Skoll Foundation

The idea was appealing from the start:  convene a group of older but far from doddering global leaders, women and men justly renowned for their integrity and achievement, and ask them to serve as tribal elders for a world in need of their moral clarity and sensible savvy.  In 2007, Nelson Mandela took up the charge. With the help of musician Peter Gabriel and entrepreneur Richard Branson, he persuaded 10 exemplary human beings to join the founding body that has become The Elders.

Grand visions like this get the blood flowing. They stoke our belief that peace is possible and a more equitable, sustainable world within reach. But for such visions to take root, they must be grounded in strategy and nourished by action. In 2008, The Elders found the partner they needed to do just that in CEO Mabel van Oranje.

Over the past four years, Jeff and I have seen, first-hand as members of The Elders’ Advisory Council, this bold and beautiful vision brought to life.  Elders’ missions to some of the most bitterly contested places on earth—Sudan, the DPRK and South Korea, Israel and the West Bank, Zimbabwe, Cyprus and others—have shown how to navigate mine-fields; by spurring dialogue, comforting the afflicted and speaking truth to power, Elders have proven again and again that peace has a fighting chance.  But missions like these don’t just happen; thanks to Mabel and her team, they were impeccably planned and superbly executed.  And even more critical, follow-up continues.

Elders have also taken positions and made statements on climate change and injustice, but on no issue have they been more outspoken and committed than that of women’s rights.  In December, 2008, at the organization’s meeting in Paris, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter inspired his fellow Elders to challenge head-on the role of religious and traditional practice in oppressing women.

The following year, when The Elders met in Johannesburg, Mabel and her team  invited tribal chiefs,  religious leaders, women’s rights champions, and experts in the field to join them.  During a special session, deftly chaired by Elders Graca Machel and Gro Brundtland, an opportunity emerged:  to use The Elders’ convening power to  form an alliance focused on child marriage,  all too commonly sanctioned by religion, reinforced by poverty, and sustained by tradition.  Today, thanks to Mabel’s and the Elders’  steadfast leadership, the  Girls Not Brides alliance has more than 120 members from 30 countries, and is on its way to ridding the world of a devastating wrong.

Heading to the spring 2012 meeting of The Elders in Oslo, I knew the organization would be hard-pressed to get through its heavy agenda. But next steps on Sudan and South Sudan, Israel and Palestine, the Korean peninsula, women’s rights, child marriage and the budget weren’t the only things on my mind. I also knew how tough this meeting would be for Mabel.

In February, Mabel’s husband, Prince Friso van Oranje,  was caught in an avalanche; he remains hospitalized, and  the timeframe and chances for his recovery are uncertain.  How on earth would she manage the meeting? How would the Elders? The rest of us. read more

May 15, 2012 – Palo Alto – The Skoll Foundation today announced the merging of Social Edge and Skoll World Forum into a new year-round platform, Skoll World Forum Online:

In the last decade the Social Edge Community and its social entrepreneurs have together built a rich and trusted online community dedicated to changing business as usual. Their discussions around promising solutions, barriers to change, scale, metrics, and more, have contributed indelible value to the evolving social sector.

The Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship, a program of the Skoll Foundation, has evolved too. It is now the premiere international platform for social entrepreneurship; we just convened our 9th annual event. And we couldn’t be prouder that both Social Edge and the Forum continue to attract the best and the brightest thinkers and doers committed to global social change.
read more

Hilton Worldwide just announced a three-year partnership with Skoll Awardee Room to Read.

Here’s more, from the press release: The partnership supports Room to Read’s holistic approach to literacy and girls’ education in South and Southeast Asia — aiming to reach more than 2,000 young people in the first phase of the program — and it solidifies Hilton Worldwide as the organization’s leading hospitality partner in India. Hilton Worldwide will leverage its hotels across Asia Pacific to engage team members, guests and business partners in its work with Room to Read. In May, Hilton Worldwide will also support Room to Read’s annual spring fundraising campaign promoting the Girls’ Education program by matching donations up to US$150,000 beginning today through May 31.

“Room to Read is thrilled to partner with Hilton Worldwide to ensure that young people in South and Southeast Asia have equal access to education. It is a pleasure to work with a global company that is committed to investing in the enrichment of the local communities where it does business,” said Erin Ganju, Room to Read CEO and Co-founder.

