Skoll Foundation

Today, the Aspen Institute is awarding the 2013 Resolve Award (follow their live tweets from the ceremony @GLCRHresolve or the webcast www.aspeninstitute.org/live). It recognizes countries that are surmounting various challenges to bring essential reproductive health services to their people. Three countries—the Gambia, Kenya, and Zambia, with a special mention given to Sierra Leone—are receiving the Resolve Award for demonstrating leadership and political will.

Today, Global Leaders Council for Reproductive Health (GLC) member Joy Phumaphi is presenting the Resolve Award to representatives of each country at a ceremony during the World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland.

This year’s Resolve Award winners, selected from a robust pool of nominations from countries around the world, showcase groundbreaking innovations in service expansion, financing and policy development:

In the Gambia, unpaved roads and an aging fleet of vehicles kept healthcare workers from visiting rural communities. To solve the problem, the Ministry of Health leveraged public and private funding to purchase a new fleet of ambulances and all-terrain vehicles, then outsourced their maintenance and operations to Riders for Health, a not-for-profit with decades of experience in medical transport. The result has been a dramatic improvement in health care delivery. read more

Amazon Conservation Team (ACT) is proud to share with us a photo of their special celebration earlier this month in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta region of northern Colombia, adjoining the Caribbean.

Liliana Madrigal, co-founder of ACT, shared: “A purchase of 383 acres of coastal land considered sacred by the Kogi indigenous people was made possible through a partnership between ACT, the Colombian Ministry of Culture, and the Gonawindúa Tayrona indigenous association of the Kogi.  Such investment is a first for the Colombian government, which also established a new Colombian category of protected area for the land, a site of ‘national and cultural interest.’   On May 5, various government ministers, local leaders and around 50 Kogi spiritual leaders gathered for the official transfer of land to the Kogi, who now will work to incorporate it to their indigenous reserve. This accomplishment is highly significant not only for the Kogi, but for all indigenous groups seeking greater public awareness of the crucial importance of sacred lands to the perpetuation of their culture.”  

More from ACT:

Traditional sacred sites of the Kogi people are managed by the mamos, or spiritual authorities, who make offerings on these sites according to traditional calendars. However, not all sacred sites of the Kogi are in their reserve: some lie outside of it and are seriously threatened by development, extraction, and commercial industry pressures. In the process of recovering these sites in order to develop their ancestral practices in line with their traditional cosmology, the Kogi, in an interesting public-private partnership supported by the Colombian Ministry of Culture, the Colombian national rural development agency INCODER, and the Amazon Conservation Team, bought the property Jaba Tañiwashkaka located at the mouth of the Jerez River in the municipality of Dibulla, department of La Guajira.

By decision of the Ministry of Culture #2873 of November 13, 2012, the site was declared a site of national cultural interest, a new category of protected area in Colombia that protects the land where the sacred site Jaba Tañiwashkaka is located. On May 5, the transfer of this land will be formalized in a traditional ceremony, with the participation of mamos, local communities, and institutions involved in the acquisition process.

Today we share two bits of news from New Teacher Center.

NewSchools Venture Fund (NSVF) named New Teacher Center Organization of the Year at the NewSchools Summit 2013. This and the rest of the NSVF Portfolio Awards recognize the achievements of social innovators making a difference in the lives of students in underserved communities and changing the national conversation about what’s possible in public education. Learn more: http://www.newteachercenter.org/news/newschools-venture-fund-names-new-teacher-center-organization-year

And –

New Teacher Center was selected to be among the nation’s top professional development programs and schools of education to partner with Coursera, a leading Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) provider, in a new initiative to open up training and development courses to teachers worldwide, for free. Learn more: http://green.tmcnet.com/news/2013/05/15/7138311.htm

A new article in Stanford Social Innovation Review uses Bunker Roy as an example of how resilience is key for social innovation. An excerpt:

“In 1972, Bunker Roy and a small group of colleagues set up the Barefoot College in Tilonia, Rajasthan, India. Their vision was an interesting and catalytic one, joining old and new, traditional and radical. Informed by the teachings and philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi—giving the poor and the dispossessed the means to produce their own necessities—the Barefoot College trained the poor to build their own homes, to become teachers in their own schools, and to produce, install, and operate solar panels in their villages. Roy and his colleagues also emphasized empowering women in general and grandmothers in particular. As a result, ‘professional’ expertise was placed in the hands of the poorest of the poor and the weakest of the weak: village women.

