments to community colleges and NGO's.[126]
Due to the legacy of apartheid and rapid globalization, South Africa has one of the highest youth unemployment rates in the world. Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator provides real-world training and matching tools to connect employers with workers. Their services aim to increase employee retention and help lower cost barriers for companies to hire unemployed youth, and their model has been adopted widely in South Africa and has now expanded to Rwanda.[127]
In order to reduce counterfeit products and supply chain inputs, mPedigree has created a product identification marker to allow consumers to verify authenticity. A code is scratched off and then scanned with a mobile device. This provides supply chain traceability and analytics. This both discourages counterfeiters and intends to increase consumer confidence in the marketplace. mPedigree has partnered with both the private and public sectors. Their data analytics and machine learning allow them to not only spot counterfeits, but to observe counterfeiting trends.[128]
To assist an overburdened pharmaceutical supply chain in Africa, mPharma takes ownership of the supply chain, buying drugs on behalf of the pharmacies, reducing supply issues and introducing price controls. Its ability to track and aggregate demand and higher purchasing power allows them to reduce costs and increases efficiency. By purchasing the supplies and supplying them on demand, they also save the pharmacies the up front cost of investing in inventory. This has increased availability of medications, and reducing stockouts. mPharma also collaborates with clinics to conduct community health screenings and sign patients up for its interest-free micropayment drug financing system.[129]
Thorn develops technology to fight the sexual abuse of children. They combine publicly available classified ad and online forum data with algorithms, helping law enforcement identify an average of eight child sex trafficking victims a day. They use data and technology to identify victims, and lead campaigns designed to deter potential consumers of abusive content. Their technology is used by law enforcement in every U.S. state and over 30 countries, which allows interagency and cross-border collaboration again trafficking and abuse.[130]
2020 Skoll Awards[]
Organization
Awardee(s)
Field(s) of Work
ARMANN uses technology to provide health care information to young and expectant mothers in India. By expanding access to information, they reduce maternal and infant mortality and child malnutrition. Using a free mobile voice call service, mMitra, they can send timed and targeted preventive care information to mothers on a weekly basis during pregnancy and infancy. They also have two partnerships with the Government of India, one called Kilkari that expands mMitra's services into five languages, as well as a Mobile Academy to train government frontline health workers.[131]
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Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) has assembled a multi-disciplinary team of experts to address systemic inequality and low participation in United States elections. They use free and low-cost trainings for election officials, as well as providing implementation tools to help modernize the process.[132]
Glasswing International addresses gang and violence induced trauma in young people in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Their approach is based on volunteer-led after school programs which provide non-clinical interventions and life skills development. This improves students' academic performance and provides alternatives to crime and violence.[133]
The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) is a network and platform for investigative journalists investigating corruption and organized crime. They facilitate secure, collaborate and data driven investigations, giving access to more than a billion records and media partnerships. OCRP partners with advocacy groups as well, providing them with information and evidence to pursue justice.[134]
The International Council on Clean Transportation
The International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) is a non-profit research organization that provides unbiased research and analysis to government officials, policymakers, the media, and the academic community to help create better clean transportation policy that can achieve cleaner air and lower global warming.[135]
The event's mission is to "accelerate the impact of the world's leading social entrepreneurs by uniting them with essential partners in a collaborative pursuit of learning, leverage and large-scale social change."[141]
Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford University[]
In November 2003, the Skoll Foundation donated $7.5m to the Saïd Business School of Oxford University for the creation of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship.[149] The center committed to establish a new master's of business curriculum degree to advance the field and knowledge of social entrepreneurship worldwide. The grant also funded an endowed lectureship, program director, student fellowships (five scholarships to MBA students per year who focused on studying how entrepreneurial strategies effect social change), visiting fellows, and the annual Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship.[6] The Skoll Centre's activities concentrate on educating social change leaders, practical research and convening leaders in the social change field.[150] One example of research conducted by the centre is the "Systems Change Observatory".[151]
Jason Haber, "Meet the new breed of philanthropists helping social entrepreneurs succeed," Entrepreneur, June 30, 2016; retrieved 2017-02-17 at https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/274859