Hilton Worldwide’s support of Room to Read began this past January in India. To date, funding is supporting the establishment of 30 new school libraries over the next three years, the initial participation of more than 75 girls in the Girls’ Education program and the publication of six original, local language children’s books over the next three years and distributed to Room to Read’s network of libraries and NGO partners throughout India.

Learn more: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/hilton-worldwide-partners-with-room-to-read-to-empower-and-educate-young-people-in-south-and-southeast-asia-2012-05-08

Mothers2mothers invites you to stand tall with us this Mother’s Day as we take an unprecedented step towards eliminating pediatric AIDS by 2015 and saving mothers.

Along with our colleagues at the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF), we’ll make history in the House Triangle outside the Capitol as Representatives Trent Franks, R-AZ, Barbara Lee, D-CA, and James McDermott, D-WA announce a new bipartisan House resolution: “Recognizing the Potential for the Virtual Elimination of Pediatric HIV and AIDS and Keeping HIV Positive Mothers Alive.”

The event is scheduled to begin Thursday, May 10th at 1:00PM.  RSVP to lily@us.m2m.org or call 323-969-0445.

If you are unable to join us at the press conference, here are three easy ways you can help.

1. Encourage your Congressman to sign on to the House Resolution.

2. Donate to mothers2mothers.

3. Spread the word through Twitter and Facebook.

There’s a beautiful three-page article on Tostan and Barefoot College and their partnership in the May 2012 Belgian version of Elle.

The Headline says, “Formed at Barefoot College: The Electricity Fairy.”

And the Intro says, “A Senegalese mother who has never been to school can become a leader or respected engineer and the head of solar panels of her village? Two organizations have taken up the challenge.”

Unfortunately, it’s only in their print edition, but here is a glimpse of it.

What do a pop star and a social entrepreneur have in common? More than we might think, apparently. We’re thrilled that Skoll Awardee John Wood of Room to Read (above, right) was just awarded the lifetime achievement award at the Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards. Recognized for his work with Room to Read, Wood accepted the hammer-shaped award alongside fellow honorees Jack Dorsey of Twitter, actor Ed Burns (above, far left) and yes, Bieber. Bieber and his talent manager were honored for “the historic discovery of Bieber on YouTube and his subsequent rise to fame via social media.”

The third annual Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards, hosted at NYU Stern, honored several leading disruptive innovators who have impacted the worlds of business, technology, arts and entertainment. See more photos from the night: http://www.stern.nyu.edu/experience-stern/news-events/events/2012-disruptive-innovation

We recently told you about a partnership between Riders for Health and Partners in Health — here’s another one between Riders and another Skoll awardee!

In two Gambian villages, a new $100,000 water and sanitation program just launched at a public event. It includes new equipment for maintaining clean water and sanitation for 48 homes, schools and mosques. Joe Madiath, Founder and Executive Director of Gram Vikas, said they will bring all the lessons they learned from reducing poverty and increasing dignity in India to the Gambia.

He said the program will help residents sustain their own sanitation network through cooperative contributions and management systems such as financial training, construction skills, building, and hygiene education workshops. Ali Ceesay of Riders for Health is providing transportation for all the materials as well as the link between the Skoll Foundation, which is funding the program.

Read more: http://thepoint.gm/africa/gambia/article/100000-project-work-commences-in-wcoast-region

Lots happening in the world of Brazil and deforestation news:

1) Deforestation Film highlighted in local Para news
Para state news in Brazil highlighted the deforestation film shown at the Skoll World Forum (you can watch it below!), and the participation of the Governor of Para and Mayor of Paragominas.

2)  Brazil can eliminate deforestation by 2020, says governor of giant Amazon state

The governor of Para says Brazil can eliminate deforestation by 2020. He shares his vision of Para eliminating deforestation through its green municipalities program. He notes, “There is widespread support in Pará for curbing deforestation. The zero net deforestation goal for 2020 is not an idea from outside; it’s a demand from society. Most are in favor of reducing deforestation. Some groups want to continue deforesting, but they are the minority.”