In one way, Barefoot College’s innovations were deeply radical—challenging the conventions of village life, professional associations, and traditional culture. In another way they were classic bricolage, a term drawn from the junk collectors in France and defined as “making creative and resourceful use of whatever materials are at hand (regardless of their original purpose).’ In this case the juxtaposition of elements not normally combined addressed a cluster of intractable problems including the health needs, gender inequalities, energy needs, and educational needs of the developing South.’

Read the rest: http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/social_innovation_and_resilience_how_one_enhances_the_other

Today we’re sharing the must watch documentary film of the week, about Skoll Awardee Cecelia Flores-Oebanda of the Visayan Forum. Press release:

**Premiere: Friday, 17 May (Part I) & Saturday, 18 May (Part II)**

Following a two-year CNN investigation, the two-hour documentary The Fighters chronicles Philippine human rights pioneer Cecilia Flores-Oebanda in her journey to protect children from the sex trade and convince the Philippines’ biggest star, Manny Pacquiao, to join her as a fighter in the battle against modern-day slavery. It’s estimated more than 100,000 children work in the sex trade in the Philippines. Since founding her anti-trafficking organization, Visayan Forum, in 1991, Cecilia Flores-Oebanda has helped more than 70,000 victims or potential victims of human trafficking. She believes if Pacquiao, an elected congressman in the Philippines and the country’s biggest star, champions her cause, it could mean a turning point. But just when it begins to look like she’s winning, allegations of fraud and missing funds threaten to ruin her life’s work as she is forced to change her focus from saving children to saving the organization she set up to help them.

read more

Richard Fahey, Chief Operating Officer at the Skoll Foundation and Dipender Saluja, Managing Director of the Capricorn Investment Group and Skoll Board Member Peter Hero just returned from Australia, where they spoke on a panel on impact investment. Here’s a new interview in Pro Bono Australia News with Mr. Hero:

“The modern day philanthropists in 2013 are ‘impatient’ with self-made wealth who want to see the end of big issues in their lifetime and be able to measure their impact, a high impact philanthropy event in Melbourne has been told.

Photo: Daniel Mendelbaum

Peter Hero, founder and principal of the US-based Hero Group, told the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation 100-person delegation that giving tends to peak at around the 50 year mark, as opposed to 70 back in the 20th century.

‘They are giving their money away earlier,’ Hero said.

‘They want to give it away in their lifetime.’

Richard Fahey, Chief Operating Officer at the Skoll Foundation and Dipender Saluja, Managing Director of the Capricorn Investment Group also spoke at the event focussing on Social Investment & High Impact Philanthropy.

The wealth of 21st century philanthropists is predominantly self-made at 93% across the United States, according to Hero. This shift differs from 40 years ago when 50% of wealth was inherited and the mindset of giving was different.

In an interview with Pro Bono Australia News, Hero explained that modern day philanthropists in California’s Silicon Valley are more interested in giving money to solutions, not to problems.

‘They are compelled to action by plans and ideas to solve problems,’ he said.

Read the rest: http://www.probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2013/05/‘impatient’-21st-century-philanthropists#

Today we share a major win by Friends of the Earth Middle East. The press release is below, and here is a link (in Arabic) to some of its news coverage.

In a Precedent Decision, Israeli High Court of Justice Orders Israeli Military to Halt Building of Separation Wall in Defense of Heritage and Livelihood Values of the Battir Village Agricultural Terraces, Following a Petition Submitted by the Village and Friends of the Earth Middle East

TEL AVIV—Convinced that severe damage to environmental and cultural heritage values would result if the Separation Wall, as planned by the Ministry of Defense, was to proceed, the Israeli High Court of Justice today issued an injunction, as requested by Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME) and ordered the State respondents to now justify “why should the route of the Separation Barrier in the Battir Village area not be nullified or changed, and alternately why should the barrier not be reconfigured”.

FoEME petitioned the High Court based on the expert opinion of four of the leading heritage experts in Israel, all in agreement that the barrier would prevent Battir residents from continuing their ancient cultivation practices in the terraced agricultural fields around their village and as a result destroy the integrity of the site. The military were unable to present a single expert opinion in support of their claim that the impact on the site would be minimal.

The Nature and Parks Authority of Israel played a critical role in the court proceedings opposing the Separation Wall as proposed by the military and approved by the Israeli Government, but agreeing with the position taken by FoEME.

“This is a precedent case. The heritage issues managed to divide authorities within the same government and the injunction granted by the High Court forces the military to reconsider their presumption that security concerns tramp all other issues”, said Gidon Bromberg, Israeli Director of Friends of the Earth Middle East.

