Skoll Foundation

Skoll Awardee Marc Freedman‘s Harvard Business Review piece on “Outsourcing the Old Folks” discusses what the film The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel might mean for redefining later life: “But for all its uplift, the really hopeful lesson from Marigold is simply that it got made — and that it is not alone.

American Mother’s Day is Sunday, and several Skoll Awardees are commemorating the date by allowing you to send e-cards to your moms, or donations in their name. All while raising awareness about their causes. Here are a few. Water.org even has a video just for the occasion, above, featuring Jodie Foster and Matt Damon. From [...]

When I watched this segment that aired last night, I understood more deeply the challenges social entrepreneurs face every day. Sebastien Marot, featured on PBSNewshour for his work in Cambodia, helps poor children who might otherwise spend a life of selling flowers on the street. Through his restaurants, where they can learn culinary skills and [...]

I love when the press shares with the world firsthand about how Skoll awardees are changing the world. Two recent stories did just that with Citizen Schools. The first piece, a radio story on WNYC that also ran on the New York Times’  site, goes into the Bronx Academy. It shows how Citizen Schools’ after-school program [...]

Yes, two teenagers spoke at the Skoll World Forum. And now, their journey from Calcutta to Oxford is documented in The Telegraph of India. Their panel, which you can watch above, was called Young People: The New Superheroes Leading Social Innovation. Sikha Patra, who wrote the Telegraph piece, is 14 years old. An excerpt: “Today was the [...]

Big week for the Marine Stewardship Council. New TV segment on their work, above, in Bloomberg Businessweek, and an official press announcement below. A Seattle-based fishing organization will resume certification of the Alaska salmon fishery under the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) standard for sustainable fisheries.  The process was suspended in January when a group of [...]

Surprises are always fun. Unbeknownst to us, last year’s Skoll Awardees created a “reflections” video for us at the most recent Skoll World Forum. In it, they share the impact the honor has had on their lives, what it means to be part of the Skoll “family,” and the credibility they have gained because of [...]

“If cholera had exploded in the United States like it did in Haiti, everybody would have gotten the vaccine by now.” —Skoll Awardee Paul Farmer, Partners in Health, to the New York Times  Right now, as documented by the New York Times, PIH is vaccinating 50,000 people against cholera, a waterborne disease. This groundbreaking project [...]

The Guardian features a new piece on Health Care Without Harm and its new Healthier Hospitals initiative, which sets out to reduce the use of toxic chemicals. More than 500 hospitals, or 10 percent of all U.S. hospitals, have signed on, representing $20 billion in purchasing power. Elkington notes that, “by creating an environmentally preferable purchasing [...]

A big congratulations to Skoll Awardee Riders for Health, which won the Best Transport Achievement Award 2012 at the Fleet Forum Annual Conference in Geneva. The award is given to the humanitarian organization that has inspired the membership of Fleet Forum through excellence in road safety, fleet safety, environmental impact, or cost efficiency. Riders for [...]

Cracks are where the light comes in. Be more outrageous and disruptive. Every brave woman needs a posse. Those are some of the lessons Pat Mitchell learned at the Skoll World Forum. For each, she writes a blog. Mitchell, a former award-winning journalist, is president and CEO of The Paley Center for Media and moderated the [...]

More media than ever covered the Skoll World Forum last week, and we had to share some of the highlights that have already been published: In the video above, Jess Search asks attendees whether they are more “social or entrepreneur.” See our very own Sandy Herz! From Arianna Huffington, who spoke on two Forum panels: [...]

What a perfect way for the Skoll World Forum to end. A powerful panel, an inspiring highlights video, and a talk from Mohamed Nasheed, former president of the Maldives ensured everyone left the Forum with something to talk about (at the lively beer-and-wine reception immediately afterwards!) The Maldives could be a “foretaste of a new [...]

It’t not often that, in one night, you get up and dance to Annie Lennox singing live, watch two short films about human trafficking and deforestation, and give five standing ovations for social entrepreneurs who are changing the world. But it all happened tonight at the Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship, and it was magical. [...]

Nick Danziger stunned us with his photographs of the poor around the world, but more so with his moving stories about them…including the girls he adopted. Former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown talked about the importance of education and thanked Jeff Skoll for what he has done for the planet. Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship [...]

A Peruvian singer who performed passionately with her band. A professor of international health famous for his lectures on global trends who used toilet paper to illustrate his points. Jeff Skoll comparing social entrepreneurs to Olympic athletes (fitting, since we’re so close to London). A panel discussion covering everything from Arab youth after the Arab [...]

It was fun to see our incredible Sundance partnership mentioned in a Smithsonian article about how to make documentaries. Here’s what they said about us: “The Sundance Institute offers several programs as well, including the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund, which gives up to $2 million in grants to between 35-50 documentary projects a year; Stories [...]

By Rachael Clay Exploring innovation in times of FLUX is such a timely way to open The 2012 Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship next week.  Jeff Skoll will be introducing some inspiring speakers to stimulate an audience of exceptional leaders. We invite you to join us at this Opening Plenary, on Wednesday 28 March, 2012, at the New [...]

Congratulations to Skoll Awardee KickStart, which is a winner of Secretary Clinton and The Rockefeller Foundation’s Secretary’s Innovation Award for the Empowerment of Women and Girls. The award supports innovative ideas that can transform the lives of women and girls around the world. The Award is funded by The Rockefeller Foundation through the Secretary’s International [...]

What does it really mean when someone in the developing world gets a land title? Electricity for their home, so their kids can do their homework and get an education. Being able to use fertilizer to get more crops. The list goes on and on. In this new video from our newest Skoll Awardee Landesa, [...]