The article mentioned the Skoll World Forum, too: “The Green Municipalities Program and the Government of Pará were represented to the international community by Governor Simao Jatene and cited as an example of sustainable development to be replicated around the world during the the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship in Oxford, England.” Read more: http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0405-swf_jatene_interview.html

3) Uncontacted Tribe Found

Aerial surveys of a remote area of rainforest along the Colombia-Brazil border have produced the first photographic evidence of an uncontacted tribe, according to Amazon Conservation Team.

Read more: http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0419-uncontacted_tribes_colombia_photos.html

What Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said about our new partnership yesterday:

“So today, I’m proud to announce two exciting new partnerships. USAID – I don’t know if Raj Shah – is Raj here? Ah, oh good, you’re here. USAID’s Development Innovation Ventures, or DIV, invests in breakthrough development solutions that truly have the potential to change millions of lives at a fraction of the usual cost. And now, through a new Global Development Alliance between USAID and the Skoll Foundation – I don’t know if Jeffrey Skoll is here as well – we are dedicating more than $40 million to focus on scaling up game-changing innovations that are cost-effective and sustainable. read more

On April 30 at 7 p.m. at the David Brower Center in Berkeley, Calif., hear a free panel about village grandmothers becoming solar engineers in India, data technologists in Brazil transforming global rainforest conservation, and former Hollywood producers eradicating mother to child HIV transmission in Africa. Social enterprise organizations like Barefoot College, Imazon and mothers2mothers are creating breakthrough models that can ignite sweeping change for seemingly intractable problems.

They are part of the innovative Sundance Institute | Skoll Foundation ‘Stories of Change’ partnership, which pairs documentary filmmakers with social entrepreneurs to leverage the power of storytelling in their initiatives. Join us as we launch a week-long immersive Stories of Change Impact Lab at Tomorrow Partners. Hear from leading social entrepreneurs, filmmakers and designers about the inflection points they look for to uncover extraordinary opportunities for social impact at scale. How do the innovations we design, the systems we build, and the stories we tell work together to create lasting change?

Join the conversation at this inter-, trans-, multi-disciplinary panel discussion and catch a sneak preview of some upcoming Stories of Change films!

Again it’s free, but RSVP by tomorrow to dfprsvp@sundance.org if you plan to attend. Learn more about the partnership at  www.sundance.org/storiesofchange and the event at https://uinta.sundance.org/emailmarketer/display.php?M=68904&C=b940e1e76bd29aadacdb169569aea788&S=248&L=11&N=186

April 26, 2012 – At the Global Impact Economy Summit in Washington, DC, Secretary Clinton announced a new $44.5 million partnership – a Global Development Alliance (GDA) - between USAID and the Skoll Foundation.

Inspired by venture capital models, Development Innovation Ventures’ (DIV) at USAID invests in game-changing innovations in development with the power to change millions of lives at a fraction of the usual cost. DIV has made 20 investments to date, to world class innovators in health, energy, governance and food security.

The Skoll Foundation, founded in 1999 by Jeff Skoll, eBay’s founding President, drives large scale change by investing in, connecting and celebrating social entrepreneurs and the innovators who help them solve the world’s most pressing problems. Skoll has identified and cultivated the world’s most effective social entrepreneurs in areas from education and employment to food security and healthcare.

In this alliance, Skoll and USAID will identify and fund high-impact social entrepreneurs who have demonstrated innovations and sustainable business models ripe for scale – and maximum impact. The alliance will deliver evidence of impact, thereby encouraging increased public and private investment in scaling the most promising innovations

“Investors serious about scaling up development innovations need to scale up their own capabilities, and that’s what we’ve set out to do with this partnership,” said Sally Osberg, CEO and President of the Skoll Foundation. “Together, the Skoll Foundation and USAID are prepared to back and grow entrepreneurial solutions to many of the world’s most pressing problems. Along the way, we expect to deliver value well beyond what either of us can accomplish individually.”

For more information about DIV: http://idea.usaid.gov/organization/div

For more information about the Skoll Foundation: www.skollfoundation.org

Two big pieces of Gram Vikas news:

1) Gram Vikas was just featured in a piece called “The Cookstove Conundrum” in The New York Times. Experts like Esther Duflo and Rema Hanna conducted a trial related to clean cookstoves in Orissa, India with Gram Vikas. The results?  No statistically significant health outcomes. It’s now led to a dialogue about the nexus between technology and development– and raised questions about impact outside the laboratory for the “clean cookstove” community. Three cheers for Gram Vikas for being part of a study focused on testing the impact of an intervention.