“The leadership shown by Battir residents led by the mayor of the village has proven itself. The many cross-border events held with Palestinian and Israeli residents helped place the issues facing the small village of Battir on the political map, locally and internationally,” said Nader Khateeb, Palestinian Director of FoEME.

The Financial Times just published a series of articles on social entrepreneurship. Here are excerpts from two of the pieces.

The first one focuses on the meaning of the word social entrepreneurship.

“What is social entrepreneurship? The past decade has seen a growing interest in the subject and MBA programmes that include an element of social entrepreneurship are on the rise. But what exactly constitutes a social entrepreneur? While some describe it as doing good while making a profit, others place it firmly in the not-for-profit sector.

‘Social entrepreneurship is entrepreneurship carried out for societal benefit. Social entrepreneurs are every bit as innovative, disciplined and driven as business entrepreneurs, but their ventures focus on solving entrenched social problems: poverty, environmental degradation, lack of access to healthcare, inadequate education and more. Just as entrepreneurship helps advance economic progress, so social entrepreneurship moves humanity in the direction of a more peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world.’

Jeff Skoll, philanthropist, former president of eBay, social entrepreneur and founder and chairman of the Skoll Foundation”

Read how others define it: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/6feac7cc-b0bd-11e2-9f24-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2SXFOWkXq

The second one focuses on the fact that social entrepreneurship is on the rise:

Business schools are responding to a surge in demand for education that equips students to become social entrepreneurs. But the structure of those organisations that are ‘doing good‘ is changing rapidly and these changes have implications not only for schools’ positions in rankings tables but also for how students will fund their business education.

‘In the 1980s there was almost no talk at all in business schools about anything that we might now call social entrepreneurship,’ says Peter Tufano, dean of Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford. read more

On May 3,  Skoll Foundation COO Richard Fahey and Managing Director of Capricorn Investment Group Dipender Saluja spoke on impact investments at the Australian Environmental Grantmakers Network (AEGN)  lunch in Melbourne.

They shared the granting and social investment practices of the foundation.

More from the AEGN:

“The Skoll Foundation works across many sectors, but their work in supporting sustainable markets is particularly relevant to us.

The Skoll Foundation believes that today’s markets do not reflect the real costs of degraded natural resources and unjust labor practices or the hidden opportunities for long-term value creation. Governments and civil society cannot win this battle alone; markets need to mobilize resources to speed this transformation, with supply and demand geared toward sustainable products, services, and practices.  The Skoll Foundation advance innovations that harness the power of markets to drive change by considering all costs and opportunities with a long-term perspective.

Impact investing is primarily distinguished by its intention to address social and environmental challenges through deployment of capital. This event comes at a time of growing interest in impact investing in Australia with the Federal Government recently releasing a major paper on the issue.

Richard Fahey, Chief Operating Officer

Richard Fahey leads the Skoll Foundation’s financial and operations functions.  He has more than 20 years of experience in financial and operations management with Hewlett-Packard, most recently as Finance Director for HP Services, where he was responsible for global financial policies and compliance in areas such as revenue recognition and expenditure controls.

As a Research Analyst with the Federal Reserve Board, Richard modeled the relationship between interest rates and inflation expectations.

Richard earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and history from Georgetown University and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Chicago.

Dipender Saluja, Managing Director, Capricorn Investment Group

Dipender Saluja oversees investments in energy technology, cleantech, IT and emerging markets. Dipender is also President and CEO of Automatiks, a Capricorn portfolio company developing energy management platforms. Previously, Dipender was Chief of Staff at Cadence, and prior to that worked at Data General (now EMC), Honeywell and ROLM (now IBM). Dipender serves on the boards of Sunpreme, AST, Embrace, Liquidity, Automatiks and CalStart.

This event has been made possible by the generous support of the Lord Mayors Charitable Fund.”

CEO Sally Osberg will receive the Scripps Distinguished Alumna of the Year tomorrow at Scripps College in Claremont, Calif.

First presented in 1978, the Scripps College Distinguished Alumna Award celebrates the notable achievements of Scripps alumnae and is presented each year during Reunion Weekend. Foremost consideration is sustained growth and distinctive achievement in the nominee’s chosen field.

Sally earned her M.A. in literature from the Claremont Graduate School and her B.A. in English from Scripps College, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.  Besides tomorrow’s award, Sally has received the John Gardner Leadership Award from the American Leadership Forum, been inducted into the Junior Achievement Business Hall of Fame, and been named by the San Jose Mercury News as one of the “Millennium 100″ for her role in shaping and leading Silicon Valley.

Congratulations, Sally!

