March 21, 2006

Skoll Foundation Wins Award for Outstanding Communications

PALO ALTO , Calif. —March 21, 2006 —The Skoll Foundation has won a 2006 Wilmer Shield Rich Award for excellence in communications. Sponsored by the Council on Foundations, the awards program recognizes effective communications efforts to increase public awareness of foundations and corporate giving programs.

The Skoll Foundation received the top award, a Gold Award, for its biennial report covering 2003 and 2004, which is available online.

The award was given in the largest category: foundations with assets of $250 million or more. It will be presented at the 57 th annual conference of the Council on Foundations in Pittsburgh on May 7.

This is the second year that the Skoll Foundation has won a Gold Award in the Wilmer Shields Rich Award program. Last year the foundation received the top award in the largest foundation category for its Web site at www.skollfoundation.org. The foundation also received a Bronze Award in 2005 for its newsletter for Social Edge, its online community for social entrepreneurs and members of the social sector at www.socialedge.org.

The foundation’s 2005 annual report was recently posted online.

One judge in the Wilmer Shield Rich competition described the 2003-04 annual report as being “among the most stimulating and refreshingly written reports” and said it has “a clear mission and vision and an insightful explanation of this new breed of philanthropy, and heroes.” Another judge noted, “The goals of the organization are very well communicated. The commitment in helping to make a better world is overtly felt throughout the publication.” A third said, “The pictures are wonderful and reflect the diversity of grantees.”

Categories in the awards program were annual and biennial reports, magazines and periodicals, special reports, public information campaigns and Web sites. Gold, Silver and Bronze Awards were given in each category.

This year 255 entries were submitted to the awards program.

About the Skoll Foundation

Headquartered in California’s Silicon Valley, the Skoll Foundation was founded to advance systemic change to benefit communities around the world by investing in, connecting and celebrating social entrepreneurs—individuals dedicated to pioneering new solutions that result in lasting improvements to complex social problems. The Skoll Foundation invests in social entrepreneurs through the Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship. It connects them through Social Edge, an online community at www.socialedge.org and via the annual Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Said Business School, University of Oxford. It celebrates social entrepreneurs through projects such as The New Heroes, a public television documentary series that tells 12 dramatic stories of social entrepreneurs who bring innovative, empowering solutions to intractable social problems around the world. For more information, visit www.skollfoundation.org .