Read more: http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/23/the-cookstove-conundrum/

2) This great profile of Gram Vikas and Joe Madiath by an Indian alternative news source notes “while looking to provide sustainable livelihoods and lives of dignity to marginalized tribal populations in Orissa, Gram Vikas found an unlikely community empowerment solution: toilets.” The article cites and quotes Skoll as a major donor: “Gram Vikas uses human dignity as a touchstone for development work,” says Kristin Gillis of Skoll Foundation, one of Gram Vikas’ donors. “When I visited Gram Vikas villages this January, I saw this philosophy best captured by a toilet room that had ‘House of Dignity’ painted on it. The model is also a tool to unite and empower communities to own their own future.”

Read more : http://thealternative.in/articles/gram-vikas-toilets-for-inclusion

Water.org was recently featured in two big publications: The Atlantic and The Washington Post.

The Atlantic piece focuses on the global clean water and sanitation issue:  ”Damon is a co-founder, with the visionary water engineer Gary White, of Water.org, a leading NGO fighting for radical new ways to think about what is a solvable problem,” it says. “There is actually a huge market for people who will pay for a connection to a water utility, but we have to create the structures for this to happen. If you look at what the poor are paying in terms of time collecting water for themselves and their families, if you only value their time at 10 cents an hour, if you look at what they’re paying these water mafias (small cartels in major developing-world cities who sell water at exorbitant prices) and to these informal vendors, it far exceeds $20 billion, and across the world, we have a total of about $20 billion being invested each year by the aid programs of governments, aid agencies, and the countries themselves,” White said. Read more: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/04/matt-damon-i-would-kiss-george-w-bush-on-the-mouth-for-his-aids-work/255992/

In The Washington Post column, Damon and White talk about clean water and sanitation, Water.org and WaterCredit.

“The theory of Water.org is not, as CEO Gary White explained, the traditional ‘charity-driven model’ of addressing the problem simply by using cash to ‘drill more wells.’ Instead of top-down charity, which will never be enough, Water.org’s notion is bottom-up sustainability. It enlists communities to plan, contribute to and manage water projects, and helps arrange and guarantee WaterCredit — micro-loans to households for clean water and toilets.”

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/matt-damons-waterworks/2012/04/19/gIQA0m1pTT_blog.html

We all know yesterday was Earth Day. Many Skoll Awardees work on improving the environment, so we wanted to highlight how some of them “celebrated” April 22.

Water for People teamed up with CorePower Yoga with proceeds going towards the nonprofit; they also did a guest blog. Here’s a snippet, by Emma Pfister of Water for People: “On Earth Day most of the water conservation talk is around turning off the faucet when you brush your teeth, taking shorter showers, making sure your sprinklers are actually aiming for your lawn. These are great “to-dos” and we all need to-do them. But what if you had no faucet and the nearest water source was down a ravine one kilometer away? What if the only shower you had was a nearby pond where cattle also bathed? Would your to-do list be different? For 783 million people in the world their to-do list is actually a have-to-do list.”

Global Footprint Network, on a recent past Earth Day, did a newsletter article that brings it all into context: ”Today, the environmental challenges we face dwarf those that touched off that first Earth Day celebration. And the planet we honor on Earth Day is a far different place from that of just four decades ago. World population has almost doubled, from 3.7 billion to 6.9 billion. The amount of land paved over …has increased 75 percent, from 228 million hectares to 400 million global hectares, according to Global Footprint Network’s 2009 National Footprint Accounts … The productive land and sea area we need for food – for fishing, crops and grazing our livestock – has increased 69 percent, to 5.6 billion global hectares.”

Healthcare Without Harm urges everyone to  ”commit to doing at least one thing on this list that will better prepare you to defend the Earth and promote health care sustainability during the rest of the year! The first one: Submit commits to EPA on their new greenhouse gas rule for new power plants. HCWH has made it easy.” See the rest: http://www.noharm.org/us_canada/news_hcwh/2012/apr/hcwh2012-04-17.php 

Here’s a list of all of our Awardees working on environmental sustainability: http://www.skollfoundation.org/issue/environmental-sustainability/