India Sanitation Portal has reported on a program Water for People is working on in Bihar, India. Here’s an excerpt:

“Around 85 percent of households with no access to a proper toilet in rural Bihar want one, a study by a health organisation said Friday. The study also showed that unavailability of an affordable toilet and little access to financing are the primary deterrent for them to adopt a proper sanitation facility. It said that out of those who want toilets, 49 percent sought it for safety reasons (for women and children), 45 percent for convenience (for elderly or during monsoons) and 24 percent for privacy.

Surprisingly, only one percent of them indicated health as a motivator for having a toilet. In rural Bihar, about 67 percent of the population does not have access to sanitation facilities and the state has the country’s poorest sanitation indicators.

The finding is a part of ‘Support Sustainable Sanitation Improvements (3SI)’ programme that is to be implemented in Bihar’s eight districts by global health organisation Population Service International (PSI) and ‘Monitor Delloitte’ and ‘Water for People’.”

Read the rest: http://www.indiasanitationportal.org/17327

CEO Sally Osberg just posted the opening video that played at the Skoll World Forum on her Huffington Post blog, where it’s featured on the front page of the Huffington Post.

She just added her own introduction to the video, saying:

“Anniversaries are always a time to reflect. But for the 10^th anniversary of the Skoll World Forum, we thought that the opportunity was really to look forward. So we asked friends, folks who’d been part of the Forum community for many years, to join us in imagining what the future might be.”

In the video, you’ll  hear the insights of Arianna Huffington, Skoll Awardee Premal Shah, new energy entrepreneur Elon Musk, Creative Commons chief executive Joi Ito, Skoll Awardee Afghan Institute of Learning Founder Sakena Yacoobi, collective intelligence strategist Shaifali Puri, neuroscientist Sarah Caddick, theoretical physicist Geoffrey West, and science prodigy Tanishq Abraham.

Watch: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sally-osberg/dare-to-imagine_b_3178886.html

US2020 is a new organization that will generate big, innovative solutions to the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education challenge. US2020 will be incubated within Skoll Awardee Citizen Schools, and will become a standalone non-profit entity in 2014. Eric Schwartz, head of Citizen Schools, is executive chairman of the initiative.  Citizen Schools has become a main coordinator of national efforts to scale up mentoring work and use of professionals in order to extend learning time in school. Eric just wrote his take, “We Need All Hands on Deck for Science Education” at skollworldforum.org. Here’s the press release to learn more:

Leaders from ten prominent education non-profits and U.S. technology companies, including Fortune 500 firms Cisco, Cognizant, and SanDisk, announced the formation of US2020 at the 3rd Annual White House Science Fair. US2020 is an all-hands-on-deck initiative that aims to connect more science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) professionals to students from kindergarten through college.

Speaking at the Science Fair, President Obama said, “When students excel in math and science, they help America compete for the jobs and industries of the future,” said President Obama. “That’s why I’m proud to celebrate outstanding students at the White House Science Fair, and to announce new steps my Administration and its partners are taking to help more young people succeed in these critical subjects.”

Through the US2020 initiative, partner companies will lead a major scale-up of high-quality STEM mentoring, generally targeting 20 percent or more of their employees volunteering at least 20 hours a year as STEM mentors by the year 2020. US2020 will build the supply of mentors through CEO commitments, corporate volunteer engagement programs, and engagement among technology professionals. Together with its partners, this initiative aims to make mentoring the new normal in the STEM fields, just as pro-bono work is common in the legal profession. read more

We’re proud to share with you Forest Trends’ new REDD+ finance tracking site, www.reddx.forest-trends.org, which we supported.

REDD stands for “reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation,” and refers to a global push, coordinated in part by the UN climate change process, to address tropical deforestation as a way to reduce carbon emissions.

To help provide information that will allow governments and other REDD+ stakeholders to better assess where REDD+ finance is flowing (and where it isn’t), www.reddx.forest-trends.org will provide analysis of financial flows targeted at REDD+ activitiess. The website initially covers data from Ecuador, Brazil, Ghana, and Vietnam, and is slated to expand its coverage to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Tanzania, and Colombia.

More than $7.3 billion has been pledged to support REDD+ activities in the run up to 2015, with US$4.3 billion to be spent in the period between 2010 and 2012. Yet, despite high level multilateral and bilateral or government financial commitments, information is limited on exactly how much of this money is flowing to the national level, the types of REDD+ activities supported in this Fast Start period, and the organizations managing and implementing these activities.

“REDDX” is short for Forest Trends’ REDD+ Expenditures Tracking Initiative.