Recipients of 2005 Skoll Awards for Innovation in Silicon Valley

American Leadership Forum Silicon Valley

http://www.alfsv.org/

Grant Amount: $300,000 over two years to help strengthen the ALF Fellows program and measure the organization’s larger impact on Silicon Valley.

Since 1989, the Silicon Valley Fellows program of American Leadership Forum (ALF) has been convening and strengthening the region's leaders to serve the common good. ALF has helped more than 300 Fellows develop solutions to the area's most pressing problems and learn more about the nature of community leadership and the rewards of collaboration.

After a six-day mountain retreat, each cohort of ALF Fellows convenes monthly to explore ways to collaborate, reach consensus, bridge differences and discuss ethics. Each class also creates and implements a project of the group's choosing that is focused on community impact. For example, the 2000 Fellows raised $100,000 to underwrite the restoration and redesign of the Kennedy School in San Jose.

Businesses United in Investing, Learning and Development

http://www.build.org/ Grant Amount: $250,000 over two years to support the organization’s expansion in Silicon Valley

The mission of Businesses United in Investing, Learning and Development (BUILD) is to provide real-world entrepreneurial experience that empowers youth from underresourced communities to excel in education, lead in their communities and succeed professionally. BUILD's teaching approach combines traditional learning practices with business-based case studies and role-playing scenarios. BUILD also helps develop student business plans in a youth business incubator.

BUILD's strong mentoring component draws on the expertise and enthusiasm of young Silicon Valley professionals. Beginning with a five-unit academic credit elective, BUILD reinforces traditional reading, writing and math skills, while helping students develop teamwork and leadership skills that prepare them for the challenges of higher education.

Community School of Music and Arts

http://www.arts4all.org/ Grant Amount: $300,000 over two years to provide general support for launching new programs and initiatives to expand its reach and strengthen opportunities for music and arts experiences throughout the community

The mission of the Community School of Music and Arts (CSMA) is to foster a love of the creative arts by providing education and experience with a commitment to excellence and accessibility. Since its beginning in 1968, CSMA has expanded to serve nearly 30,000 people of all ages annually. The organization provides private music lessons and classes, art classes and camps, and art-in-the-schools programs in which visual and performing arts become an integral part of a child's education. CSMA also provides community outreach with free concerts and art exhibits, as well as financial aid to students in need.

CSMA recently completed construction of the Finn Center, a new 25,000-square-foot state-of-the-art facility in Mountain View, Calif.

Greenbelt Alliance

http://www.greenbelt.org Grant Amount: $200,000 over two years to assist Greenbelt Alliance in promoting smart growth in southern Silicon Valley and San Jose

Greenbelt Alliance promotes policies and values of smart growth in Silicon Valley. In the last four years, it has helped establish urban growth boundaries to stop sprawl throughout Silicon Valley and has raised $8 million in annual funding for open space acquisition in Santa Clara County. Greenbelt Alliance’s smart growth endorsements program has helped create more than 9,000 units of affordable housing in Silicon Valley since 2002.

John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities

http://gardnercenter.stanford.edu Grant Amount: $300,000 over two years to college and integrate data from public youth-serving agencies and schools through the creation of a Youth Data Archive

Founded in 2000 at Stanford University, the John W. Gardner Center’s mission is to work in partnership with local communities to emphasize systems change and to build knowledge, practice, capacity and leadership around community youth development. The Youth Data Archive (YDA) will be a “resource map” of service delivery to youth in Redwood City, identifying overserved and underserved communities, age groups or populations. The YDA will integrate data from Redwood City Schools and the San Mateo County Human Services Agency to provide a coherent map of the ways in which the community is serving its young people. Ultimately, the Youth Data Archive will help inform and integrate program and policy decisions at community and county levels.

Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network

http://www.jointventure.org Grant Amount: $200,000 over two years to promote the region’s economic vitality by engaging stakeholders

Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network involves stakeholders from government, business, labor, higher education and the nonprofit sector in collaborative efforts. These efforts include Smart Valley, a regional program to integrate latest-generation IT applications into health care, education, government and the arts; and the Technology Convergence Consortium (TCC), which promotes the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley as the hub of the next wave of technological innovation in the convergence of nano, bio and information technologies.

Lenders for Community Development

http://www.l4cd.com/ Grant Amount: $340,000 over two years to expand the organization’s existing programs and to build the organization’s capacity

Lenders for Community Development (LCD) is a financial institution that empowers the working poor to become economically self-sufficient through the acquisition of assets. By providing financial tools and training, LCD promotes asset development at the household level (a home, business or education) while also financing the infrastructure (affordable housing and community services) needed to help families and individuals stabilize their lives.

Founded in 1993, LCD now serves 1,800 clients each year and manages one of the largest asset-building programs for the poor in the United States (1,200 enrollees, who have saved more than $3.1 million). LCD also provides small business loans (totaling $4 million so far) and affordable housing loans (2,700 housing units have been financed) to benefit low-income residents in Silicon Valley. The Skoll Foundation has awarded LCD $340,000 to expand existing programming and to build the organization's capacity.

