August 10, 2006

Skoll Foundation Awards $8.95 Million to Advance Social Entrepreneurship

PALO ALTO, Calif.—August 10, 2006—The Skoll Foundation announced today that it has awarded $8.95 million to eight nonprofit organizations to help build and strengthen the field of social entrepreneurship.

The awards are being made to support research projects that address the practical needs of social entrepreneurs, to academic institutions that create new knowledge in the field and to institutions that foster an enabling environment for social entrepreneurs.

Social entrepreneurs are individuals dedicated to pioneering new solutions that result in lasting improvements to complex social problems.

The awards are going to:

• The Carter Center in Atlanta, Ga., which will receive $3 million over three years for core operating support and a strategic partnership with the Skoll Foundation. With its access and expertise to the highest levels of government, academia and international policy-making bodies, The Carter Center is well positioned to work with the foundation to help connect social entrepreneurs with individuals and institutions that have the power to make their innovations national policy.
  
  
• The PBS Foundation in Arlington, Va., which will receive $2.5 million over three years to establish the PBS Social Entrepreneurship Fund to provide support, on a competitive basis, for filmmakers and producers of various media to develop content focused on social entrepreneurs and the field of social entrepreneurship.
  
  
• Civic Ventures in San Francisco, which will receive $1 million over three years to support its efforts to mobilize older adults to use their talents to make significant social contributions. Civic Ventures presents a range of opportunities for individuals over 50 and helps them create their own initiatives.
  
  
• GlobalGiving Foundation in Washington, D.C., which will receive $1 million over two years to deepen its partnership with the Skoll Foundation by continuing to build demand among potential donors and to increase its value to social entrepreneurs around the world. GlobalGiving maintains a global online platform that connects donors directly with more than 300 active development projects, an estimated 65 percent of which are lead by social entrepreneurs.
  
  
• National Public Radio in Washington, D.C., which will receive $500,000 over one year to provide high-quality programming about international issues to create an informed, engaged public and to create positive branding around the work of social entrepreneurs.
  
  
• WGBH Educational Foundation in Boston, which will receive $450,000 over one year to produce seven short segments for Frontline/World featuring social entrepreneurs. Frontline/World is a magazine-style series that airs at least four times a year on PBS. It has a Web site with streaming video of all broadcasts plus original Web-only stories and an online engagement campaign to raise public awareness.
  
  
• Give2Asia in San Francisco, which will receive $300,000 over two years to develop an understanding of social entrepreneurs’ organizational challenges and needs, design strategies to meet those needs, and share information and knowledge about social entrepreneurs. Founded by the Asia Foundation in 2000, Give2Asia facilitates financial support to innovators at the forefront of social change in Asia.
  
  
• The Center for Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE) at Duke University in Durham, N.C., which will receive $200,000 over two years to map current services and support systems for social entrepreneurs and will plan its own growth to fill in the gaps. CASE is one of the top knowledge centers in the social entrepreneurship field.

About the Skoll Foundation

Headquartered in California’s Silicon Valley, the Skoll Foundation was created by eBay’s first president, Jeff Skoll, to fulfill his vision of a world where all people, regardless of geography, background or economic status, enjoy and employ the full range of their talents and abilities. Today the Skoll Foundation benefits 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 supports social entrepreneurs with the Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship, which are multiyear grants awarded to individuals whose work has the potential for large-scale influence on six key issues: environmental sustainability, health, tolerance and human rights, institutional responsibility, economic and social equity, and peace and security. The foundation connects and celebrates social entrepreneurs through the annual Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford University, through an online community at SocialEdge.org, and via media projects that feature social entrepreneurs, such as the PBS documentary series The New Heroes and a series of short independent films called Uncommon Heroes. For more information, visit www.skollfoundation.org.