People Acting in Community Together

http://www.pactsj.org Grant Amount: $270,000 over two years to help build capacity and further a community-led effort to create more first-class public schools for all local children

Founded in 1985, People Acting in Community Together (PACT) is a multiethnic interfaith organization in Silicon Valley with the mission of empowering people, through leadership development and community organizing, to create a more just community. Each year PACT trains more than 200 congregation, neighborhood and public school parent leaders who then work together on successful public campaigns. These campaigns have included making Santa Clara County the first county in the nation to provide access to health insurance to all low-income children and changing school district policies in troubled areas to allow for the creation of new small model public schools.

PACT's three current initiatives in Santa Clara County consist of increasing parent engagement in public schools, helping to orchestrate the provision of health insurance to all low-income children and advocating for housing for low-income individuals.

Project Cornerstone (Young Men’s Christian Association Santa Clara Valley)

http://www.projectcornerstone.org Grant Amount: $196,000 over two years to further integrate the developmental assets approach into policies and operations of partner schools and organizations to promote healthy child and youth development.

Initiated in 1998 and formally launched in 2000, Project Cornerstone works to engage individuals and organizations from all sectors of the community in promoting the 41 developmental assets that have a proven relationship to healthy child and youth development. These assets include external experiences that provide young people with support, empowerment and boundaries, as well as the internal values, strengths and commitments that young people need in order to thrive.

Project Cornerstone reaches more than 4,000 children and youths annually through its partnerships with more than 50 schools in Santa Clara County to facilitate student leadership workshops, parent study groups and school staff training. Through its network of more than 100 partner organizations, Project Cornerstone promotes asset-building policies, programs and personal behavior to support the healthy development of young people by recognizing and building on their strengths rather than simply reacting to them as problems.

San Jose Conservation Corps

http://www.sjcccharterschool.org Grant Amount: $300,000 over two years to expand and enhance existing programs and build a new technology-focused program for students

The mission of San Jose Conservation Corps (SJCC) is to teach young people the skills they need to join the workforce, serve their community and become self-sufficient. SJCC provides hands-on learning and development of basic skills through paid vocational training in environmental conservation projects, construction and rehabilitation of affordable housing, recycling training and environmental education, and service learning opportunities for at-risk high school students. SJCC also runs a charter school so that students may earn their high school diploma or graduate equivalency degree (GED) while simultaneously receiving valuable skills. SJCC serves 600 young men and women each year (ages 15 to 27) and has served more than 11,000 young people since it began in 1987.

Silicon Valley Council of Nonprofits (CompassPoint Nonprofit Services)

http://www.svcn.org Grant Amount: $60,000 over two years to add a staff position and enhance the council’s publications and communications

The Silicon Valley Council of Nonprofits (SVCN) works to increase the visibility of the nonprofit sector in Silicon Valley, and it has reduced costly and redundant paperwork for nonprofits that provide more than $155 million in direct services to the community, saving $1 million in administrative costs and more than 3,000 hours of administrative time. During the grant period, SVCN will continue to work with the City of San Jose to streamline nonprofit contracting, educate nonprofits about the contracting process, research the impact on local nonprofits of government budget cuts and educate local government officials about issues affecting the nonprofit sector’s ability to serve communities.

Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition

http://www.svtc.org Grant Amount: $200,000 over two years to help support environmental health and the Clean Computer Campaign

Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) and its founding executive, Ted Smith, are recognized both regionally and nationally for their leadership in developing strategies to reduce toxic contamination from the high-technology industry. The Skoll Foundation is supporting two SVTC programs: the Silicon Valley Health and Environmental Justice (HEJ) project, which builds environmental health literacy and problem-solving capacity in East San Jose, and the Clean Computer Campaign (CCC).

The HEJ project aims to develop a cohesive environmental and social justice movement led by low-income immigrants, particularly women, who are grounded in their communities’ experience and needs. CCC’s goal is to engage Silicon Valley brand owners, local recyclers and group-purchasing organizations in market leadership that supports greener manufacturing and recycling. The CCC will create model procurement guidelines to help institutional purchasers select environmentally preferable computer products and secure adoption by San Francisco Bay Area colleges and universities, local governments and health care providers.

Teach for America

http://www.teachforamerica.org Grant Amount: $300,000 over two years for recruitment,

Teach for America’s mission is to build a movement to eliminate educational inequity in this country. The organization places recent university graduates is underperforming schools for two-year appointments. Teach for America instructors often increase their students’ academic performance by two grade levels in a single year. In the three years since the organization began placing teachers in Arbuckle Elementary in east San Jose, students’ academic performance (measured by California’s standard Academic Performance Index) increased from 503 to 673 (up 34 percent), the largest increase in the entire Alum Rock School District.

Click here to view the 2004 grantee list